The Kingdom of Shivas Irons

While it's always difficult to follow-up a blockbuster novel, movie etc Michael Murphy has done so with remarkable style and panache. Although written almost 30 years after 'Golf in the Kingdom' first debuted, 'The Kingdom of Shivas Irons' is definitely worth the read. Murphy goes back to Scotland to try to track down the elusive and enlightened Shivas with mixed results. Several adventures along the way make the reader think about the true meanings of golf and life as metaphysical happenings deeper than what's on the surface. If you liked G.I.T.K, you will not be disappointed with this sequal. This book, like the first one is similar to an onion--- peeling off several layers of meaning only reveals to you several more. Digging into this book and it's liquid smooth plot make you feel like you're out on the course 170 yards from the hole with a five-iron in hand ready to go for broke over a pond. It draws you in slowly and very subtley, but the effect is still the same--- you come away shaking your head in amazement!

This book has everything I could ever want in a book: an engaging story, a shamanic quest, metaphysical speculation and Bill Murray. Golf as a martial art. Golf as integral practice for "the life beyond." This is the only golf book I've ever picked up that refers to Henry Corbin's "Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth," and Sufi/Orthodox/Catholic spiritual practices. Really a very enchanting story. Makes me want to take up golf and go muck about in Scotland. Highly recommended.

Murphy has an uncanny ability to stir deep philosophical truth, esoteric mysticism, and highly original characters into one intoxicating brew. Though this book cavorts even further than Golf in the Kingdom into almost unimaginable human capacities, the sheer charm of the storytelling makes all these events seem possible. This is, in the end, the most important thing to get from Murphy's writing: an expanded sense for what human beings might be capable of. By transforming a golf course into a mystery school, Murphy shows us that even the most banal, pedestrian, or mundane dimensions of our lives can become touched with magic and become a vessel for the descent of a higher Spirit. In articulating today's quest for an embodied spiritual life, Murphy's fiction has no peers.

Michael Murphy has reinvented Golf in the Kingdom and Shivas Irons in 1997, 25 years later, with another compelling novel, The Kingdom of Shivas Irons, that has provided greater understsnding of the mysteries of golf. While Golf in the Kingdom offered an alternativbe for enjoying and performing the game, The Kingdom of Shivas Irons tells us, within a story line that searches for Shivas Irons across Scottish and Russian geopgrapy, how we can practice what we have learned. About practice, Murphy in his enviable style, describes practice regimens reflecting upon his experiences with Shivas Irons at Seamus McDuff's exploratory performance laboratory somewhere in Scotland. He stated, " No matter how hard it tries, by spotlighting equipment technology and swings, the golf industry will not kill the inner game." Murphy continues, that golf as a sub-culture preoccupied with quick fixes and immediate gratification, golfers are suscceptable to constant equipmnet and swing changes as the path for improved play. Murphy suggested to explore the inner game, to develop the unconscious, imaginatve mind, is essential for performace of swing execustion. During practice sessions, Murphy recommended; The shot I'd just hit demands time for enjoyment......that simple resotorative attention develops with practice......or when we practice any skill, we store something away for times when our thought and feelings wander.......let go of ordinary feeling and thought and you are at once more self sufficient. It is must read for Kingdom lovers, golf teachers and all golfers who seek joy in thier rounds and consistent improvement. Buck, Nadia and Ziparelli are unforgetable characters who weave a tale of human potantial experiences in pursuit of self-disclosures and quality living while allowing an exploration of golf's mysteries its rightful place in the novel. The final chapters describe in detail for students of the inner game, an extraordinary 18 hole match between Murphy and John Stuart (have fun guessing who he is) at Pebble Beach. It is great fun.