The Legend of Bagger Vance
Garry Jacobs
Accomplishment is a mystery. Very often we
are unable to see the relationship between our actions and their consequences.
Sometimes our efforts are quickly and generously rewarded by life. Occasionally
the rewards even come before we complete the required action. At other times,
the more and the harder we try, the further we seem to be from our goal. Then
there are inexplicable moments when a work that was proceeding smoothly
suddenly runs into trouble or a work that was stalled just as suddenly takes
off. At rare moments, the veil concealing the mystery of accomplishment is
lifted for a moment, revealing to us its deeper secrets. Or, a wise man comes
along with the knowledge and power to draw aside the curtain to help us find
the hidden key. Such a man was Bagger Vance.
The
Legend of Bagger Vance is a film about two people who accomplish
extraordinary things against great odds. It is the story of Randolph Junah, who
was born in Augusta, Georgia, USA around 1900. At an early age Junah displayed
a remarkable talent for the sport of golf and won a national amateur
championship when he was 16. Experts who saw him play predicted he would one
day become one of America’s most successful professional golfers. Adding good fortune
to his talent for golf, Junah was also able to win the love of Adele
Invergorden, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy real estate developer. It
appeared that the lovely couple were destined for a married life of success,
leisure and luxury.
Then World War I broke out and changed their
destiny. Instead of playing golf, Junah enlisted in the army along with his
classmates and was shipped off to Europe to fight against the Germans in the
trenches of France. There his talent for golf was of no value. The main
objective was simply to kill the enemy and survive a horrible war against great
odds. At the end of the war, he was the only member of his company, the only
one of his classmates, who returned home alive. Psychologically devastated by
the violence he had witnessed and the friends he had lost, disillusioned with
the posh life he had known before the war, Junah retired to a secluded farm
house where he drank and gambled with the riff raff of society and completely
cut his ties with Adele and the upper class people with whom he lived earlier.
Ten years later, Adele’s father died and left
his daughter to manage a huge resort hotel and golf course burdened with debt
and on the point of bankruptcy. True to her rugged Scotch heritage, Adele
refused to give up the resort to her creditors. Instead, she decided to risk
every last dollar she could raise on a grand scheme that would either make the
resort a success or ruin it completely. Her idea was to conduct a personal golf
match between the two greatest professional golfers of the day, Bobby Jones and
Walter Hagen, 36 holes of golf played over two days for the fabulous prize of
$10,000.
Adele’s creditors where skeptical of the plan
but saw that it just might succeed in attracting national attention and luring
wealthy customers to the resort. Therefore they consented to the plan provided
that Adele also include one golf player from Augusta as representative of the
local talent. The idea seemed absurd since Augusta had no players of
professional caliber who could compete with the likes of Jones and Hagen. Then
someone suggested Junah and the creditors unanimously agreed that if Junah
would join in the match, they would support it.
At first Junah refused the proposal as
preposterous. He had not lifted a golf club for a decade since returning home
from the war. Even had he been practicing or playing daily, no one could
seriously imagine that he could compete with the likes of Jones and Hagen, who
dominated the sport and had won every major golf championship for years.
Enter Bagger Vance, a quiet, soft-spoken
lanky black man with a mysterious smile and laughing eyes, who approaches Junah
and offers to act as his caddy for the match – to carrying his golf clubs and
offer his coaching assistance for the great contest. While the normal caddy’s
fee in such matches is 10% of the prize money if Junah wins, i.e. $1000, Bagger
asks for a fee of only $5 guaranteed, regardless of whether he wins or loses.
At the request of Adele and under pressure by the leaders of the town, Junah
reluctantly accepts to play. Adele sees some hope of saving her property and
perhaps even a glimmer of hope of recovering the man she once loved so dearly.
During the first day of the contest, Jones
and Hagen are superb. Junah plays disasterously with an increasingly sullen
attitude and Bagger stands silently by witnessing the debacle. No one is
surprised when Junah falls 11 strokes behind the two pros by the end of the
first day – a hopeless position from which it is almost unimaginable that he
can recover. His performance is so humiliating that Adele regrets that she ever
asked him to play.
