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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...)

 

 

 
 

 

Table of Contents

Royal Dornoch - Fairways

 

Page

What's Zen Got to Do With It? Why in Scotland?

4

A Look at the Buddhist World - Zen & Zen Gardens

11

 

 

Hole #

 

1 - Shiskine - Isle of Arran (The Ideal Zen Course)

15

2 - Letham Grange (Keeping Score? Reflections on Yourself)

18

3 - Turnberry (Zen Breathing Techniques for a Better Game)

22

4 - Corrie (Ruminations on Zen Courses and Zen Gardens)

26

5 - Machrihanish (Handling of the 1st Tee Drive)

28

6 - Royal Dornoch (How the Zen Approach Makes Bunkers Fun, and the Importance of Caddies)

32

The Halfway House (A Few Reflections on Where We Have Been)

38

7 - Boat of Garten (The Approach Shot and Using Fewer Clubs)

42

8 - Tobermory - Isle of Mull (When a Course Calls for Different Strategies and No Caddie to Help Out)

46

9 - Tain (Blind Shots, Fairway Positioning Shots)

49

10 - Crail (Equipment - More is Not More)

51

11 - Nairn (Better Putting With Zen and Why Caddies Are Always Right)

59

12 - Brora (An Ideal Zen Course and Goodbye to the Reader)

72

The 19th Hole: An Epilogue and a Zen Golf Koan

79

Appendix - Zen Buddhist Gardens in Japan

86

 

 

 

 

Shinto Shrine - Kyoto

If you would like to see our "extended" table of contents with short descriptions of each chapter - click here

     

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