A wry guide to applying universal spiritual truths to golf’s disappointments and delights

“If you play golf, you have to read this book. It will make you a better golfer, whether it improves your score or not. It will help you understand the game better than you ever have before.”

—Mike Greenberg, cohost of ESPN’s Mike & Mike in the Morning

In this entertaining and enlightening book of short lessons/essays, author James L. Ragonnet demonstrates that true excellence at golf requires that players recognize the spiritual truths that inform it. To summarize these truths, he adapts Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths into Golf’s Three Noble Truths: “To grow totally, you must actualize your full potential — your golf potential and your human potential.” “To actualize your full potential, you must stay balanced and centered.” “To stay balanced and centered, you must unite head and heart.” Ragonnet translates these lofty goals into practical lessons with witty and thoughtful stories, examples, and instruction. Individual chapters cover such intriguing topics as “Dead People Don’t Play Golf,” “Drink the Ice Water,” “The Flute with No Holes,” and “The Tee Ceremony.” Never losing his sense of the absurd, Ragonnet gently reminds golfers of the game’s transcendent beauty and how a recognition of it can transform an average golf game — or an average life — into a great one.