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A Zen Approach To
Playing Golf In
Scotland

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James C. Plowden-Wardlaw

James Campbell Plowden-Wardlaw hit his first golf ball into the gorse bushes at Old Prestwick -- the cradle of championship golf and site of the first British Open -- at the age of nine, during a family visit to a great aunt in Ayr, Scotland. He returned home to America impressed by the game, but waited more than fifty years to play again in Scotland...(More...)

Alex B. Pagel

Alex B. Pagel dubbed his first shot at the Maidstone Club course on Long Island in the 1940s under the Scottish eye of the club professional Jack Ross. This legendary man endeavored to teach him how to hit a ball, never a total success, and how to enjoy the game, by contrast a long and continuing success story. Old Jack also frequently implied that the true object of the game was to play in Scotland on a links course in the wind...(More...)

 
 
 

 

Hole #4 – Corrie (Ruminations on Zen Courses and Zen Gardens)

Encircled by the stunning mountains of Goatfell and Cioch na h-Oighe, the Corrie Golf Club is an astonishing gem in the middle of an awesome wilderness. A woodland course with views from the high hill holes of the Firth of Clyde into Argyll and westwards into the great glens of Arran populated by little more than sheep and the occasional shepherd, Corrie was established in 1892, but remains a serene and almost unknown secret. It is, by itself, a Zen experience.

Corrie Golf Club - 9 holes – Sannox, Brodick, Isle of Arran KA27 8JD. Further details in our book 'A Birdie For Buddha.'

You Will Have Total Concentration...

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The complexity within the simplicity of the course gives it the same elegance that so many Zen gardens achieve by the same means: “borrowed scenery”. Around Kyoto many small gardens have their border only a few yards from the temple viewing platform. But the view does not stop there. It goes on to the high bushes in the back of the adjoining yard and on to the tall pines beyond them and further still to the high hills and mountains encircling Kyoto. The garden itself provides the front focus of contemplation but as the eyes move upward the focus changes and the borrowed mountain and thence the sky and heaven itself are the targets of contemplation.

And so at Corrie. The mountain, while not within the course, is borrowed by the viewer to unconsciously become the dominating focus of the entire course and thus subtly influences each shot within the course. Its borrowed beauty and strength ties the golfer to nature and provides a substitute satisfaction if/when one’s game goes awry.

You can read the entire chapter in our book "A Birdie for Buddha"
  

 
Corrie Scorecard
JP-W in the Glomin’
 

The Zen lesson we learned from playing Corrie was that seeing and feeling the physical course itself was an integral part of our round, just as important to us as seeing our ball with total concentration and feeling our swings. Corrie taught us that mastering the art of integrating the golf course into your perception of what golfing is all about adds significant enjoyment and meaning to the round, each and every time. It also will keep you focused on the total experience, a key to the pleasures of the Pastime.

 
     

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