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 The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield is one of those stories in which the protagonist has fallen on difficult times and gets a second chance to overcome great odds. It also follows the pattern of what I like to think of as the "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Swami" books: The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, and Journey to Ixtlan (and others) by Carlos Castaneda come to mind.
In each of these novels, the central character has problems which hinder his growth and hold him emotionally and spiritually captive. Also, each has a mentor who appears at the right time, with superpowers and knowledge far beyond his seemingly humble place in the social world: Bagger Vance, the zen African American caddy in the Deep South during the Depression; Socrates, the zen gas station manager in Berkeley in Peaceful Warrior, and Don Juan, the zen Mexican Indian shaman in the Castaneda books. In each case, the mentor spends an inordinate amount of time as a personal coach, zen master and guru to the protagonist. In each case the protagonist is ignorant and self-centered, weighed down by his own self-magnified perception of his problems. In each case the reader at some point thinks "all right, already; so let him fall on his sword" (or perhaps in the case of Junah in Bagger Vance, his 5 iron). Somehow each person manages to learn in spite of himself and raises himself from the mire of his own self-doubt, thanks to his miraculous mentor.
In these plots, the mentor is present only for a limited time with the student (rather like Jesus was with his disciples). The mentor always uses the students' life problems, questions, complaints as a platform for parables and koans. Each gets the student to focus on the now and living in the moment and not in past ones. These messages are not immediately clear to those they mentor (but may be more obvious to the reader). Although the Castaneda series of books make a redux possible, Don Juan is not always at Carlos' beck and call. Bagger leaves Junah on the 18th hole of the most important golf tourney of his life, which was in fact a metaphor for his life. Socrates leaves Dan right before the Olympics. Dan, Carlos, and Junah all succeed. Carlos becomes wise. Dan and Junah grow emotionally and spiritually and both go one to win fierce athletic competitions against enormous odds...in Dan's case the motorcycle crash he experiences is symbolic of his anger and ego and their capacity to destroy him.
We often use the expression 'crashed' when a computer completely breaks down or when a person falls deeply into sleep. So 'crashing' is noteworthy; Dan, Carlos, and Junah had all 'crashed' in one way or another. Carlos in Journey to Ixtlan and other books, is a seeker whose very seeking is part of the problem...he gets in his own way, as his teacher Don Juan points out frequently (and sometimes impatiently). For Junah in Bagger Vance, postwar “shell shock” imprisons him in a spiritual body cast akin to the actual one worn by Dan after his accident in Peaceful Warrior. Dan is a gymnast. “Mental gymnastics” is a fairly common expression: Peaceful Warrior is about spiritual and emotional gymnastics as an avenue to success in the physical kind, a way to find balance in life and spirit. It is no coincidence that Socrates is a mechanic…he has repair work to do. For Junah in Bagger Vance, the road to emotional and spiritual freedom is the fairway.
Junah was a golden boy, an aristocratic true Son of the South, a former amateur golf champion, who came back from a shattering experience of WW 1 trench warfare with a serious case of post traumatic stress disorder which he self-medicated with alcohol and by avoidance of people and the life he knew before the war. He is called upon to be the local Savannah homeboy golfer in a competition set up by Adele, his pre-war love and owner of a fabulous golf resort which was built by her father (who committed suicide after the stock market crashed along with his hopes and financial empire). Alas, Junah has 'lost his swing,' that is to say, he’s gone 'round the bend. His war memories haunt him. He cannot get past them.
The Legend of Bagger Vance is (as are the Don Juan books and The Way of the Peaceful Warrior) about getting it together emotionally and spiritually. What better illustration for that than golf? Much is made in the story about the importance of the grip to the golfer. In more than one way, Junah needs to 'get a grip.'
