In the middle of the night on a golf course in Scottsdale Arizona, Benjamin Cameron receives a proposition from his newly found life and golf mentor, old Mr. Jones:


So anyway, Mr. Benjamin Cameron, Mr. Wanting-to-be-a-wise-guy, I have a proposition for you.

By this time I didnt quite know what to thinkthis crazy old man yelling and dancing about, talking about wisdom and experience and faith to the animals and me. What is it? Whats the proposition? I asked.

Golf, like most activities and enterprises in life, is chock full of opportunities to learn, to experience, to grow in wisdom. What if I were to share with you a treasure trove of insights in the form of golf lessons that will both enormously improve your golf game, and, at the same time will also result in a series of life lessons that will produce unprecedented positive results in your life?

I refer to these lessons as ways. In some traditions a way is like a path. For me it is more than that. A way is a context for living ones life, a place to come from, a place to dwell. This is what I am inviting you to work on with meways of being that if you take them on and apply them on the golf course and in your life you will never be the same in positive ways you now cannot even imagine.

What do you think? Are you open to this?

I would be foolish to turn your invitation down, I said. What will it take?

You will need to commit yourself to meeting me here for a few sessions at night like you did tonight. He looked toward the horizon where the Arizona sun was just raising its massive head over the distant hilltops, ready to heat up this part of the world. I was amazed at where the time went. I could have sworn I had only been with him a short time.

Actually, he went on, I will need more than a few sessions now that I think about the enormity of the task at hand. I will need you here eight times. You dedicate eight Sunday nights to me on this golf course and like I said, in positive ways you cannot imagine your life will never be the same. On those nights I will share with you eight of the most magnificent ways of being to be learned in lifeand we will be using golf as a metaphor. Now it so happens each of the eight ways is at the same time the most amazing coaching you could ever get for your golf game. Are you interested or not?

Absolutely. I have one problem though.

Whatever could that be? he asked. Somehow I sensed he already knew.

I am only going to be here seven more weeks then I fly back to Minnesota.

I know. Well, youll just have to figure that one out on your own. I wont start with you unless you commit to all eight Sunday nights, however. Whats it going to be?

Do I have to tell you right now?

Yes. Cant you see Im a busy man? He started walking away, back toward the clubhouse.

What about our golf this morning? I asked.

Not important. The suns already up anyway. You can go on and play if you want. Whats your answer?

Ill be here next Sunday night. What time? I yelled after him. He was already 50 yards away.

Youll know. Listen to your inner wisdom, he called back to me. Youll know exactly when to be here.

I walked over to my clubs, a bit in a daze, trying to decide whether to go ahead and play or just sit with the ground squirrels, rabbits and birds and contemplate what I had just experienced with this peculiar and remarkable old man and what might be in store for me.

I decided to sit. As soon as I did, a bevy of quail took up places in front of me a few yards away and an assortment of cottontails and ground squirrels including Squirrel Belly gathered around. It was an eerie feeling, I have to say. It was like they were expecting me to say something.

I looked back toward where Mr. Jones was walking away as if I could get some idea from him of what to provide these creatures apparently waiting for some pearls of animal-human wisdom from me.

But there was no sign of him whatsoever.