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“This suspension of ones own reality, this being entirely
alone in a strange city (at times I wondered if I had lost
the power of speech) is an enriching state for a writer.
Then the written word…takes on an intensity of its own.
Nothing gets exteriorized or dissipated; all is concentrated
within” May Sarton
When I saw an employment bulletin through the PGA of America
(of which I am a member), to teach golf in Bhutan for 4
months, I nearly missed it, because the two seemed
incongruous. Golf in the last Tantric Buddhist Himalayan
Kingdom? It seemed like a Monty Python skit. To this day
when I tell my Buddhist friends, the response is usually
laughter or disbelief.
The assignment was Jan through April, in the dead of the
Canadian winter, which was perfect timing for my business.
The interview process was thorough. I spoke with Ron Fream,
globe-trotting golf course architect, Rick Lipsey, staff
writer with Sports Illustrated Magazine, and the founder of
the program, and Bill Madonna, son of Top 100 Teacher Bill
Madonna, and a world-class teacher in his own right. After a
month-long process, I was offered the job.
My wife and daughter and I are very close. Leaving for such
an extended length of time is a stretch, on many levels. But
an opportunity like this might come up once in a lifetime,
if one is lucky. For me to teach the game of golf in a place
that takes the study of the mind as being more important
than material wealth, could not be passed up. My girls gave
their blessings, and took the job of `holding down the
fort’.
The Kingdom of Bhutan
The 700,000 or so people who live in this country are
fiercely proud of their land. The size of Switzerland, it is
guarded on the North by the worlds highest range of
mountains. In the south is a formidable jungle. It is a
nation that has never been conquered or colonized, and whose
culture has evolved without too much influence from the
outside world, until recently.
Buddhism was introduced as early as the second century, but
it was in AD 746 that the great teacher Guru Rinpoche, also
known as Padmasambhava, came on the invitation of the King.
As the story goes, there was a powerful demon that could
only be exorcised by a more powerful enlightened being. Guru
Rinpoche flew in on a tiger, (to the cave at Taktsang),
turning the demon into a rock, and along the way converted
the King and the entire country to Buddhism as well. The
demon/rock can still be seen on the hike up to Taktsang.
The land is dotted with Chortens, or Stupas which are in
some cases very large structures that represent the
enlightened mind. I have heard them called `spiritual
monuments’. There are 450 Dzongs, or monasteries, where an
estimated 12000 monks train in the ancient practices of
meditation and contemplation. Even in downtown Thimpu, the
capital, you can’t go far before seeing a monk in maroon
robes, perhaps on break from the rigors of the monastery.
Oddly juxtaposed on their heads on chilly days, were red
Nike caps! Seeing the swoop on a monks head makes me believe
the earth really is flat.
It took me a week to begin to acclimatizing myself to the
altitude, the food, and getting around. In week two, I began
to carry out the mission, to introduce the great game to
juniors who live in the Kingdom of Bhutan. The golf course
itself is as you would expect, surrounded by dramatic
mountains. It’s a real golf course, decent layout in pretty
good condition. I was pleasantly surprised by that, as I had
googled the course, and one article came up titled `The Most
Remote Course in the World’. Let’s put it this way, I’ve
never seen Royal Thimpu Golf Club advertised in Travel
Golf+Leisure Magazine.
The program I was hired to facilitate is a junior program.
My contract called for 5 days a week, teaching golf but also
mentoring life lessons. The group is mixed; there might be a
youngster who is part of the Royal Family, or a little guy
who sleeps in a hut. I was encouraged to take them on field
trips, as well as to venture out occasionally to teach in
schools in the outer regions of the country.
On Monday the course was closed except for the juniors, so
it was the on-course playing day. Wednesday, Thursday and
Friday were practice range days. The problem is, the
practice range doubles as the first hole, and with members
playing, it was not useable. We were therefore relegated to
a 50 yard or so rectangular (mostly bare dirt) patch of
earth, for up to 40 kids.
