<P> During the Great Depression of 1931, two legends of golf, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, compete in a thirty - six - hole showdown . Another golfer also competes, a troubled local war hero named R. Junuh with a mentor and caddie, the mysterious Bagger Vance . </P> <P> The plot is loosely based on the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita, where the Warrior / Hero Arjuna (R. Junuh) refuses to fight . The god Krishna appears as Bhagavan (Bagger Vance) to help Arjuna follow the path of the warrior and hero that he was meant to take . This relationship was fully explained by Steven J. Rosen in his 2000 book Gita on the Green, for which Pressfield wrote the foreword . </P>

The legend of bagger vance a novel of golf and the game of life