GRAND CANYON: THREE ROUNDS ON THE ROAD

Next stop Page, Arizona by Lake Powell, the creation of the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. Wiz remembers this place as the best swimming hole west of the Mississippi. With passion he describes the translucent shades of blue and green and the sparkling clarity of the mile deep waters. It conjures my own memories of Crater Lake in Oregon.

A congenial grey haired lady at the gas station and convenience store tells us where to find the local golf course and our day is set. It is a flat nine-hole course with wide, tree-lined fairways, water and rabbits by the score. We play with the inner self as a theme. I sink a forty footer for birdie and finish two over par. Wiz beats fifty for the fourth time since taking up the game in earnest only a month ago. I’m not sure he realizes what an accomplishment that is. We both make shots with a five iron that allow us to imagine what our shots into the great moonlit void might have looked like had we been able to see the flight of the ball.

We have a good meal at the clubhouse where the bartender speaks about sexism at the dam. She has a degree in engineering and took a job here fresh out of college. Being both female and fresh out of college, the men under her authority resented her. She was smaller in stature than the men and so was often called upon to crawl into small spaces. On one such occasion she was locked in from behind. A lawsuit followed. The men responsible were fired and she quit. She decide to remain in Page as a local bartender, a good station to keep watch and have her revenge on any man who strays from common decency and the sanctity of marriage. We wish each other well and she notes that they have a band at night should we still be around.

The swimming spot is a water-filled rock canyon next to the dam. The water is still clear and striking but Wiz observes that there is a thin sheath of gasoline on the surface – no doubt from the powerboats. It has only been a year.

How frail the beauty of nature now seems when compared to the impregnable grandeur of the Canyon. In one year man has made a mark, like graffiti on the wall of El Capitan. I now understand why boating and recreation is so regulated at Crater Lake. I recall seeing where people had chipped away at a crystal waterfall in a cave called Crystal Palace and wondering how anyone could be so insensitive. Nature’s wonders must be protected. It is the worst of human instinct to want to own or leave a mark on nature one way or another. The signs of human shame are everywhere we look.

Wiz and I discussed our shots into the canyon, wondering if they could be considered littering. Maybe but I think that a golf ball, white and round, is more a holy object than a piece of trash. If we had fired a dozen range balls into the canyon that could be considered littering but a single shot under a full moon was a sacred offering. We ask forgiveness if we offend the pure of heart.

Wiz sends out some inspired sounds as an offering of peace to mother earth. We hope it will help diffuse the damage humans have done. The gentle soaring sounds emerging from his soul will be heard for a thousand miles and a thousand years. They will calm angry men and inspire children. It strikes me as strange the Wiz chose not to play at the canyon. Maybe he was overwhelmed by its perfection. Maybe the sheer magnitude of the canyon’s grace was too great for accompaniment. I never thought to ask. The answer is too simple: The impulse did not strike.

We are back on the road, our spirits soaring and our bodies renewed, though we have sleep only a few hours. The spirit of the crow goes with us and it is more powerful now than ever. What the Wiz calls the All Force is propelling us forward to a destiny that cannot be denied. We head north and cross quickly into Utah. We are at a crossroad on the journey and our senses are sharpened, our awareness heightened. We fight against anticipation but we cannot subdue a feeling of eagerness, of moving forward with eyes of wonder.

Golf has taken prominence in our minds. We have only two books: One is a collection of Bukowski poems and the other is Golf in the Kingdom. We consider the latter the bible of Zen Golf. We open it at random daily and follow its lessons – a tradition born on the short course in Albuquerque. On one occasion, when we were feeling the weight of the journey, Wiz suggested we take a cart. The daily lesson read: It is not the shots; it is the walk. We did not rent a cart and would not for the remainder of our journey.

We have begun taking notes for a pocketbook of Zen Golf. Its lessons are as varied as the game itself and the geography on which it’s played.

Balance is the first lesson.

Without balance, there is nothing.

The swing’s the thing. Julius Boros.

Find the center.

Be the trees.

See the flight of the ball before the shot.

Clear the mind.

Welcome adversity.

See the energy flow through the field of play.

Any shot that can be imagined can be made.

Approach the game with humility.

Swing easy, hit hard. Julius Boros.

Be the wind.

Let the club select you.

Golf is a game of opposites.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The path of the club, the flight of the ball is one.

Hear the wind through the trees.

Everything around you and within you is one.


By the time we get to Zion National Park we are primed and ready to receive the sign that now appears: A golf course on the roadside laid out in a chiseled valley below the red rock and clay formations, sculptures of mother earth and father time. It is mid afternoon, hot and the wind whips across the course in waves of dry heat. Be the wind.

In my mind there are two ways to play golf in the wind. One is to hit a straight ball and allow the wind to move it to the target. The other is to play a ball that moves into or with the wind, merging with complimentary forces or joining contrary forces. I favor the latter approach.

The Wiz chides me on the first tee. The people in the clubhouse, including a couple of young women, are watching us. He wonders if I am road weary. There is of course such a thing. Too long on the road can turn your legs into rubber and envelop your mind in fog. I have cautioned Wiz before to respect the ways and etiquette of other golfers. I have generally allowed him to chide me, preferring to accept the challenge of distraction. It is, however, a lesson I have often addressed. Back in Nashville I once reprimanded him for what I considered an affront to the game. He had playfully chanted “Hey batter-batter…swing!” while I missed a birdie putt. Before I could check my anger I informed him he had about seven holes of bad karma coming. His game went into an immediate tailspin. After three holes of suffering, I handed him a tee and asked him to repair a ball mark on the green. He repaired several and his game returned to him.

