Pilgrimage Begins!

It was fun to get a few reactions to 'Why do we play golf!':

“I wonder if anyone in India has a golf magazine published. Will make an excellent article. I was not too sure if the author was Nidhi. It must be! Keep up the golf yoga and your ruminations about this wonderful sport. I hope Tara is ready to join you in a couple of years to do Dampati puja at various golf courses (I mean temples.). Fondly, Rama”

“Thanks for sharing an interesting thought. Rangaraj”

“Nidhi: Very interesting point of view. This is good material for your book: 'Practical lessons in Bhakti thru Golf' or ' Golf your way to Moksha' and other relevant essays. Ram”

“Read through your train of thoughts on the choice of golf as the obsession for the mature years. The major aim for the twilight years is to keep the 'little neurones' (a la Hercule Poirot) active. There are a number of ways this can be achieved, each one to his own poison! So long as one likes the chosen activity there would be peace. Raghu”

Younger generation was represented by Nanda 'who enjoyed it' and Priya 'who loved it' and as I was going to press there was one from Aditi!

"Hi! Nidhi uncle, I just had to tell you that was such a well written piece! I was discussing with aparna what a good time we had reading it! I really think you should consider writing more, maybe a whole book even! It was so nice to read it-perfect mix of humor and philosophy, and written from a point of view that I think lots of people can relate to. I'm looking forward to meeting you all here in Bangalore soon. Take care, and keep writing!-aditi rao-"

It was encouraging to get such positive responses from friends and relatives who are golfers or potential ones!

I view golf as a pilgrimage and hope those who choose to go with me will have some fun! It definitely is not a ‘one more path to salvation’! I am more comfortable trying some dry and deadpan humour. I write mostly to keep busy and started as my way of communicating with children! Now that Rohini has made it into a ‘blog’, I suppose I can dream of a wider audience!


The first lesson:
Initial reaction by newcomers to golf is similar to all those pulp romances where the hero (could be the heroine!) starts with disdain and later falls in love irrevocably! We do hear typical comments: Golf is like playing marbles, gilli danda or to quote Mark Twain ‘an expensive walk’. I am sure we can unearth many more negative descriptions of golf if we tried. With such a frame of mind, the first lesson usually turns out to be a disaster!

When Neil, my golfing grandson visited Bangkok, I arranged a few lessons for him with a golf coach! He did not look too happy and being a 5 year old boy, he was frank and blunt. He told me in front of the coach ‘Tata, I don’t have to learn from HIM, I know golf!’ He just wanted to hit balls and at a breakneck speed! While you cannot be so blunt, a similar thought would be lurking in your mind about taking lessons. You have seen golf on TV and have concluded it is quite an easy game! The situation is similar to Cricket where every armchair expert is better than the chosen eleven!

The driving range in Bangalore is part of the palace grounds,which is actually a maidan (poorly maintained grounds!). You are in a portion where there is no grass. Anyway, after dreaming the whole night about your smooth style and the soaring balls, you are impatient to get going! Your Guru begins with a warm up exercise lesson. Fair enough! He marks the sand with lines similar to the way a pujari marks a Mandala. You are then twisted in various unnatural angles! You are being taught how to hold the clubs, getting the right grip, posture and so on. You soon learn that you have to go through this practice ritual for the first two days before the coach even lets you hit the ball! As you pay by the hour, you feel it is just a waste of time and suspect that he is slowing you down on purpose. Not the best way to start learning!

In much less than the alloted hour you are aching all over and are also fuming! You want to tell him, come on man; 'I have been playing sports since donkey’s years and play a reasonable game of tennis!' I suppose the coach is used to oldies like me, he did tell me not to get angry and try to relax. Finally, he relents and lets you hit a few balls and you come home totally disillusioned as you have hacked the ball around or totally missed connecting. You and your ego are both bruised! You would have probably given up if you had not advertised the news about your golf lessons and could find an honorable way out!