As play son the second day and Junah is
without hope, Bagger begins his work. He quietly offers advice to Junah that
has a dramatic impact on Junah’s performance. He shows Junah that his real
opponent in this match is not Hagen or Jones. It is his own mind. The key to
success on the golf course lies in mastering his fears of failure, his sense of
inferiority, his concern about what Adele or the townspeople are thinking about
him. Bagger tells Junah: Stop worrying about winning or losing. Stop trying so
hard to hit the ball. Do not think about the results of your action.
“Concentrate on the field,” Bagger says. “Become one in your consciousness with
the field. Allow the natural rhythm and harmony of life to pass through you and
express in your acts.” Life, life golf,
is only a game. Play the game and enjoy it.
Once Junah starts listening to Bagger, to his
own amazement and that of the crowd, Junah begins hitting the ball with the
power and precision of a great golfer. By the end of the morning, he has wiped
out half the deficit that separates him from Jones and Hagen. Junah gains
confidence, the crowd begins to stir with excitement, and even his opponents
are impressed by the beauty of his play. No one, including Junah, really
understands what has transformed him.
On the final afternoon of the match Junah
pulls within three strokes of the leaders and becomes so confident that he
actually believes he can win the match. Then a second turning point occurs. At
a critical juncture, Junah loses touch with the field. He disregards Bagger’s
advice and becomes over-confident. He takes a high risk shot and misses. Then
out of arrogant pride he repeats it again. In a few moments, all his momentum
has been lost and his hopes of winning have been shattered. In frustration, he
smashes a shot off into the woods and is forced to go hunting for the ball
among the trees, as if he wanted to physically remove himself from the crowd’s
sight.
Finding the ball lying in a hopelessly
difficult position from which recovery is unimaginable, Junah feels tempted to
move the ball with his hand while no one is looking – an illegal act unworthy
of a professional. Just then Bagger arrives and prevents him. Instead of
acknowledging the hopelessness of the situation, Bagger says to Junah: “It is
time for you to choose.” It is time
for you to give up clinging to the ghosts that haunt your past. Stop feeling
sorry for yourself. Concentrate fully on the work at hand. Focus on the field.
Tune in to the harmony.
Following Bagger’s instructions, Junah hits
the ball so hard and so straight that it emerges from the forest onto the green
in a very advantageous position and Junah goes into the last hole of the match
just a single shot behind Jones and Hagen – a simply extraordinary
accomplishment.
On the last hole, both Jones and Hagen make
errors and Junah actually has a chance to win. In preparing for a shot, Junah
accidentally moves his ball a centimeter or so from its position, but no one
else sees what has happened. According to the rules, he should be penalized a
shot for this accident, even though the movement was insignificant. Contrary to
his earlier impulse to cheat, he informs his opponents of the accident and asks
to be penalized. Considering the stakes are so high, even his opponents to not
want Junah to be beaten on a mere technicality, but he insists on following the
letter of the rule book. Hagen and Jones complete the last hole tied. Junah
then hits a magnificent shot to match their scores. The contest ends a three
way tie. Junah has performed a miracle. He is the unquestioned hero of the
match. He splits the prize money, saves the resort from bankruptcy, and wins
back Adele.
This simple sporting tale reveals truths that
many a sportsman, business and political leader know from their own personal
experience. Our thoughts and our
attitudes determine the results of our actions. Mind is the determinant of our
successes and our failures. Junah failed when he concentrated his attention
on himself and worried about the prospects of failure. He succeeded when he
forgot about himself and concentrated totally on doing the work as well as he
possibly could by totally identifying himself with the field in which he was acting
and seeking a harmony with that field. The field is the universal life of which
we are an inseparable part. The ego divides us from the world around us and
creates the false sense of separateness. It makes us view even our own thoughts
and actions as something different from ourselves. To be in harmony with the
field is to overcome that sense of separation and see the oneness of all
existence and live in the harmony of that universal play. Success arises from shifting our reliance from the outer world around
us to our own inner being, relying on right attitudes rather than on external
sources of support and assistance. The inner attitude that accomplishes is
to act in self-forgetfulness and self-giving – forgetting ourselves and our
desires, giving oneself whole-heartedly to the work that we do.
