Golf and the Spirit: Lessons for the Journey - Hardcover

Peck, M. Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517708833 ISBN 13: 9780517708835

Publisher: Harmony Books, 1999

Synopsis

The author of The Road Less Traveled reveals what the game of golf has taught him about life--important lessons in perception, humility, anger, and divinity. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

Having toured The Road Less Traveled in previous bestsellers, psychiatrist and self-help guru Peck finally sets out on the cartpath. His destination? A journey into the mysteries of the royal and ancient game. Given the tenor of his earlier work, it's surprising he took so long to take aim at this particularly pilgrim-filled target area.

Peck, a golfer since his army days in the '60s, fairly and fittingly uses the game as a metaphor for spiritual growth. Dividing his book into 18 holes with titles like "Civility", "Human Nature", "The Invisible", "Deftness" (and, for good measure, a 19th called "Closure"), he navigates his course prudently and self- referentially with a bag full of mysticism, religion and psychology, and acquits himself with a safe par performance. Nothing particularly dangerous or spectacular emerges from his thinking about the game. Instead, he puts a New Age spin on it-- "Golf is probably the most nonlinear pastime on the face of the earth"; "A day of golf may seem like a personal holiday ... but it is hardly a holy day"; "I do believe that golf can be a wonderful spiritual path of growth toward God, but only if one chooses to use it as such"--on the roads already well travelled by such masterful analysts of golf's raptures and ridicules as Harvey Penick, Michael Murphy, Jim Flick, Tommy Armour, Bobby Jones, and Bob Rotella. Peck, of course, is right about golf being a spiritual journey; it's an inner game of personal demons that demands its players to get as much of a grip on themselves as on their clubs. The bogey on his scorecard is that those who play golf already know this. -- Jeff Silverman

About the Author:

M. Scott Peck, M.D., is the author of several New York Times best-sellers, including The Road Less Traveled, which has spent more than ten years on the Times list and is arguably the most influential spiritual book of modern times. He and his wife, Lily, live in northern Connecticut and have been the recipients of several awards for peacemaking.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harmony Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0517708833
• ISBN 13: 9780517708835
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 326