"An Adventure of the Spirit"

[TEPaul]

Some of the old guys who wrote so well about golf and architecture used this term.

Some may think that by it (if they've really thought much about it at all which I don't believe I ever have until recently) they simply meant the goal or experience of just having fun and enjoying oneself.

I've been thinking more about that term they used back then and I'm thinking they meant a bit more than just that by it-----maybe even a whole lot more.

What do you think?

[jkinney]

I suspect that "an adventure of the spirit" is multi-dimensional. The most obvious of the dimensions to me are 1) the control by the mind over the movement of the body (the mental side of golf) and 2) the opening up of sensory perception to the physical surroundings.

Item #1 above I suspect is obvious, but item #2 is deeper, more fleeting and less susceptible to articulation and interpretation. The greatness of The Old Course, for instance, came only slowly to Bobby Jones. And what sensory perceptions caused Crenshaw to say that NGLA had the greatest golfing ground ? One's spirit is engaged by "stopping and smelling the roses" as much as it is by freeing the right side of one's brain to allow the flowing movement of a proper golf swing.

[TEPaul]

jkinney:

How about a #3 that might be something like the adventure of actually welcoming the dealing with more than just a very slight modicum of misfortune and figuring out a better way (both within and without) of dealing with it and even feeling that the ultimate goal is that it has somehow been overcome when the day is done?

Perhaps, even though it seems to be completely counterintuitive to most of us, what if the very idea of apparently inevitable misfortunes was looked upon as a positive somehow? If that were true, maybe we could begin to see it as the other side of the equation from our rewards and we would not be so concerned about equitableness in golf and architecture as it seems so many of us have become. 

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom -

maybe it's because you mentioned that it was the old guys who used the phrase, but the first things that occured to me when I read "An Adventure of the Spirit" are things like sailing/yachting, and taking flights in crazy Wright-Brother-era airplanes, and exotic big-game hunting expeditions in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Alps...in short, the exact opposite kind of experiences as those I associate with golf.  I think those old guys might've wanted the challenge of testing themselves and their skills and their nerves via golf more than we do today. They wanted to experience the whole range of emotions (in the realm of the spirit)...

Peter     

[TEPaul]

Peter:

Don't forget, an inordinate number of those guys from back then that wrote on golf and architecture and frequently used that term really did do other things (and did them very well) that you mentioned such as flying in crazy air contraptions, ocean racing etc etc. Are you familiar in that vein with the life and times of the likes of Herbert Leeds and George Thomas, Behr, probably Hunter or even Flynn?

Compared to most of all of us today to say those guys were sort of all-around adventurers is kinda putting it mildly!

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - I only know about Leeds, who I think was a top-flight yachtsman.

Yeah, my adventure of the spirt these days is stumbling to the kitchen to make my first cup of coffee! The only hazard is my little boy's toy fire engine...

Peter

[Bart Bradley]

Tom -

maybe it's because you mentioned that it was the old guys who used the phrase, but the first things that occured to me when I read "An Adventure of the Spirit" are things like sailing/yachting, and taking flights in crazy Wright-Brother-era airplanes, and exotic big-game hunting expeditions in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Alps...in short, the exact opposite kind of experiences as those I associate with golf.  I think those old guys might've wanted the challenge of testing themselves and their skills and their nerves via golf more than we do today. They wanted to experience the whole range of emotions (in the realm of the spirit)...

Peter     

Peter, this seems entirely true.

I looked up the google definition of adventure:

"an activity that comprises risky, dangerous, and uncertain experiences"


Now, I must say that golfing with me with could certainly be risky, dangerous and uncertain...but I doubt that is what they had in mind.

While on the surface, golf is certainly an uncertain experience ..one never knows what will happen...it doesn't probably qualify as too dangerous to your physical being (in the mold of the other more daring activities that you describe).

But in a broader fashion, as you set out on a round of golf you certainly are "adventuring forth" and expect to encounter certain types of risk and danger within the game itself (hazards, poor lies, 3 putts  ).  I would also say that the "adventure" feeling is much more pronounced when walking than when riding in a cart and certainly the "old guys" you refer to would be experiencing golf in that way.

Tom, Peter...what do you feel when you see a course for the first time that you have long been anticipating...isn't it that sort of edgy tension that you might get as you set out to white water raft or hike or hang glide?

