Opinion | Golf has a drinking problem. Sober golfers offer another way to play.

Cornelia Powers is a writer based in D.C.

There is a pivotal moment in “The Legend of Bagger Vance” — Steven Pressfield’s novel (later made into a movie) about a despairing war hero turned golf champion, Rannulph Junuh — when Junuh’s mentor, Bagger Vance, first speaks of the “Authentic Swing.” Based loosely on the character of “Bhagavan” from the Bhagavad Vita, Vance likens the golfer’s search for the Authentic Swing to a person’s search for the authentic self. The two experiences often intertwine, he says, making golf not only “a metaphor for the soul’s search for its true ground and identity” but also an instrument through which to “recall that soul and become it.”