Free The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield

of the game. This is how boys and girls learn, intuitively, through their pores, by total devotion and immersion. Without technically “studying” the swing, they imbibe it by osmosis, from watching accomplished players and from sensing it within their own bones.
    “All three of these paths embody one unifying principle,” Vance said. We were now approaching the eighteenth green.“That of surrender. Surrender of the Little Mind to the Big Mind, surrender of the personal ego to the greater wisdom of the Self.
    “The path of beating balls defeats the player, as it must, until he surrenders at last and allows his swing to swing itself. The path of study and dissection leads only to paralysis, until the player likewise surrenders and allows his overloaded brain to set down its burden, till in empty purity it remembers how to swing.
    “In other words, the first and second ways both lead to the third. Love is the greatest of these ways. For in the end, grace comes from God, from the Authentic Self. But to plumb this mystery would take us far more than a night and, I’m sorry to see, we have reached the final green. You must be very tired, Mr. Keeler.”
    On the contrary Keeler was energized, electric. “I won’t sleep a wink after this,” he said, “but I suppose I must try.” He extended his hand. “Mr. Vance, it has been my good fortune to encounter, and I may say to interrogate, many of the most profound thinkers on the game alive today. You, sir, tower above them all. We must meet again and continue. It would be my fondest wish to have you discuss these thoughts with Bob.”
    “I have,” Vance declared cryptically. When Keeler reacted with surprise and inquired eagerly to know when, Bagger Vance evaded the question in his usual pleasant but firm manner, remarking only “Before you met him.”
    They took their leave at the eighteenth, Keeler striding off vivid with energy, squinting to read his notes by the late moon. Across the dunes, the orchestra had finally retired; at last theshoreline slumbered. I looked up at Vance, who had resumed his distant expression, gazing out again over the silent linksland. For many moments he remained in this pose, motionless and rapt. Some thought or resolution seemed to crystallize inside him; I could see him return to the present and become again aware of me, still in attendance beside him.
    “Mr. Keeler’s instincts are truer than he thinks,” Bagger Vance spoke quietly, once again placing that warm powerful hand on my shoulder. “A battle was fought here, once, long ago.” I followed his hand as it swept across the rolling dunes, indicating a plain along the shore and including, it seemed, a vast expanse out over the water.
    “In the days when the austral constellations hung visible in this Northern sky, before the Great Ice retreated to the pole, this ocean we call Atlantic withdrew as far as the Afric shore and gave birth to a brilliant continent, a land called Mu. Its peoples were mighty warriors, artists and magicians whose knowledge of the subtle powers far surpasses anything our so-called moderns possess today.”
    His hand indicated the land from the seventeenth, back down to the twelfth, then stretched out over the water, which apparently had been dry land then. “There, where you see, great armies once clashed in battle lines that stretched as far as the horizon. Blows thundered heavenward, steel upon steel, and horses and men cried out in victory and death.” He paused. “That was nearly one yuga… twenty-one thousand years ago.”
    It sounded, of course, completely fantastic. And yet I believed him. “How do you know all this?” I asked.
    “I was there,” Bagger Vance answered casually, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
    He looked down at me, to see if I believed him. I felt the power of his eyes, their warmth and even love for me. I was held as if by the sun.
    “Junah was with me as well,” he smiled, still touching my shoulder.