The Legend of Bagger Vance (21 page)

Authors: Steven Pressfield

BOOK: The Legend of Bagger Vance

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“You I gifted with the most demanding but exalted destiny of all. Yours was to move among the maimed and wounded, bearing comfort and surcease from pain. Your charge was not to slay but to heal, not to rend but to make whole.

“That was the destiny you chose then,” Vance declared, “and the destiny which chooses you now. Stand up.”

Thunder boomed over the ocean. Michael struggled to rise; clinging to Irene, with help from me, he found his feet. “Stand now!” Vance’s voice thundered with necessity. Michael obeyed, trembling. I was struck as if seeing it for the first time by his youth and strength, his beauty. He was like Junah, only stronger and more graceful. Like me, if I may say so, only kinder and with deeper mercy.

Vance held out Junah’s great hickory-shafted driver. “Four is the number of completion. The number of wholeness.”

In his hand he held a fourth ball.

Michael took it and teed it.

His hands were trembling as he set them upon the leather of the driver’s grip. There was vision and power in Junah’s warrior club, and now that charge poured its raw voltage into Michael. Up the living shaft the magic trembled. I saw again the young man’s pure and brilliant grip. It was the grip of his boyhood, the flawless sweet structure of tendon and bone, tissue and fascia and flesh. Vance was right. All of Michael’s swing, all of this life and all his future lives lay compassed already within that pure perfect
grip. Michael’s eyes met mine just for an instant, clear and purposeful. He set the clubhead behind the ball and waggled once, the toes inside his shoes gripping firmly into the thick dense turf. The Field settled around him, swallowing him in the vorticed web of authenticity. Michael took one smooth easy inhale, then slowly, effortlessly, impeccably, he started the mighty clubhead back….

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Larry, Jody, Sterling, Rich, Lawrence of the Links and to our own Essex girl, Christy (she knows why), the Cowboy for flying to the rescue, and, for steering me through Sanskrit, Dr. Bruce Cameron Hall.

Praise
for
The Legend of Bagger Vance

“
The Legend of Bagger Vance
is such an entertaining book on the surface you hardly realize you are being taught some of life’s greatest truths. Pressfield has seamlessly brought together that rare combination of fun and enlightenment in a novel that seems destined to take its place alongside some of the great works in golf literature.”

—Links
magazine

“Entertaining, well crafted…. One need only have a nodding acquaintance with the game of golf to enjoy and appreciate this book; for the golfer…this is a wonderful story—simply, a must-read.”

—Golfing
magazine

“Truly a delight. Even now when I play in professional tournaments I think of the positive effect Bagger Vance had on everyone associated with him. He will be with me for many years to come.”

—Patty Sheehan, member of the LPGA Hall of Fame

“Pure magic! I read it straight through in one sitting. It should be required reading for anyone who loves the game and has a sense of its history and its mystery.”

—Deane Beman, former commissioner of the PGA Tour

“The
Field of Dreams
of golf…. The only golf novel ever written that earns ‘couldn’t put it down’ accolades. This is a book that will remain with readers for a while, and will certainly emerge every time they step on a golf course.”

—BookPage

Copyright

Images not available for electronic edition.

THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE
. Copyright © 1995 by Steven Pressfield. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition July 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196596-8

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