In the Sunday Sports Selection series, we showcase a sports-related product (gadget, book, film, equipment, etc.) that we have enjoyed and think you may find of interest as well.

Before he was Ali, before he was Hitch, before he was Hancock, before he was pursuing happiness, and before he battled robots, sharks, and aliens for the last time, Will Smith was a mysterious golf caddy by the name of Bagger Vance.

Bagger Vance came out of the middle of the night to help local Savannah golfer Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) find his game and play in a two-day tournament against all-time golf greats Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen in the 2000 movie The Legend of Bagger Vance.

I happened upon this great movie the other night on Charter’s On Demand and felt I had to bring this beautifully shot and filmed movie that was directed by Robert Redford back to light.

Besides the big tournament, there are a couple of other subplots, but the main focus is the interaction between Junuh and Vance as Junuh struggles to regain his golf game and his “authentic swing.” As Bagger says in a great scene with young boy Hardy Greaves (J. Michael Moncrief):

Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing… Somethin’ we was born with… Somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone… Somethin’ that can’t be taught to ya or learned… Somethin’ that got to be remembered… Over time the world can, rob us of that swing… It get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas… Some folk even forget what their swing was like…

I am by no means a golf fan, since I am terrible at it and find it boring to watch (yea…sorry golf fans), but I just love this movie.

I believe part of it is because of the tale of comeback and overcoming adversity in this movie, but I also believe that is because of the above quote. I actually took that saying to heart for my baseball swing when I first saw this movie in high school. I would actually swing with my eyes closed, step up to a tee, reclose my eyes and then hit off the tee.

It took me a little time to get it down, but I eventually was able to stroke the ball off the tee even with my eyes closed. This ultimately gave me complete confidence when I stepped in against live pitching much as Rannulph Junuh ultimately gains confidence in his swing thanks to the advice parted by Bagger.

The story of Junuh playing against Hagan and Jones is fictional, but the characters of Hagan and Jones are of course taken directly from history. While the characters of Junuh and Vance are fictional, they are actually derived from the Hindu scriptural epic the The Bhagavad-Gita.

Bagger Vance is a fictionalized version of Bhagavan (Bag-a-van = Bagger-Vance), the supreme Hindu deity, and Junuh is a fictionalized version of Arjuna (Ar-juna = R. Junuh), whom Bhagavan helps in the Bhagavad-Gita. (And even though I’ve read the Bhagavad-Gita, I never came close to putting the two together, so thanks to Click 2 Flicks, who have a lot of interesting background information on this movie and many others.)

Another interesting piece of back story for the movie is that the scene on the final hole when Junuh accesses a penalty upon himself is actually based on an event in Bobby Jones career when he did the same thing in the 1925 U.S. Open Championship (only for Jones to lose the tournament by a single stroke).

This is a great movie I recommend for any sports fan and anyone interested in a story about overcoming adversity. You can find the movie in your local movie store most likely or you can purchase it. I’ve seen it in the past on the DVD bargain shelfs at Wal-Mart or Target. You can also get it for a good price online. You can probably get it for just a few dollars on eBay if you are an eBay user or Amazon has it as cheap as $1.93 on DVD or $0.01 on VHS.

Shotgun Spratling

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