Fortunately for him, he has Siddhartha for a caddy. Not as funny as Chevy Chase in Caddy Shack, but every bit as Ram Dass (I was just waiting for him to say “beeee the balllll“), Bagger Vance, a black man in pre-Rosa Parks Georgia, is leading the white ruined Flower of Southern Manhood ... an irony not lost upon students of history. Bagger uses golf language to say zen things: a golf swing isn't just a golf swing; it's "the pure expression of his being, his inner grace and nobility, his power, his concentration, and even his flaws and imperfections" and "it embodies every aspect of his being like a perfect poem or symphony." Getting the lie of a hole is more than that: it's about the Field. The golf course is the Field, but a force field: a metaphor for life. Bagger waxes on about it: “know that all there is flows from the union of the Field and the Knower.” “See how the player’s will searches the field and finds his Authentic Swing.”
Golf is holy, it “opened a pathway via the body to the spirit.” The perfect swing and the perfect shot existed in another dimension waiting to be played or embodied physically in our dimension in the game of golf, instructed Bagger. “Only when the Knower and the Field are one do they swing. The Knowing is everything. It is the Knowing alone that survives the death of the body. You are your knowing. The knowing finds the swing and the swing finds you.” So, we have immortality of our consciousness (Knowing) and we learn that the perfect swing is the perfect expression of being in the Tao.
I recently saw the movie based upon The Legend of Bagger Vance. It was directed by Robert Redford, who used golf in Bagger Vance as he used fishing in his earlier film, A River Runs Through It (as I am far from the only one to observe). In both, the sport is a path to satori, to nirvana, heaven on earth: a way to unity of physicality and spirit, integration, healing. In both River and Bagger Vance, dysfunctional characters find joy and peace fishing/golfing although their lives are otherwise extremely problematic and alienated. (Much more can be said of course about A River Runs Through It, but that’s another column).
In Bagger Vance the book (but not in the movie) is a map of the the links at Krewe Island, the golf resort which is the setting for the story. The holes are listed as 1) Vigilance 2) Saga city 3) Fortitude 4) Prowess 5) Rigor 6) Temerity 7) Cunning 8) Might 9) Faith 10) Vigor 11) Acumen 12) Ingenuity 13) Love 14) Discipline 15) Stamina 16) Audacity 17)Prudence 18) Valor ... all qualities which are necessary to win the contest whether it's golf, the gymnastics prize in the Olympics, or the path to wisdom sought by Carlos. The island is set in Skidaway Sound...meaningful in terms of the struggle of Junah.
The beauty of Bagger Vance is in the healing of Junah and his relationships, his re-integration and healing (both emotionally and socially). Golf is, in this tale, spirituality: it is the agent for change, healing, wholeness, insight, visions. Junah went from an extended stay at the 19th hole to victory at the 18th.
Late in the book, Bagger says to Junah "Forget all else, Junah, but remember this: you are never alone. You have your caddy. You have me. More devoted than a mother, more faithful than a lover, I stand by your side always. I will never abandon you. No sin, no lapse, no crime, however heinous can make me desert you, nor yield up to you any less than my ultimate fidelity and love. Who walks his path beside me feels my hand upon him always. No effort he makes is wasted, nor unseen, unguided by me. Therefore Junah, rest in me. Enter the Field like a warrior. Purged of ego, firm in discipline, seeking no reward save the stroke itself. Give the shot to me. I am your Self, the Ground of your being, your Authentic Swing." Not much afterwards, right before the 18th most critical hole, Bagger Vance departs mysteriously. Rereading the words above I hear echoes of Jesus speaking to his disciples....Bagger Vance's words "Before time was, I am. Before form was, I am." Is this the great I Am...or an angel of God's divine cosmos? Or the I Am who is Junah, or for that matter, you or I?
Are Bagger Vance, Socrates and Don Juan angels in disguise, divine manifestations or epiphanies, or are they are aspects of the mind and soul of the ones they mentor: Junah, Dan, and Carlos? Can we each call up our own inner Swami to guide ourselves to higher purpose, healing, integration and meaning in life? Can we truly “turn in, tune in and drop upward” (my apologies to Timothy Leary, R.I.P.). Is this all heresy or are these guides? Could a caddy, a gas station mechanic, and a dusty Yaqui shaman be manifestations of the very minds which needed, called them forth, and employed them for enlightenment and growth, or are they, in Elie Wiesel‘s words, “messengers of God?”
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