Customer Reviews

Golf and the Spirit: Lessons for the Journey

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is another outstanding Scott Peck book! If you like the type of subjects Peck has dealt with in past books, you'll love this book. He has a wonderful way of integrating the secular aspects of golf with the spiritual and emotional aspects of life. It was inspirational in the sense that it caused me to look upward for help. It was painful in the sense that it caused me to look more closely at my life. I love how Peck integrates his own personal biography so well into his books. I can identify with his struggles and his hope.

If you like Peck and like to play golf, this book is a tap in birdie. More about life and golf as spiritual journeys than about technical golf, Peck connects golf (life condensed) and our spiritual side. Very readable and humorous at times with basic practical tips for golf and life woven in throughout the round. It may inspire you to approach your next round differently and possible apply some of the ideas to your non-golf life. Great book for spiritually alive golfers.

Lighten up critics. This is not a book about golf. Just a book about using the GAME of golf as part of your life journey. You may not learn how to play golf, but let Peck teach you something else.

I'm a long time fan of Dr. Peck's books and also a golfer. I was so pleased to see he had written this book and enjoyed it very much. Hate to see all the negative reviews, it's just an fun and inspiring book.

I am a new golfer but my husband has golfed for years. I enjoyed the life stories that the author shares and was able to relate many of his experiences to my own. My husband thought that some of the golf stories were hilarious. We both found ourselves chuckling and recounting the stories while out on the golf course. The book does contain some history of the golf game, terminology and basic good golf practices. But, as the cover indicates, this is not an improve your golf swing kind of book. Nor is it a theology book. The author simply shares his wisdom by exploring the parallels between life and the game of golf.

I agree with the reviewer from San Diego. If you're looking for a treatise on how to play golf, you'll probably be disappointed, but you have little right to be since Peck makes no representation that his book is that. Likewise, if you're looking for profound psychological analyses on the basis of Peck's background and/or other works, you will similarly be disappointed. But, again, he makes no such representation.

It is simply an analogy between situations in life and in golf, and the ways we may respond to them. And though I did not expect it, I think Peck does offer some good golf lessons, especially for the beginner, since most of what plagues their play is the way they psycholgically and emotionally respond to the game, rather than their techniques of backswing, grip, etc.

*****

I really enjoyed this book, although I am not a golfer. I read it because I enjoy the M. Scott Peck's other work. I found that it excited me about golf at whatever level I end up being involved with it in the future---as a spectator, as a friend of a golfer, or even as a player someday.

As a golfer's adult daughter, I confess that in the past I have thought that golf was just a "silly rich man's game" done for the amusement of those who have nothing better to do. This book blew apart my misconception that was, frankly, based on a total ignorance of the game. This book explains the connection between golf and life, the mysticism involved in the game, and how golf can be a great game just in itself, and too, as so much more.

M. Scott Peck uses his design of a fantasy golf course called Exotica as a literary device to muse about what he has learned from many years of playing. He starts with the first hole, describes it, and writes related things about golfing and life and relationships and mysticism. As he goes, he explains the game so that people like me who have no idea about golf terminology can follow and appreciate what he is saying. He brings in a religious focus too at times, but an intensely personal one (he is a Christian and calls God "Her"), so that each reader can evaluate his religious ponderings in light of their own religious beliefs and see what would hold true for them.

This is not a book about golf tips or instruction, although there is some of this that is really interesting; it is a unique view of golf through the eyes of a long-time golfer that I admire. He is not an especially good golfer (although dedicated) and he is older (60's), too; I loved this perspective as it is where I will be if I do indeed learn to golf! I have learned much from the author in this book, and am eager to become more involved in the world of golf (which surprises me greatly)!

One thing I have already done is bought the book used on audio tape from Amazon to listen to, and am looking to hearing it all again---it's that type of book---I expect to get even more out of it the second time around.

If you are considering taking up golf, or wonder why people play it and think of yourself as just not that type...perhaps you are even a "golf widow" or golfer's adult child...then this is a great book, especially if you are spiritually or intellectually oriented, or if you like Peck's other work.

*****

I listened (more than once) to the very well read audio tapes while traveling. You must pay attention the detail is superb.

As a golfer for 46 years and earning three letters at Indiana University, I can attest that golf can teach a great deal about life, pursuing happiness, developing patience and spiritual growth if you go beyond your score. Especially as you take the competition out of golf can you realize what this game has to offer and how you can grow as a person from it.

Peck designs a wonderful exotic golf course with all the hazards and obstacles similar to which you find in life. He provides great analogies, excellent knowledge of the game which can help someone unfamiliar with the sport, and makes it all very interesting. The tapes are excellent because you can go back again and again, each time gaining new insights to golf and yourself.

A great companion reader to Golf and the Spirit tapes is Pecks book, "The Road Less Traveled." Happy reading and Spiritual growth.

A fascinating idea (not the only time someone's tried it, though) which ends up being somewhat pretentious and forced. In terms of the running metaphor which Peck uses throughout, he's played a nice shot, struck the ball quite cleanly, but either his feet or his hands weren't in exactly the right position, and the ball ends up in quite a tricky bit of rough, from where he'll have difficulty with the iron to the green. Cashing this out, he does explain a lot for the non-golfer (some of it a bit ponderous for the golfer, who is the much more likely reader), but the lessons he draws from the game to the rest of life often feel somewhat forced. Granted that golf is indeed one of the best games for bringing out, or for inculcating, human character, I think Peck's material here was worth perhaps a 90-page paperback, not this rather long treatment. The best thing about the book was the invisible subtitle which I guessed at: The Fairway Less Traveled.

i find it to be very thought provoking. it makes me think about how things in my life are reflecting in the game of golf and golf and life. it even provides some rules of golf that i was not aware of. it is soothing to the spirit. i like it a lot.