Bagger Vance spoke to me last night.  I’m just not sure what he said.

I’ve been looking for my “authentic swing” all my life.  I’ve felt broken inside without any memory of being fixed; with scars from a battle never fought; playing on a field littered with skills unmastered.

What does Bagger have to say to the likes of me?  Does God visit the camps of losers, cowards, and incompetents?

I have to believe in a god of second chances.  I have to believe that even if I lay down and slept for a thousand years he’d give me the chance to walk that quadrillion kilometers to heaven.

So maybe Bagger would say to me that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  And though I’ve slept for fifty years, God’s been waiting patiently for me to awake, to take up my bed and walk.

See the field…what is my field of action?  The things I care about: family, community, writing, and models.

A man’s grip on his club is like his grip on the world…what is my grip on the club?  My discipline, my practice is my grip on the world; where my spirit, mind, and body come to grips with life.

What’s my battle, my game waged against the titans of golf?  I take my place in the arena with the other gladiators; to dare to be measured against the likes Jones and Hagen, or be gutted on the floor of the coliseum to the delight of those who sit in the stands.