Just my thoughts,

Bart

[TEPaul]

"Tom - I only know about Leeds, who I think was a top-flight yachtsman."

He was. I think he was also a national caliber tennis or court tennis player, well known college baseball and football player. Joshua Crane was probably more well rounded in athletics. I believe he won the nationals in tennis or doubles tennis and I believe he was incredibly fascinated with yachts and ships perhaps designing a number of them. Behr was a really good competitve tennis player and I believe his brother was national caliber in tennis. George Thomas was remarkable with his flying exploits in WW1 (the reason he was known always at the Captain---he actually both trained and funded his entire squadron). He should not have lived through WW1 with the three mind-bending crashes he had. Thomas was a world class rosarian (rose breeder) and he wrote an apparently pretty significant book on Pacific deep sea fishing.

And C.B. Macdonald won the first US Amateur, he was a great golf architect, Rules mind and he was apparently the most accomplished the Universe has ever known at collecting and entertaining show girls on the sly and some say even simultaneously. Apparently he even had a special house built on his property since then affectionately known as the "Hen House". C.B might have even punched out or tried to more people at more and different clubs than golf has ever known.

Those guys were some kind of diverse and very good at their particular diversities. 

[Yannick Pilon]

Great subject guys,

This summer I participated in a selection process to find a golf course architect for a project here in Canada.  For the last eleven years I have been working as a design associate for a firm, and on that occasion, for the first time, I had to formulate my own personal design philosophy, independently of my firm....

It took me a long time to clearly express my thoughts, and it's not until I saw a documentary on the creation of a show for the Cirque du Soleil that I finally grasped what I was looking for.  In the documentary, the show's creator was talking to the artists by putting the enphasis on the emotions they had to express during the show.  All he kept saying was "Emotions. Emotions. Emotions!!"  And that's when I got it.

The most important thing I am trying to acheive as I design a golf course is to create emotions in golfers.  Enjoyment, anticipation, surprise, confusion, doubt, even fear.  These are only a handful of emotions a golfer can experiment through a round of golf.  I personnaly beleive that it is the repetition of the good emotions, and the overcoming of the bad ones that make this sport so great for golfers of all ages and all playing levels.  I think the more an architect can create emotions in golfers, the most chance he has of creating a golf course of lasting appeal, a course that will stay in the golfer's mind long after they are done playing.

I think the quote "An Adventure of the Spirit" is the perfect way to summerize my thoughts on the subject. 

Thanks Tom!

YP

[J_ Crisham]

Guys,  One modern day adventurer/free spirit is probably Ted Turner. He has no golf connection that I am aware of but was a world class sailor and his sense of adventure out West is intriguing.His business accomplishments speak for themselves.  Sadly, the Hemingways of these times are nonexistent.           Jack

[jkinney]

jkinney:

How about a #3 that might be something like the adventure of actually welcoming the dealing with more than just a very slight modicum of misfortune and figuring out a better way (both within and without) of dealing with it and even feeling that the ultimate goal is that it has somehow been overcome when the day is done?

Perhaps, even though it seems to be completely counterintuitive to most of us, what if the very idea of apparently inevitable misfortunes was looked upon as a positive somehow? If that were true, maybe we could begin to see it as the other side of the equation from our rewards and we would not be so concerned about equitableness in golf and architecture as it seems so many of us have become. 

TEPaul - That's a #3 for sure. Since when was true linksland golf ever fair, for instance ? The auld Scots thought of it as a bracing walk that would extend life. The ball bounced every which way, and they were chasing after it. Fairness only applied to The Rules.

[John Kirk]

jkinney,

My father and I used to refer to golf as a "career extender", so I appreciate the quote very much.

Another great thread.  The front page has at least three excellent ones going.  It's great; very creative stuff all of a sudden.

[jkinney]

Aye, John Kirk.....and haven't ye played yer purest golf when all ye wanted was a brisk walk through the linksland ? I once shot a 93 from the back tees at Meadowbrook on Long Island in 58 minutes jogging along holding 5 clubs in a canvas Sunday bag. Never once thought about my swing; just jogged up and whacked the ball forward.........That was " an adventure of the spirit " because I was able to lapse into that "Alpha"
state of mind so often cited in long distance running. It was a beautiful late October afternoon with the leaves in all their color, and that'd what I remember absorbing.

