Zen And The Art Of Playing Golf
Good golfers are always ‘in’ the game, particularly before each and every shot.
While to the viewers, this could appear easy, there is, however, so much occurring in the mind of a golfer.
This reminds me of a scene in The Legend of Baggera Vance, where Bobby Jones steps up to the ball, to tee off.
Will Smith tells Matt Damon to look at Jone’s eyes, and tells him to observe how he observe the field. He concentrates, takes his position, takes his practice swings, his body and mind in rhythm.
The result’s almost perfect as a drive should be. This standpoint could be far fetched and some may even object to it, but plenty will find an element of truth in the statement – Golfing is a Zen experience. This is true for all golfers who are good at it, irrespective of how much they joke around and be goofing off. Zen is precisely this – being present physically and psychologically in each moment at every point. As a few individuals call this living life to its fullest, but this feeling is dissimilar. Zen is experiencing energy in every moment of life. It’s a sense of living life to the fullest and appreciating each moment for what’s given. So are we able to then call Golfing, a Zen Experience? Zen synchronizes with Golfing in every aspect of the game. When the heart and soul is in the instant, a golfer takes notice of everything around themselves.
The player feels the breeze, recognizing its force and direction, but effortlessly. Then they see the feel of the grass as they walk down the golfing green, but they’re still not under stress to be pondering their shot. The player will then note the distance to the green, the climate conditions and select a suitable club. The player will target just one thing the next shot and nothing else, but again without the pressure of pondering it. The pressure to perform makes the player tense and this spoils the shot.
From an alternative perspective a Zen golfer would be tranquil and would trust their body. Once the body and mind are in synchronization, make the shot.
He knows that his shot might not be perfect always, as the golfer would have intended. For a Zen golfer, a bad or imperfect shot won’t affect him at all and he would stand by for the next shot. But this will adversely affect others, who stress over every shot. These destructive thoughts will affect their whole body language and they will feel defeated even before the result. Since the body and mind aren’t in tranquility, the whole game after the bad shot will get affected; this would be followed by another bad shot. Any good shot will be looked on as an accident, luck or a fluke.
