On the Friday night before the semifinal round of the Club Championship,  I read again some of my favorite parts of the novel The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield. Many golfers have enjoyed the book, which is vastly superior to the disappointing, sentimental film of the same name produced by Robert Redford.
   The movie bears little resemblance to the novel, which is a retelling of the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text of Hindu mythology. The book closely parallels the theme and structure of the original Sanskrit poem. The key to the novel is chapter 21, in which the mystical caddie Bagger Vance reveals his true nature to Rannulph Junah, who's facing a crisis of confidence during his epic golf match against the great Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen.
    At a moment when Junah, physically exhausted and emotionally defeated,  is ready to quit in despair, Bagger tells him that loneliness is the great burden of competitive golf, capable of crushing the human spirit. The caddie then explains that he, Bagger, is an incarnation of the single, universal Self that all people share. "You are never alone," he tells Junah. "I stand by your side always."
    The message is: If you play as your authentic self, from the heart, without selfish motive, you will play to your full potential, which is limitless. But if you get hung up on ego, and the rewards of winning or the cost of losing, you cannot realize your potential. Or, put another way: If you stand apart from your true nature, you stand alone; but if you stand in unison with humanity, you draw strength from its common spirit.
    By Sunday I had advanced to the final round of the championship, which would determine the winner of the third flight, the one for mid-handicappers. A week earlier, at the start of the tournament, there were 16 of us in that flight. Now we were  two.
    Standing on the 18th tee, with the match tied, I thought about what Bagger Vance said. "You are never alone." Nothing magic happened but I was able to play that hole and the two playoff holes that followed with self-confidence, which I had lost, at least as far as putting was concerned, during the previous three or four holes. I think reflecting on the novel simply helped me realize I was still capable of playing my best, that the match had not been lost, despite the fact that I'd given up a 2-hole lead on the back nine, a collapse capped by a huge mistake on number 17.
     I had still been leading by one hole when we  reached the 17th green, where I faced a six-foot putt for par. If I made it, my lead would increase to two holes again and, with only one hole left to play, the match would therefore be over. But I missed, the ball coming to rest barely four inches outside the cup. In frustration I walked up and nonchalantly swiped at the ball back-handed, something every golfer has done a thousand times. But this time the ball didn't jump into the hole. I stubbed my putter into the ground and the ball only moved two inches. So, the hole was lost and my lead was history.
     One symptom of my alcohol abuse had been defeatism. I may have been full of braggadocio at times but emotionally I was a quitter. When the going got tough, I got drunk.  Well, if I was going to quit on myself today, this was the time and place to do it.
    I was trying to quiet my nerves on the tee when I recalled Bagger's words. "You are never alone." I swung the driver confidently but too hard and my ball faded into the rough right of the fairway. My approach shot fell a few feet short of the green, leaving a difficult uphill chip out of thick rough to a nearby flagstick. I swung a wedge smoothly down into the thick grass and the result was good but I was still left with a four-foot, downhill putt for par.
    As I stood waiting for my turn to putt, I thought about the fact that I'm a good putter, that all the putts I'd missed earlier in the match, all the opportunities that slipped away, were irrelevant. I had been putting defensively, trying to protect a victory not yet mine. There was no reason to play that way anymore.
    I watched my opponent knock his par putt into the hole, turning up the pressure. My task was suddenly simple and stark: make this putt or go home. I made it.
    On the first playoff hole I had to putt second again, my opponent already having made another par. As I looked over the three feet of grass between my ball and the hole, I struggled to take the meaning out of the putt. It did not mean win or lose, it was just a putt I'd made a thousand times before. I told myself the mistake on number 17, and the several other putts I'd missed late in the match, were now long ago and far away. I rolled it in and we moved on.
    The second playoff hole was a par-three of 165 yards. I hit a 5-iron onto the green and my opponent came up short. He chipped to a spot about 10 feet from the hole.
    I was now staring down a 30-foot putt. I wasn't thinking about the putts I'd missed earlier, or even those I'd made on the previous two holes, and I wasn't thinking about getting this putt close. I was thinking only about making it.  I stroked it confidently and watched the ball pick up speed as it crossed the entire width of the green. The ball was heading dead on line for the cup when it stopped a half-inch short.  My opponent conceded my 3, then missed the putt that would have tied it up again. It was over and I'd won.
    In the aftermath of victory I find myself facing another challenge, that of forgiving myself for having made it more difficult than necessary.