[Norbert P]

C.B. Macdonald . . . was apparently the most accomplished the Universe has ever known at collecting and entertaining show girls on the sly and some say even simultaneously. Apparently he even had a special house built on his property since then affectionately known as the "Hen House".

 Attention, George Bahto! Can we get one of these built at Old Mac?


Nice thread fellers.  Makes me ponder . . .  positively.

[Tom Naccarato]

Tom,
Adventure of the Spirit was exactly my original point about NGLA being "alive," like a living, breathing entity.

Its a great term. One that all beginners should be fortunate to learn what is driving them to take to the Sport. "The "Bug" so-to-speak...

[John Kirk]

That's nice.

One of my best friends up here in Oregon, Kelly Garland, and I try to celebrate the summer solstice each June with a very late round.  I'm getting a little old and creaky, so it's hard for me to hoof it around in much under three hours.  But if we tee off at 7:00 PM, we can play the whole thing, finishing in deep twilight.

[Peter Pallotta]

I guess I'm feeling more than a little sentimental and corn-ballish today, because re-reading this thread and the new posts, I suddenly thought of the poem that captures this "spirit" of the game, or at least the attitudes that go with it.  You all know it, here are some snippets:

If you can dream, and not make dreams your master,
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it...

Peter

[Tom Huckaby]

I have tried to explain many times the "spritual" side of golf.  I am typically ridiculed for it.

Those who have played a "church nine" at Sand Hills - or its equivalent at any other course/club of great personal meaning - know what this means.  Otherwise it's very difficult to define.

But sprituality in golf very much ties quite obviously - at least for me - to the term "adventure of the spirit."  Of course it would, given use of the same word....

In any case that's what it means to me - golf allows one to tie into a higher being.  Certainly other sports do as well.  But golf does it as well as any sport I have played.

TH

[Adam Clayman]

Im certain the adventure of spirit is much more encompassing than this thread, or any thread, could ever fully illuminate.

What I find sad, is how many people are so unaware of their own senses, the majority of people who golf casually, don't appear to be able to find the spirit for which to have an adventure.

[Kirk Gill]

Sometimes it feels like life conspires to deflate our spirit. The "nattering nabobs of negativity," the daily grind, the little defeats that somehow manage to overshadow the little victories in our hearts and minds...... And yet the opportunities for adventure are there to be had, and golf is, for me, certainly one of them. For some folks, their spirit can't seem to find adventure unless their body comes along for the ride, and some kind of compelling dangerous endorphin-elevating excitement akin to a near-death experience is necessary to give their spirit the adventure it needs. But golf can become that kind of adventure for your spirit if you buy in with your heart and soul. Not just in the sense of competition (which can certainly be part of it) but with some kind of internal commitment that allows the simple hitting of a ball with a stick to become a thrill-ride of its own........

[Tim Leahy]

Wonder what the monks would say about the "Spirit"?
See the interesting story attached about Malibu CC:

http://www.malibucountryclub.net/fun-starts-now/

[Adam Clayman]

Tim, Funny you should mention Malibu CC. It's where I played with Steven Pressfield, the author of "The Legend of Bagger Vance". What's even more coincidental, I was watching that film last night for a brief period. While many consider it a bad movie, I still think it's a good film. The artistic attempts at impressionistic shots was bold and worked to capture the era the film was set in.

[Kirk Gill]

Tim, thanks for that link. Not sure what specific variety of monks those are (or were), but I think I need to join up. Golf is an integral part of my religion, too.

[Tom Huckaby]

Ahhh... PL Malibu CC.....

Yes, that's what it used be called... PL was an acronym for Perfect Liberty....  and the monks were indeed there, ever-present, admonishing those who did not replace their divots to do so.   It's a very hilly course - our HS golf coach used to make us play it and walk it, for conditioning.  Lots of sprituality was felt there, via many means and in many ways.  Good times, good times.

BTW Kirk your post a few back sums this up absolutely perfectly.  You ought to have been one of those monks.

TH

[Tom Naccarato]

PLGC, Oh, the non-club affiliated celebrities that hang out there....make that hide out there...