Actually the guru you choose is very important! If you begin in Bangalore like I did, you can get lessons from senior caddies who play golf. They are not expensive to start with. My first one was good in teaching fundamentals, but he was always in need of money! Soon it becomes a game and you are occupied more with resisting paying the extras he perpetually tries to collect. It starts with paying his helper boy who joins him the next day, buying old golf balls, second hand clubs and gloves. He will also want sponsorships to play in tournaments!

I am certain that others would have a more benign experience! As you get more into golf you discover that you need a lot of excuses in your repertoire as to why you are not able to achieve lower scores. My traumatic initiation to golf seems to be a good one to use! Deepak Chopra in his book advises us to love the ball we hit. Finding a guru whom you can Respect is equally valid!

Why do we play Golf?

I suppose this is a sequel to my: How I play Golf!

The obvious question ‘Why do we play Golf?’ is easily answered if we look at the broader picture. The professionals make a living and some do fabulously well. It generates billions of dollars in business all across the world. It is a game that can be played by people of all ages, sizes, shape and orientation!

Some serious golfers make a claim that golf is like life itself, sometimes even larger than life. While the first claim is probably true, I thought a web search (presently as important as a Vedic sanction of the old!) would be more informative! Results of the search gave about 553,000,000 sites for golf in 0.35 seconds, about 1,350,000,000 for love in 0.16 seconds and about 2,660,000,000 for life in 0.18 seconds. While Golf taking the third place would be disappointing for many of us, the young at heart would be relieved that love still prevails over golf!

I have been asking myself “Why do I play Golf?” especially after a rough day on the course! I suppose it starts as a way of killing time for a retiree like me! For us South Indian Brahmins the earlier ploy after retirement was to latch on to religion, get busy with an elaborate morning pooja! No one dared to tell them to go out and buy vegetables, collect people from rail stations! I fail to understand why spending time on golf, especially watching it on TV, is unfairly viewed with derision and as a waste of time while 3 hours in the pooja room is venerated! It is strange that while muttering the same mantra for hours every day is ennobling, the same time spent on golf is not! I am not the one to be easily discouraged and view Golf as a pilgrimage, a Badriyatra! In the past it was a journey with a possibility of being the final one. Golfers who are hooked will understand this.


(Those lucky ones, who do not retire and take up consultancy, join politics, own business and so on, can stop reading now!)


Living in Bangkok limited my options of keeping busy. You try to read books on religion, philosophy and after a while get totally confused. If you are scientifically inclined you can marvel at the Hubble pictures and get confused even more. It was impossible for me to grasp the enormity and complexity of the visible universe, let alone the spiritual world and gave up. I did try to get involved in the world’s problem by watching BBC and CNN, but how much can one see the perennial stories of conflict. Considered various activities TM, AOL, Aura, Reiki, Sahaj Yoga and did try a few of them, with various degrees of involvement!
Then it was almost like an ashariravani guided me to walk to the palace grounds in Bangalore and the driving range! In no time I was talking to a coach and fixing up lessons! It looked pretty easy for a guy who played sports!

I now realize that playing golf is the closest to what most of our elders did after retirement! Golfers also get up early in the morning, do surya namaskara, take a bath (shower!) before going to the course (temple)! As we near the course one can see many carts displaying golf balls reminiscent of the shops near a temple! We do buy used (‘experienced’ for the Americans!) balls and offer it to the golf gods. Depending on the course we give up half of them and bring back the rest as Prasad. Tiger Woods thinks it is Nirvana when he hits a pure golfing shot, we think it is swarga( Heaven!) especially in Bangalore when we stop after nine holes for a breakfast of Masala dosa and Coffee!

