Pilgrim golfers

 ‘Pilgrim’ and ‘Golf’ - for some, a strange configuration of words; for others, the association makes perfect sense. For a certain type of golfer the word ‘pilgrim’ will feel like home. Perhaps this is the first time you have come across it in the context of golf but when you read it you felt like a long-searching sufferer with an accurate diagnosis for the first time. Yes, that’s it - you may think - at last somebody understands me; I understand myself. A pilgrim.

But am I? How do I really know? What is a pilgrim?

Pilgrims are searchers. They sense there is something beyond the numbers and the competition, the technology, the constant desire to better others and the feelings of dissatisfaction with self that the game visits upon us so frequently. They are left cold by the paraphernalia of modern golf and the unholy trinity of success, recognition and dollars. They feel there is something more to be found in the game - some meaning, some fulfilment - within the sacred alliances of landscape and weather, air and exercise, endeavour and acceptance.

Pilgrims believe.

Pilgrims do not want to rinse every last drop out of the game, make playing it a task on the 'to do' list or allow it to become an unquenchable appetite for more, for better. They try to resist the brands' promises of longer and more forgiving. They avoid becoming preoccupied with handicap comparisons or becoming obsessed with getting onto the club honours board. They work hard to maintain a perspective that sees the game in smaller fragments - that values the shot more than the score, prioritises the hole over the round and savours the sound of the ball dropping into the cup regardless of how many shots it has taken to get there.

Could that be you?

Pilgrims will often feel that they are different to many of those they play the game with; perhaps at times they will feel alone - but invariably will be comfortable with that. From time to time pilgrim golfers will encounter others with the same philosophy, with the same thirst to experience golf in a different way and will delight in the satisfaction of communing with kindred spirits, but within them there will forever be a deep sense of their golf life being a personal quest. Anything that touches the soul always is personal, unique to the individual. There is a solitariness to being a pilgrim. But know this: there are others on the journey too.

So go well, and may you find serenity in your quest for the true soul of this spiritual game.