Approach the game with humility.

I hit what is known as a wormer. It never leaves the ground. Wiz steps up, hits a solid drive and continues his good-natured needling as we walk down the fairway. My second sails true to course, gliding with the wind. His shot hops along the ground. By the fourth hole we are both struggling. We are fighting the wind and fighting each other despite ourselves.

Welcome adversity.

Suddenly, I raise my head to breathe in the beauty that surrounds us. This is truly one of the most beautiful desert links courses we will ever be blessed to play yet we like spoiled children are waging war against ourselves. War in Paradise! Breathe in, breathe out, smell the desert air. Be the wind.

Like bad karma, good karma is contagious. We begin to play golf. The ball sails and bends gently with the wind. We steer the path of the ball with our minds. (The great Julius Boros once said: to hit a draw think draw, to hit a fade think fade.) We talk to our golf balls and praise their intuitive intelligence. At the seventh tee we are asked to play through by a family of beginning golfers. We greet them with smiles and explain that we are in no hurry but the father insists. We hit tee shots worthy of Ben Hogan and Bobby Jones. (Asked by a reporter how far Jones could hit the ball, his caddy replied: as long as he wants to.) Our balls have wings and soar like eagles with a force far greater than our swings. We are at peace. We are one with the game in all its ancient glory. We finish our round and resume our journey with the same high spirits we possessed at Grand Canyon.

Not more than thirty miles down the road we are greeted by another roadside golf course. It is evening now but we figure we have a good two hours of sunlight left in this sacred day. Once again we do not hesitate but accept this gift of the gods. A sign instructs us to pay for our round at a gas station convenience store down the road. The cost is a phenomenal three dollars per nine. There is a sign by the cash register noting that the last clerk had been fired for giving away golf rounds. At that price the man should have been hung and the golfers banned from the game. Golf at three dollars a round is a poor man’s blessing. It would open the game to the world and the world would be better for it.

It is a short course with an imaginative layout. There are children and ducks, swans and rabbits on the course. The grass is a brilliant shade of green. (The score boasts, “The greenest grass in Utah.”) There are scores of birch with their distinctive white bark. There is laughter and a pleasant breeze beneath a setting sun.

We tee off on a short par four and overshoot the green to the right. After a short hunt Wiz finds his ball and we proceed to play some of the best golf of our journey. By the time we climb to the elevated ninth tee I am aware that he is playing his best ever round. We are forced to wait while the foursome in front of us tees off and clears the fairway. The sun is nearly down. The groundskeeper has turned on the sprinklers, charging the atmosphere with a pulse and rhythm like a pendulum of the soul. There is a glow in the air. There is an uncommon sense of peace and well being.

At length we hit our shots. Mine sails right into a gully but it is well struck and pleasing to the eye. Wiz sends his dead center. Not bad if you like perfect. We descend from the tee like explorers from a high mountain and stride down the fairway in a state of nirvana: the Zen of Golf.

We are more than brothers now. We are comrades. There is an implicit bond and trust between us in this moment of spiritual high. It is beyond common understanding. It is true and unbreakable. It requires no words as words are inadequate but Wiz speaks of it with a satisfied glee: Don Juan would be proud of us!

At that very instant the sprinkler in front of us, as if guided by the hand and humor of the master himself, alters its direction and sends a steady stream directly at us. I bolt to the left and it follows me. I spring to the right and it stays with me. My momentum carries me full force into the braced shoulder of my playing partner and we erupt in gales of laughter.

The Wiz announces: Don Juan is laughing at us. And we have the good sense to laugh along with him.

We finish the hole in good style and humor. It is the best score relative to par the Wiz has ever recorded but it will be remembered as much more than that. We may often in the course of round tell ourselves that we have found it – the Zen, the All Force, the essence – but we have not. What we seek is essentially unattainable. It is illusive like perfection itself. The one sure thing is that those who have found it (or anything close to it) will have no need to speak of it. It is not a source of personal pride and it is not an end in itself. It is a state of mind, a state of being, that is constantly in motion and constantly changing.

We have but begun our journey.

We have played three rounds on the road in a single day and still found time to bathe in the sun and glorious waters of the Colorado River yet we are not tired. Like a golf ball sailing on the wings of an idea we are charged by a separate source of energy. It radiates within us and fills us with a hunger for adventure.

Wiz calls his parents from the pay phone outside the gas station. It is their anniversary. He relates telling his father about his round and his score. His father replied in disbelief: They’re making you count them now, are they? We have a good meal at the restaurant next door. I take note of a strange statement on the menu: They add a ten percent tip to the tab because 70% of their customers are European.

This is Utah. Where are the Americans? Have we made our roads too dangerous for the youth who once traveled these highways in search of self and country? Where are the working class retired in recreational vehicles and vans that once roamed this scenic landscape as a well-earned reward for a life of struggle? Have they discovered that the fruits of their labor, their life savings, are not adequate to the purpose? Have they just lost interest? It is the second reminder of this phenomenon and it leaves me perplexed. I have crossed the country by road, thumb and rail but never before have I witnessed the vanishing American tourist. The road used to be a place separate from society, almost immune to the changing times. It was a place where a young person could find something resembling freedom and it was always worth it to risk the dangers of the road just to experience that feeling.

What has changed? When did the adventurous spirit of Americans die? When did our love of freedom slip away? Now it seems the road is a desperate place where only the foreign born are found.

We decide against getting a room at the motel, opting instead to cross the barren wasteland of Nevada in the cool of the night. The moon is bright and we are charged with a wondrous strange energy as the high Sierras of California beckon us in the distance.