Golf in its most fully realized form is a spiritual endeavor. Like the evolutionary layers of the human brain or the stages of growth in a human life, there are different levels at which golf can be experienced, from the physical to the spiritual, and many levels in between.

In this series, The Spiritual Side, golf will be discussed and analyzed from a spiritual perspective. The term “spiritual” is used here in its broadest sense, encompassing everything from meditation to the world’s major religions to simple conscious gratitude, and as distinguished from terms like mental, emotional, scientific, etc.

In “Golf My Way,” Jack Nicklaus wrote that a golf shot is based only ten percent upon the swing. The other ninety percent that determines the outcome of the shot is how you see the shot (fifty percent) and how you set up (forty percent). In today’s modern golf-scape, it is easy to feel that golf is ninety percent what clubs you have in your bag and ten percent the mechanics of your swing. While I have been known to admire certain golf clubs and fixate on my wrist angle at the top of my backswing, to experience golf only from a material or performance perspective can leave one feeling empty. What is golf really about? Why do we play? At the end of our lives, what aspects of golf will we look back upon and cherish? What aspects will we regret?

One of my favorite things about golf is that almost everything about it is a perfect metaphor for life. A popular saying goes “You’ll know everything you need to know about a person after playing eighteen holes with them.” As I look back on my golfing life, its stages almost perfectly mirror the stages of my life as a whole. As a child, I was captured by the wonder of the game, the adventure of it. I can still smell the grass and feel the excitement in my veins on the morning I first set a pure white ball on a colorful tee on an actual golf course. As a teenager, I became obsessed with my score, my very being and self-worth desperately tied to every shot. In my twenties, golf took on a less important role, as I explored the world and figured out who I was and wanted to become. In my thirties, golf has been about the journey, the joy of being outdoors, being with my playing partners, relishing in the good shots and rounds, shaking my head in confusion and laughter at the terrible shots. For each of these stages of golf, the same could be said about the corresponding stage of my life, substituting years for rounds, my perspective on successes and failures in life a mirror of my reaction to flushed drives and shanks.

As my relationship to golf changes and evolves, I can’t help but notice the progression away from the elemental, the ego, and the emotional, toward awareness, gratitude, and the spiritual. This series will be about that evolution, and how spiritual experience represents the final and highest stage of golf actualization. It will be an exploration for me, as well as hopefully the reader and the contributor. I do not claim to know everything about golf and spirituality, and I am no guru. But I do believe that a spiritual experience is the highest expression of our beloved game. And if you feel as I do that this aspect of golf (and, as always, the word “life” may be substituted for “golf”) has been under-represented in the mediasphere; hopefully you will find this series worthwhile and edifying.

I look forward to reading your comments, having a conversation, and seeing where this series may take us. This area of inquiry is rich and fertile, and while I have several ideas for future topics, I’m sure the contribution from this community will take the series in unforeseen yet fascinating directions.