In the north of Scotland in June there is enough light to play golf until 10:30 at night. One evening at about that time I was walking off the course at Forres Golf Club with two good friends, looking for the path through the woods that would take us back to Newbold House, when I noticed a ball on the edge of the fairway. “Wait a minute,” I said, “let me hit this ball.” I teed it up and pulled out my driver. Now driving, as my friends know well, is my nemesis, the glaring weakness in an otherwise respectable game. But I took a free swing at the ball and it shot off the clubface like a rocket, rising gradually into the gathering darkness, holding an impossibly straight line before disappearing over a hilltop about 230 yards away. Here I had been playing with Vin and Jerry every night for a week and they’d never seen me hit a driver remotely as well. I heard one of them say “Wow,” and I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the driver finally working now that our week was over. 
    “Let me hit one,” said Vin, as he bent to put a tee into the turf. Vin’s a good player, so it was no surprise to see him hit a good shot, but it stunned the three of us to watch his ball follow precisely the same flight pattern as mine. Now Jerry had to hit a ball, not due to any macho, competitive impulse, but to satisfy our shared curiosity, unspoken yet unmistakable, as to where his ball might go. Moments later, as we watched Jerry’s ball somehow mimic the exact direction, trajectory and distance of those Vin and I had hit, the three of us exchanged high-fives and shared a deep laugh. It was a moment of pure joy, of reveling in the beauty of a perfect golf shot executed in triplicate, and of wonder at the mystery of coincidence.
     Mystery is, in fact, what brought the three of us to Scotland, and it’s what keeps bringing me back. I have known players who think the magic of golf is external, to be found hidden somewhere on the links, like a leprechaun under a rock. But I learned at Fairway To Heaven that the magic is internal. A player with an open mind and an open heart will gain innumerable insights into his true nature through golf, and in that way he is given the opportunity to change. That is the magic, the mystery, and the beauty of the game.