Bagger is a humble man of truth who possesses
the wisdom of an ancient race. He
never shouts or insists on his point of view. He quietly waits for Junah to
become receptive, then he helps Junah overcome the inner obstacles that prevent
his natural talent from coming to the surface. It is a matter of conscious choice. When Junah becomes
overconfident and asserts his own knowledge, Bagger quietly withdraws and waits
for him to again seek assistance, then helps him get back on track without a
single sign of rebuke. Finally Bagger departs without even claiming his fair
share of Junah’s prize money.
Some readers may think that this is only a
story about a game. It is not real life and it is not about serious accomplishment.
Bagger’s message is that all life is a
game, the play of the Divine lila.
Running a family or a business or running for office are only various
expressions of the game. And the rules are the same regardless of the field of
your activity. Your situation may appear impossible but it is only impossible
if you think and believe it to be so. Stop calculating and thinking about the
limitations. Confidence, faith, concentration, harmony with the field,
self-giving in the act, self-forgetfulness – these are the attitudes that lead
to high accomplishment.
The truths depicted in this story are cited
by many high achievers as the keys to their success. But beyond these, the
story reveals hints of a more profound insight – the subtle shade of difference
that distinguishes the Truth from the falsehood. By Truth here I mean the power
of truth expressed in actions that lead to accomplishment. Truth is not a mere
word or idea. It is a vibration that expresses a true intention and true
consciousness. A small change in our attitude can move us from Truth to
falsehood or back again. The Mother describes this process of reversal of consciousness in Agenda where she explains that Truth and
falsehood are like the front and back side of one’s hand. Turn the hand on one
side and you are in the Truth. Flex it ever so slightly to show the other hand
and you are in the falsehood. Genuine
spiritual sincerity elevates us from the normal vital falsehood of human nature
into the vibration of Truth. The very slightest compromise is enough to plunge
us back into falsehood.
Junah experiences this subtle reality first
hand. One moment he is a failing amateur. By a seemingly tiny reversal of
attitude and perspective, he starts playing like a seasoned professional. He is
not even aware of how the change has come about. He has forgotten himself, the
contest, and the crowds of people looking on. He immerses himself totally in
the action at hand without thought of success or reward or social approval. He has reversed his motive from seeking the
ego’s success to seeking the soul’s joy of adventure playing the game. Then
a few moments later, he flips back from Truth to falsehood without being
conscious of it. The change in his attitude seems insignificant and
inconsequential but it makes all the difference in the world. He becomes
excited, over confident, assertive, proud and vain. Forgetting that he has been
accomplishing on the strength of Bagger’s knowledge rather than his own wisdom,
he ignores Bagger’s counsel. He forgets that golf, like life, is only a game
and feels tempted to violate the rules simply for egoistic satisfaction. He
lives in and for himself and his own personal achievement – in the ego.
Suddenly nothing goes right any more. His gains vanish. He finds himself back
in despair.
And then the final reversal takes place when
Bagger once more comes to Junah’s aid. Junah shifts his concentration and
reliance from the outside to the inside, from his acts to his true inner being. He forgets his past suffering and present humiliation; rejects
thoughts of success and failure, gain and loss. He reverses his attitude once
again. He makes a conscious choice to live and act in the moment as a free and
true being.
Junah attained a
perfect perfection in Truth at
the moment when he insisted on being penalized for the accidental movement of
the ball on the 18th hole, believing full well that the penalty
could cost him the match. So great the power of his sincerity that was able to
make up for the error and tie the match. At every moment we face the very same
choice: to live for ourselves, meaning the selfish falsehood of the
ego, or to live for Truth.