Golfers have their own rituals as deep in meaning as any pooja, they also have strict dress codes. They also practice a specially designed caste system (Handicaps!). It is possible that you may discover, if you dig deep enough, some mention of golf in the Vedas! May be not, our rishis would not have devised a game with so many clubs for putting one ball into the hole. I am sure they would have one Astra (Club) and many mantras for Driving, laying up, pitching, chipping and putting! Imagine getting a boon from one of the gods to have hole-in-one in all the 18 holes.

How I play golf

(This piece is inspired by Neil who made a birdie on a par three! He said he drove the ball near the green and chipped in. The ball kept going and going and finally went in, all of 25 yards!)

When Vijay made this observation last year while golfing with him, I found it highly significant. He said “I have been watching your swing, not that it is wrong, but you seem to have seven different swings!" We have heard of sapta rishis, sapta padi- the seven important steps we take during our marriage! Management gurus talk of seven qualities of effective executives. Deepak Chopra has also written a book on golf- Golf for Enlightenment, the seven lessons in the game of life. So I had seven different swings! The new seven wonders of the golfing world. (Honestly he was being considerate! I am afraid that each of my swing is as unique as a finger print, I believe I will have a million different swings eventually!)

I think one more observation from Mukund as equally important. He said that I made one reasonably good shot in three! This again is an observation as deep in value as Vijay’s. While seven seemed connote spirituality, three reflects a realistic approach to life. Who has not heard stories of parents with three offspring out of which only the youngest (usually written off) will come to the rescue of the family! So here I am blessed with seven swings and one in three good shots! I was quite content with the situation.

But it was not to be. It is not enough that we hit a ball and take a walk and again hit the ball and take a walk and continue this routine till we put it into a hole. We need to keep a score and after you come home after having gone missing the whole morning, you are asked ‘how was your golf’? Your reply ‘as usual’ is received with a query ‘so you had a high score AGAIN’! (I assume the voice goes higher unintentionally but it does grate!). This is one game I know where a high score is just not a good thing, it is a disaster!

Most people say that golf is like life itself and some others say it is even tougher! I agree with the others! In real life if you are smart you can always find someone else to do the dirty job for you! Look at all the old kings and the new politicians sending people to war on their behalf. You have no such recourse in golf, you have to make the swing yourself and take the consequence. There are no scapegoats available for us and we face the various hazards which are designed to make the game more challenging and enjoyable(!).

The hazards are many, like water, sand and forest of tress wherein you are likely to loose golf balls and have a high score in addition. You also have the first tee jitters while people (may be just the caddy) are watching. There are also some unique ones. Augie says he does not hit well when people are not watching! In my case I do not have a water phobia, but water loves me and my golf ball! I have hit balls into water that I never knew existed. I have gone sideways and even backwards finding water! Some love hazards, my grand son loves sand as enjoys hitting the ball out of it with as much sand as possible, threatening me that ‘sand will go to your eyes’! That may be because he is just five years old! One of the biggest hazards are the Bangalore caddies, who take over your game and start advising, criticizing and even scolding you! I find it as one of the biggest hazards to overcome. However, I have not heard anyone complaining about the Bangkok caddies, even though some of them are as pretty as any apsara and could be distracting!

It is true that once we start playing we get addicted! We continue because, people like Sethu (Who gets major credit along with Neil for my taking up golf) who encourage you to just hang in there. Our own experts like Bobby who gives advice reminiscent of the sages of the old! (We go with Bobby once in so many months for a much awaited critique!) You go and tell him ‘I am not able to drive properly’. He would say “all you have to do is to find your ‘grip’, the rest will follow”. You cannot get deeper than that I suppose. It is as mystical as the admonition of the gurus who said that the way to salvation is to find your ‘true self’! Sometimes I do think that I may be able to find my true self but never the ‘grip’.

Why do we play golf or why do we persist? This is not an easy question to answer. But I do know that one long putt that some how finds its way into the hole or that beautiful approach shot which lands within a foot of the hole keeps us all addicted. We also take consolation in the fact that we do get some exercise and the efforts to play better keeps us, especially us who have retired, in better shape!