The Society is named in honor of Shivas Irons, the mystical and prodigiously talented golf professional who was introduced to us in Michael Murphy's classic novel, Golf in the Kingdom. In the single day he spends with Murphy on a revered Scottish links, Shivas instructs him in the metaphysical aspects of golf, including the elusive “true gravity.” The game is revealed as a doorway to the mysteries of life, a higher dimension of experience and a path to truth and self-discovery.

Twenty years after the publication of Golf in the Kingdom, the tremendous popularity of the novel, and the outpouring of letters from readers who were anxious to share their own mystical or breakthrough experiences on the golf course, led to the formation of the Shivas Irons Society in 1992, during the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.