Golf in the Kingdom (An Esalen Book) | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Murphy
Brand: Booklegger
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 29370
Media: Paperback
Edition: 25th Anniversary
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0140195491
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780140195491
ASIN: 0140195491
Publication Date: October 1, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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Product Description
Golf In The Kingdom is the author's haunting exploration of the mystery and beauty that is at the heart of golf. A young man on his way to India, stops in the Kingdom of Fife to play the legendary and ancient golf club of Burningbush. He is paired with a mysterious and playful teacher named Shivas Irons, who leads him through a day of phenomenal golf and a night of adventures. Golf In The Kingdom is a well written story and like the game itself, the book is a journey revealing both puzzles and pleasures. Michael Murphy is a native Californian who founded the Esalen Institute with Richard Price in 1962. He is a graduate of Stanford University and did further work in the area of philosophy. He is also the author of The Kingdom Of Shivas Irons.
Amazon.com Review
Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy's divine meditation on the royal and ancient game defied categorization when it was first published in 1972, and it still does. Instantly hailed as a classic, Golf in the Kingdom is an altogether unique confluence of fiction, philosophy, myth, mysticism, enchantment, and golf instruction. The central character is a wily Scotsman named Shivas Irons, a golf professional by vocation and a shaman by design, whom Murphy, as participant in his own novel, meets in 1956 on the links of Burningbush, in Fife. The story of their round of golf together culminates in a wild night of whiskey and wisdom where, as Shivas demonstrates how the swing reflects the soul, their golf quite literally takes on a metaphysical glow. The events alter not only Murphy's game, but they also radically alter his mind and inner vision; it's truly unforgettable. For a golfer, Murphy's masterpiece is as essential as a set of clubs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 On the Fence July 14, 2008
True golfers will find passages here that resonate...even those of us who, to put it mildly, dispute the existence, let alone the presence, of the supernatural on, of all things, a golf course. But if you have persevered thru the hot/bugs/expense golf stage, you may just have experienced a brief period most of us call, shrugging it off, "The Zone."
Why else would anyone put up with all the, hot/bugs, etc., etc.?
Should we be shrugging it (The Zone) off? Michael Murphy would say, well, hell no.
Take your zone experience and multiply it by eight or nine...just within the believability range, mind you. What if Murphy really did spend that day at Burningbush [fictional name] in the Kingdom of Fife? Really. And what if he really did meet someone similar to Shivas Irons? It makes sense he would have played a round...and many, if not most of us, have met golf gurus who seemed at least a bit mysterious.
Indeed, if you have never considered golf at all mysterious, disregard this book! If you have, just a little, wondered...make the investment.
If it appeals, buy "The Kingdom of Shivas Irons" next.
Fore!
JMD
Golf in the Kingdom February 11, 2008
Book arrived on time in the condition as described the seller. Excellent book!! Great reading like Peter Jacobsen said in his book.
 A little too far "out there"! January 6, 2008
I made it through the first half of the book, which is a narrative of the golfing adventure of the author with Shivas Irons, a pro at the Burningbush golf course in Scotland. Even this part of the book is a fairly strange read, dealing with the ultimate meaning of life as it realtes to golf, but involving way too much mysticism.
The second half, which is supposed to be the author's notes about the golfing philosophy of Shivas Irons, was just not readable to me. I just had way too many other books on my reading list to spend any more time trying to fight my way through this stuff!
I loved this book October 11, 2007
This is a great book-- gotta have it
This is wonderful but I also loved A Golfers DreamA Golfer's Dream
Michael Murphy: Revolutionary Thinker September 26, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I met Michael Murphy in the late 1960's. The charismatic leader of the human potential movement captured my attention and admiration immediately. Mr. Murphy was one of those characters who sparkle with mystical magic. His life reads like a calendar of magical events. At every turn he seems to either run into or encounter the most provocative people one can imagine: Steinbeck, Spiegelberg, Brodie, Price, Aurobindo, Thompson, Maslow, and many, many more.
With the publication of Golf in the Kingdom (His first book), he managed to create a new movement, which came to be known as The Sport and Yoga Movement. The book is a delightful integration of sport, mysticism, and yoga, with a whole lot of magic sprinkled between the lines. I am amazed at its dissenters and critics. It is not "junk" as some need to say. For those of you who say it is "not for golfers", I think I can safely assume that you are regularly shooting twenty to thirty over par. There are some that say that this is just another worn-out philosophical rag, trying to integrate what's common, and I would think for them mundane, with the paranormal and mystical energies that hover all around us. To them, I would say that there is a shread of truth to their thoughts. I would like to ask those people to provide me with any literary references, expousing this thesis, that pre-date Mr. Murphy's book. For those that claim that this is just another clever contrivance for making a quick buck, I would say you are about as far off the mark as those that dismiss the book as "junk". Mr. Murphy was born wealthy. At some point in his life he inherited a large sum of money, most of which he either donated or spent in efforts to enhance the human condition. When I met the man, I believe that it was in 1969, he was driving an aged 1962, six cylinder, stick shift Cheverolet. He had bought the car new, and at that time felt that he could get at least another ten years out of it.
Bravo, Michael. Bravo for Golf in the Kingdom, and bravo for a life well lived.
Ronald James
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