The Athletes of Thimpu, Natural Golfers
`If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical
knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend
technique so that the art becomes an `artless art’, growing
out of the unconscious’ Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of
Archery
All around me are pick up sporting events, kids walking down
the street keeping a soccer ball in the air with their feet,
little kids chucking rocks at a tree. Further down the road
I see a group of about 30 men, dressed in traditional gho,
the national outfit, throwing home-made torpedo-looking
darts, a good 100 yards, to a target the size of 2 laptop
computers on top of each other. And to my amazement, hitting
it frequently.
I stopped with the 30 or so other spectators to watch the
action.
One of the contestants saw me doing my Dan Marino impression
up in the `bleachers’. He either thought I looked like a
`player’, or maybe that I’d be good for a laugh. I was
invited down to try. Now, it’s been a few years since I
tried to throw a football for any distance, but I used to
have a pretty good arm.
The dart was a sharpened iron rod, about 2 feet long, with
feathers. The `handle’ was just a rounded block of wood.
I did a few stretches, wound up, and fired. Five yards left,
and a good 15 yards short. Second toss, same result, instant
replay. It turned out that I was a good laugh. I stayed a
few minutes longer, and was astounded at their strength and
accuracy. Two direct hits in that short time. And after a
hit, the team does a little song and dance, facing the
target that had just been hit.
The national sport is archery, and it doesn’t seem possible
that they could hit the target from the distances they are
shooting from, 150 meters. Their focus is inspiring, and the
juniors seem to have it naturally.
Unjaded Junior Golfers
Vijay Singh managed to reach World’s Number One Golfer,
growing up in a non-golfing environment. There are only
three obstacles to one of these kids making it on the PGA
Tour, lack of playing time, lack of competitions, and lack
of equipment. They have the coaching. In some ways, except
for those three, they have a fighting chance. After all, you
can play year round in Bhutan, unlike in Nova Scotia.
When we went out to play on the only day they can, Monday,
they each got one ball, and one or two clubs. They share
clubs, so there is a driver, fairway metal, mid and short
iron, and putter for each foursome. The driver might have a
loft of 8.5 with a stiff, cut-off shaft, which makes it even
stiffer. Compare this to our young guys and girls, with the
latest, often fitted, equipment. If a junior is reading
this, please be grateful . You definitely have a head start.
And if the ball is lost, Game Over. Their keen eyes can find
it anywhere, except in water, as many of these kids caddy to
help with the family living expenses. But one of the hardest
things I have ever had to tell an eager junior golfer, was
`you can’t play any more, there are no balls’.
And these kids can play. They had no well intended but
harmful instruction from Dad, on `keeping your head down’,
and `stiffen that left arm’. The only coaching they have had
was professional, through the BYGA Program.
I was happy to see way less of the harmful `reverse pivot’,
an epidemic in North America. And it can be traced directly
to the `head on the ball and down’ nonsense. These Bhutanese
youth missed the faulty instruction, thereby missing the bad
stuff.
And there were no `scoopers’ in the lot, not one. These
youth learned to play on bare dirt. The only way to hit a
golf ball with any kind of success was to `pinch’ it, or
`squeeze it’ off the ground. Unlike some of our super lush,
forgiving fairways in North America, here a molecule off
meant a bad shot. They learned on their own and from each
other, out of necessity, to do what the Golfing Machine
stresses, impact with a forward leaning shaft.
This brings to mind a quote from Ben Hogan’s classic
instruction book, The Modern Five Fundamentals, where he was
referring to the only way to improve and become great; `you
have to dig it out of the dirt’.
Another perversion I see back home, are painfully slow
backswings. Again, Dad or some well meaning adult heard
somewhere that slow means good, and of course, passes that
along to the young victim. I always shake my head when a
student says to me `I want to hit the ball further’, and
when I ask what it is he or she is trying to do as they
swing, the answer is `swing slow’. Distance comes from club
head speed, and that means higher, not lower. These
Bhutanese kids all had wonderful rhythm, simply because they
weren’t thinking about it. It was self-regulating, organic.
As the program progresses I wonder if any `Golden Eagles’,
the rare person with talent and initiative, will emerge.
Already some of these guys can par their long and tricky
nine hole course. I just found out that three players will
be sent by the BYGA to India, for their first major
tournament. And I also found that 80 boxes of clubs and
balls were recently sent.
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