Saturday, February 04, 2012
Opportunities for community, discovery and transformation through golf.
Articles

It's always nice to see the lessons of Shivas being appropriately applied to our professional and personal lives outside the realm of golf. This interesting article by a long-time Shivas Irons Society member is a perfect example. (SC)


I know from experience that it's frequently difficult, and sometimes virtually impossible, to appreciate and savor the "in-between times," particularly when you are stressed from facing multiple deadlines in a contentious piece of litigation or you are in the middle of a large, difficult task. But if you can take a moment and think back to other similar experiences in your own life, I imagine you'll be able to recall other times when you were "in between," and that will assist you with the task at hand. And for those of us who have children, let me suggest that the "in-between times" are often the best times.

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“Ye can do it with a stick if ye concentrate.” — Shivas Irons

On December 30th SIS president Steve Cohen joined a group of about ninety golf aficionados, including a number of other SIS members, who turned out to celebrate the spirit and joy of golf in a manner that Shivas would undoubtably approve.

The occasion was the annual two-club tourney at Quail Lodge founded several years ago by SIS Charter Member Frank Pokigo and now co-organized by Frank and Scottish expatriate Colin Campbell.

Among the participants was award winning golf writer Lorne Rubenstein… Lorne is a fan of Golf in the Kingdom and long time supporter of the Shivas Irons Society and we are delighted to share his reflections on this event and his appreciation for "its emphasis on a collective achievement: individuals joining to help somebody in need."

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Sometimes the wave of energy will tumble you and make you look like a fool. This is the time to exercise your sense of humor, without which we are all doomed. If you were someone else watching your goof-up, would you not have to stifle a giggle? On the great ocean of energy forces, we are all just bobbing up and down. Sometimes I am above you and sometimes I am below. Nobody gets to be up all the time.

True gravity is real. You can learn to feel it and you can learn to let it take you for a ride.

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An honest and moving account of how a day on the links with Marty Turcios provided a transformative experience and an opportunity for one golfer to tear down a wall of indifference and fear that had taken a lifetime to build.

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The highest achievement of the spiritual life is within the full embrace of the ordinary. Our appetite for the big experience--sudden insight, dazzling vision, heart-stopping ecstasy-- is what hides the true way from us." These words head the dust jacket description of Breakfast at the Victory,a memoir by James P. Carse, the director of religious studies at New York University.

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Golf, it seems, is a mystery school housed in a game, a pastime with a genius for evoking the supernatural. As Shivas Irons said, "golf has a mighty past and promises a greater future." Since Golf in the Kingdom was published in 1972, I have received many letters describing extraordinary events and experiences related to golf. One of my favorites is from the woman who dreamt that the gods practice the creation of universes by playing golf. In this dream, she had risen to the place where they do this, initiating a new universe with each golf shot! Bringing their superhuman consciousness to perfect focus, they compressed the ball into the tiny point from which each universe expands. Each poor shot, it seemed, made a universe that was somehow deformed, while each good shot made a beautiful one. The better the shot, the better the universe!

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One of the great pleasures of Golf in the Kingdom is that it's a work that rewards rereading. I've read it seven or eight times, and I always discover some fresh delight that Michael Murphy has salted in there, but that I was too dense to pick up before. In this piece I want to highlight--for those who, like me, may have overlooked some treasures--one of the great gems of the book. It's the chapter entitled "Singing the Praises of Golf."

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The following interview with Extraordinary Golf® founder and coach Fred Shoemaker took place in April 2006 in conjunction with the release of his latest book, Extraordinary Putting: Transforming the Whole Game (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), in collaboration with Jo Hardy

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Fred Shoemaker is a golf teacher of a rather different stripe. He isn’t so much into instructing on the mechanics of the swing, although that is certainly included in his schools, but in his students learning how to connect with their golfing soul, so to speak. Shoemaker’s method has a Socratic turn to it. He believes there must be a dialogue between the student and the coach, a term he prefers over teacher. He doesn’t want his students to simply listen and do as told, but to ask questions, question the answers, and in the final analysis become self-taught golfers who learn through their own experience, their own sense of self, and become their own best teacher. The concept has a celestial thrust, but on a practical level is a worthy goal if only because golfers must recognize when their swing or concentration is not going well and then have the wherewithal to correct the problems in the midst of a round.

In this interview we discover how Fred came to this method of instruction, but perhaps more importantly, why he embraces it.

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From the Journal

A Conversation with Michael Murphy

SIS Journal [Issue 3]

Michael Murphy has had a profound impact on the game of golf as we know it and have come to understand it. We thought it would be a good idea to talk with Murphy on the 34th anniversary of his groundbreaking book, Golf In the Kingdom, and be refreshed on what motivated him to write the book and what his thinking was while he wrote it. We also wanted to get some insights from him on any changes of mind he may have come to, how his thoughts have been expanded, and how he places them in the context of the neo-modern age of golf. As expected, he was energetic of mind, still deeply devoted to the philosophical underpinning of his book and, indeed, his life. – The Editors

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