“Golf in the Kingdom,” the 1972 novel of Zen and the art of swing maintenance, turns 50 this year, which seemed like a swell excuse to visit with its author, Michael Murphy.
He introduced us to Shivas Irons, the mysterious golf pro and philosopher with whom Murphy played a mythic round of golf on Scotland’s Burningbush Links. The book starts out in a promising manner with a golf round that plays as a wonderful allegory for life. Then, it takes an odd odyssey into philosophy and metaphysics to explain everything from the allure of golf to the purpose for its existence. Murphy’s account reveals the possibilities for transcendence that resides in the human soul, and through its mystic-philosopher, the reader, like Murphy, becomes drawn into new worlds by this ancient and haunting game.
