Customer Reviews

Golf in the Kingdom

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I read this book when it first came out and found it to be awe-inspiring. I've actually never read a book that has captivated me in the way in which this one has -- while reading it and the after-effect it has had on my life. Michael Murphy's writing abilities to captivate you on a mystical journey about golf of all things -- is just amazing! And the sequel "The Kingdom of Shivas Irons" is just as incredible. I love many things about golfing and these books have opened my interest to the world of golf even further. I was surprised by a few of the reviews which had a different experience reading this book. I think you either understand the essence of these stories or you don't, but if you do they leave you with an overwhelmingly profound feeling and deeper interest in golf.

A delightful journey through Eastern and Western philosophy and mysticism fashioned by the master teacher and acclaimed 'human potential' researcher/philosopher/writer from Esalen. The fine writing combines the simplicity and depth of Steinbeck with more than touch of J.P. Donleavy's raucus good humor. Don't miss the opportunity to laugh at yourself and the human condition with Murphy's wonderful characters. You may want to improve your golf score and succeed by reading this book, but this is a work with the potential to transform your perspective on life. Murphy delivers this jewel with an elegance and wit worthy of the wonderful game he uses to convey his message. Treat yourself to a classic. Thank you Michael!

Read this book, and you'll really want to be a better golfer. It may not help your score (in fact, it will make you stop cheating and you'll have to deal with your real score), but it will give voice to strong feelings you probably have always had about the game, but may not have realized out on the muni.

What is our true relationship with nature? Shivas takes dead aim, and one round of golf will change you forever.

If you are one of those who understands that Caddyshack (the best movie about golf), like all great comedy, not only is fun to watch, but also actually changes the way you play golf (and do everything else), then you will find that GITK (the best book about golf), like all great philosophical art, not only is fun to read, but also actually changes the way you play golf (and do everything else).

This book is great for the golfer and non-golfer alike. I read this book while traveling from Washington, DC to Chicago and needed something to read through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Murphy weaves a masterful tale of his round of golf with Shivas Irons, a mythical caddie/coach and through this experience Shivas helps him understand more about himself, his swing, and his life, and his place in the universe. While this book is a bit out there compared to your run of the mill golf book, it is entertaining and thought provoking in a way not seen in many books about sport. This book has soul-not many do.

This is simply the best articulation of the joy and mystique of the game that has ever been written. There are lessons here that are obvious as well as subtle. I have read it at least five times and each time I find something new. This is for the true golfer who appreciates the mysteries of golf and understands that "the game is meant for walking."

Golf at its best bares us, shows us not who we think we are, but who we truly are. As we curse and delight in the game's cagey offerings of disappointment and intermittent reward, as we alternately buck and welcome its fabulous mystery and rolls, even the most reluctant of us cannot help but heed the ageless pull--we unwittingly fathom the game is alive, stirring our souls. Like no other work before or after, GOLF IN THE KINGDOM calls us to this recognition. From its epigram, "The game was invented a billion years ago--don't you remember?" on to the now-famed, "Let the nothingness into yer shots," we are beckoned to what we know. With grace and lyricism, Michael Murphy concocts a shimmering world in which golf can live, and like an alchemist--through the whimsical, wise, larger-than-life magical master Shivas Irons--creates the voice of the game itself. Some years ago this book drew me back to the game I love. As a golf coach, I've carried it as a talisman, recommended it to my students, and bought more than my share of copies for friends. Because Murphy's magic is infinite and simple. In his kingdom he lures us to fascination, moves us to believe in golf's--in life's--special powers, and so, ourselves.

I have just finished reading this classic for the fourth time, and I never fail to learn something new. My copy is dog-eared, underlined, annotated, and highlighted, and I'm already looking forward to my next read. It is not a book about technique, but it has done more for my game than any book on technique ever has, and I've been playing golf for over fifty years. You can hear the Scottish burr, you can smell the heather, you can almost taste the whiskey. Thank you, Michael Murphy, for showing us the way.

I don't care how many times I read this book, I always walk away with something new. If you enjoy philosophy in a modern context without going to "new-age", this is a great book. I would also recommend Life of Pi.

Michael Murphy is not simply a golfer, or golf writer, but a philosopher, co-founder of Esalen Institute and a thinker who has boldly gone where no other has before him -- or certainly not with such dash and wit. Shivas Irons is one of the great creations of golf literature or any other. I've read this book six or seven times, always captivated by the prose and the tale-spinning. I believe it every time! And the gems tucked in here: the dinner in which Shivas speaks in praise of golf is lifted from Plato's "Symposium," complete with the drunken intervention of Evan Tyrhee (Alcibiades to Shivas' Socrates) to make his speech in praise of his mentor. Excellent on every count, worth a read and a re-read every year.

Patrick Murphy was told he tries too hard and thinks too much when playing golf. On the North Sea in Fife there is an ancient golf course, a golf links. The author met a philosopher-poet on a golf course in Scotland in 1956.

In 1956 Michael Murphy was on his way to India to an ashram to visit the Indian seer, Aurobindo. His mental environment at the time included sayings of Aurobindo, St John of the Cross, Plotinus, and Meister Eckhart. The name of the person in the golf course encounter is Shivas Irons. A year and a half later, in California, the voice of Shvias Irons had taken root in Murhpy's head. Richard Price, a classmate at Stanford, and Murphy set up an institute, Esalen, a residential program, to explore human potential. Murphy returned to Scotland in 1970. He found out Shivas Irons had left some time in 1963.

Personal charm is physical. Irons was not an ordinary golf porfessional. His look was part of his teaching. Shivas played in the Kingdom of Fife. He stressed adherence to the rules. The name here is Shivas as in Chivas Regal. The golf guru being described is a Scotsman.

When Murphy had dinner with Shivas and some of his friends someone said that golf is the yoga of the supermind. Supermind is a term from aurobindo. Later, when the author and Shivas went to Shivas's place, it became clear to Michael Murphy that he was being recruited as a sort of publicist to the outside world for Shivas's musings about golf and metaphysics.

In his youth, when club members had wanted Shivas to compete on the international circuit and were willing to pay his expenses, he realized that he had developed a phobia about people that would impair his playing. He had dropped out of college to pursue his spiritual researches. He did, however, enter the British Open. When he managed to overcome his shyness, it seemed that the round was being played in technicolor and that drums sounded. He saw that he could play golf and be a philosopher.

After hearing more details of Shivas's life, Michael Murphy decided that he had to leave for London right away. He was, at the time, fixated on maintaining his travel schedule of trains and so forth. In golf the ratio of goal to playing field is large. In 1944 Shivas went to the U.S. Open in San Francisco and followed Ben Hogan. Ben Hogan was a true teacher, but unconscious of it. Golf is a game of seeing and feeling. It is meant for the walking, not for the shots. The world is a Koan is one of the statements Murphy found in Shivas's notes.