They exist, these sages do. Sometimes, after they have absorbed so much from life and spent decades pondering its most curious mysteries, you even have the great fortune to bump into them as you make your way along the game of golf.

“And that’s the big thing,” said Grant Rogers, a true sage and the director of instruction emeritus at Bandon Dunes. “It’s supposed to be a game. A lot of people don’t get it. Watch kids. They get it. They get that it’s a game. But adults? Too many of them take bad shots seriously.”

Should he spill some truth that stings, so be it. He’ll tell us anyways. “Golfers think they have a lot more control of the golf ball than they do. It’s luck once you’ve hit it and sent it on its journey.”

Ah, yes. The journey. For the golf ball and for us. It is, in Rogers’ mind, important that we see life as a journey and “that people need to see golf as more of an adventure.”

Were Grant Rogers to circle the beginning of his journey, it would be those days as a young boy in Los Gatos, a town in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, just southwest of San Jose. Day after day, hours upon hours he would roll golf balls over packed-down dirt into cans.

“I was very active and my mother could never figure out where I was. So she put those cans out our back door so she could watch me and know where I was.”

His small putter was a part of him, an extension of his very being, and oh, how he loved it. When Grant Rogers recently re-discovered it in his archives, he was amazed to see that his mother had inscribed something on the putter.

“Have fun, play fair.”

Surreal, those words. Written at a time when Grant Rogers was too young to read, “Have fun, play fair” represent his mother’s wish-come-true because as sure as he is part of the fabric at Bandon Dunes and a hugely respected voice in the world of golf instruction, Rogers has always lived by those words.

“What she wrote is significant to me because it’s really important that these words are communicated to golfers,” said Rogers.

Now how he got from Los Gatos to Bandon Dunes involves a winding and intriguing path that has intersected with water polo; the iconic Michael Murphy of Golf In The Kingdom fame; lessons with John Geertsen, who molded a young Johnny Miller; years as lead instructor at the first golf course that captivated him, Pasatiempo; and the great fortune to work for Mike Keiser, a visionary of mega proportions “who wanted to play the rolling ball game a lot of different ways.”

And, oh, how Keiser’s vision has flourished hard on Oregon’s southern coast. When Rogers – who in 2000 was working at a course three hours to the north – saw Bandon Dunes Resort in its infancy (only one 18-hole course was built and construction was going on everywhere), “I liked what I was seeing.”

He started making the lengthy drive so often to play that the GM introduced himself and offered Rogers a job.

“Sometimes,” said Rogers, “something happens that puts you off in a different direction.”

Of Bandon Dunes, Rogers is unyielding in his passion. “There are two types of people,” he said. “Those who have been to Bandon and want to go back and those who haven’t been to Bandon and want to go.”

But he has always remained true to roots that were planted along his journey.

He attended San Jose State and tried out for the golf team. “I qualified fourth but the coach told me unless I quit water polo I couldn’t play.” Rogers felt that was unfair but he turned his back on golf because “I liked water polo.”

With Murphy, Rogers struck up a kinship over a few rounds of golf. A couple of Californians from towns 60 miles apart (Murphy from Salinas, Rogers from Los Gatos), they had studied philosophy and psychology in college and believed that golf had mystical powers.

“I even attended his Esalen Institute in Big Sur,” said Rogers. “We had similar perceptions of golf.”

An audience with Grant Rogers and a study of what’s been written about him – most flavorfully a "My Shot" column in Golf Digest edited and reported by the esteemed Guy Yocum – produces an assortment of his observations about the game, the people who play it, and students he teaches. Some favorites:

* Never bet with a stranger whose right shoe is chafed on the inside of the toe cap. That guy has a great weight shift, good timing and knows how to get through the ball. He will kick your butt.

* The 18-hole round is an invention. So is the nine-hole round. Play whenever the opportunity presents itself, even if it’s a couple of holes. Darting onto a course 30 minutes before it gets dark is a great thing. Mix up a few holes until you wind up back at the clubhouse.

* Never wait to be good, to have fun – and never lose sight of the fact that you’re doing something pretty special.

* With students, I tell them I want them to be the best version of a golfer they can be.

The essence of Rogers runs through the bag. He admires what all the clubs can bring to one’s game, but he admittedly is smitten with the putter. He’s still that little kid rolling balls over dirt into cans and Grant Rogers with a putter in hand at Bandon Dunes is legendary. People watched him shoot 3-under on Bandon’s best experience (my opinion), the 13-hole, par-3 Preserve. Rogers has also played some of Bandon’s other courses with just a putter, effectively using the club off the tee.

“But I’ve ruined too many putters blasting them,” laughed Rogers. “I don’t tee off with them anymore.”

But he still advocates learning to putt from long distances, to ease off hard wedges and learn to hit three-quarter 7- and 8- and 9-irons.

“It’s OK to have a little finesse, too,” said Rogers. “It’s quite good, actually.”

No charge for that lesson coming to you from Bandon Dunes. But you must promise Grant Rogers that you’ll embrace his mantra – oh, and that you’ll follow his mother’s advice, too.

Have fun, play fair.