Golf in the Kingdom

by Michael Murphy

  When I willed my shots with all my might on the early holes at Burningbush I damaged my clubs, my ball, my score, my good humor, my relationship with MacIver and Shivas. A part of me—my scheming imagination—was going faster than my other parts, “faster than the Lord,” in the words of an older psychology. In his notes Shivas refers to psychic “carom shots” and “occult backlash.” These result when power is applied from inadequate love and awareness. They operate in all dimensions of life.

  Something happened to me ten or twelve years ago that brought me back to his thoughts on the subject with a jolt. It happened in the most innocent of circumstances, at a baseball game.

  The San Francisco Giants were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers on a cold and windy night, a typical night at Candlestick Park. I had gone to the game with three friends, in high spirits, determined to root our team to victory and prevail over the bitter weather. Jack Sanford, the Giants’ best pitcher then, was going against the nearly unbeatable Sandy Koufax. In those days I had developed a set of whammies to use against opposing teams, a whole array of cries and gestures reminiscent of cartoons about voodoo witch doctors. As cheerleading devices they often worked to perfection: George Leonard and I had once timed a war cry so well that Bob Gibson fell on his posterior while delivering a pitch, something he had never done before according to the next day’s Sporting Green. (There was no doubt about his fall being provoked by our well-timed cry.) On occasion I would get the people sitting near us to use these gestures too. Usually they wouldn’t, out of either embarrassment or common decency. Once, in fact, a man had been so offended by my performance that he had hit me a karate chop on the back of the head. But on this particular night everyone around joined in. I told some of them that the gestures had been developed by shamans in the Amazon basin to kill their enemies, one in particular in which the two middle fingers were doubled back under the thumb with index finger and little finger extended like evil horns toward the target. Various movements of the hands could sharpen the emanation. It was my most successful night as a cheerleader. By the third inning there were perhaps two hundred rooters practicing this form of Amazon witchcraft on Sandy Koufax and the unsuspecting Dodgers. At two points in the game I grew dizzy from the excitement we were causing.

  It soon became obvious that our devil’s rooting section was having its effect. The Dodgers began to make weirdly inept plays whenever we got a strong wave of gestures and curses going. Several hundred sets of evil horns pointed toward the diamond. But Koufax, being the phenomenal pitcher he was, was hard to budge. Inning after inning went by and there was still no Giants’ run. Toward the middle of the game the Dodgers scored once, in spite of our psychic fire-storm. We were going like fury though, working ourselves into shamanistic possession, all two hundred of us out in section 17. I thought I might faint, the energy was running so high.

  Then came the first omen. Jack Sanford was forced to retire from the game in the seventh inning, even though he had held the Dodgers to one run, because “something had happened to his arm.” Jack Sanford was ineffective for the rest of the season. In fact, he was never any good again.

  But our furious gestures and shouts continued. We had by now helped stimulate the entire crowd to frenzy. Into the ninth inning we went, still behind 1 to 0, riding the excitement we had started like the troops of Genghis Khan. We were getting better and better at timing our shots. Then with a crescendo of awful howls and laughter, we finally broke the Dodgers’ hold: in the last of the ninth the Giants scored twice and victory was ours. I staggered out of the stadium suspecting that I had almost given myself a heart attack, a psychically depleted witch doctor.

  The next morning I opened the Chronicle Sporting Green to read about the game. The first thing I saw was a very small article, a little filler, at the bottom of the page. It said “Michael Murphy dies at Giants’ game.” The article briefly told how one Michael Murphy, aged seventy-two, had died of a heart attack that night at Candlestick Park.

  “Psychic carom shots,” “occult backlash”; naturally I remembered Shivas’s words. Had I murdered poor old Mike Murphy? You might think about it if something similar happens to you.

  A Golfer’s Zodiac

  ONE STARRY NIGHT DURING the war Shivas rediscovered the zodiac. The “true zodiac” he called it, since it bore little resemblance to the one your ordinary astrologer refers to. He did not see it all that night, in fact there was still a constellation missing when I met him fifteen years later. But during his lonely nighttime vigils he looked up there and eventually put most of it in place.

  It had thirteen signs. An extra one was needed, he said, to fit the stars to our new age. As in other spheres science was badly out of touch here. We were passing now from the age of Shank to the age of MacDuff; he had named the governing constellation of the coming age after his teacher. Reading round the heavenly circle, the signs went like this: Burningbush (where Aries had been), the first sign of spring, then Porky Oliver, Morris and Morris (after Tommy, Jr., and Old Tom), Vardon, Jones, Slice, one unnamed, Hook, Disappearing Hole, Swilcan Burn (after a famous golf hazard), Hogan, MacDuff, and Shank. These were the configurations marking his “milky fairway.” He had been born, I believe, on the cusp between Hogan and MacDuff, hence his enormous regard for them both.

  The most interesting sign as far as I am concerned was “Disappearing Hole.” I thought about it after I saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, for it was something like the star-gate through which the astronaut plunged toward his shattering transformation. Apparently it was the sign Shivas peered into first during his nocturnal meditations, at least when it was in the sky. For all I know, he was looking for it that night on the window ledge. He related it to the mystery of the hole in golf, our willingness—our passion even—to humble ourselves to that tiny opening after ranging “far and wide across the green world.” Star-gate and golf hole, two symbols of Man’s crossing through, I wish I could make it out on a clear night. But I have trouble with all the signs he showed me, even though he took great pains to point them out.

  It was good to hear that we were passing out of the terrible age of Shank. The past centuries, like the dreadful golf shot after which they were named, were the very worst in civilization’s troubled history; we could look forward now to an age of “true gravity” and the apotheosis of his teacher’s vision. Hook and Slice had been other bad eras in the world’s unfoldment. The Age of Jones had been a good one.

  If my memory is correct, he said I had several planets in Swilcan Burn—though my birthdate fell on the cusp between Slice and the unnamed sign. He could tell just by looking at me that the planets were there, and this meant that I was always in danger of ending in the final hazard. Though he pronounced upon the fact with great solemnity and conviction, I have never been able to remember what the “final hazard” was.

  I asked him why he didn’t name that last sign, seeing that he could always change it later if it didn’t seem right. But he shook his head decisively and said that every sign made itself known “when he was ready.” Naming a constellation “was nae little thing.”

  Hogan and Fleck in the 1955 U.S. Open

  IN 1955, SHIVAS IRONS went to the U.S. Open Championship at the Olympic Club’s Lakeside course in San Francisco, where he followed Ben Hogan through all four rounds. Hogan, Shivas told me, had a presence that affected the entire gallery. In the dressing room after the final round, into which Shivas had somehow gained admission, the famous player gathered himself as if by long habit, “almost like a monk.”

  When reporters and fellow professionals congratulated Hogan for the fifth U.S. Open title he was about to win, he waved them away. He’d reluctantly held up five fingers for Gene Sarazen and the television cameras on the eighteenth green because Sarazen had coaxed him to do it, but now he wouldn’t get his hopes up. His even attitude never wavered, even now in this moment of apparent victory, his composure was so deeply rooted. Then, according to Shivas, an enormous cheer went up outside the clubhou
se, and Hogan swore, his equanimity broken for one angry phrase. He knew Fleck had tied his score, that a playoff would be necessary. But in an instant he returned to his centered attitude.

  Later, Shivas found himself sitting on a couch upstairs with Hogan’s wife—synchronicity having led him there—when the champion appeared, composed as ever, gracious and smiling, as centered as he was on the course.

  Before the playoff, Fleck told the press he’d discovered Hogan’s “secret.” Some speculated that it was the “pronation” Hogan had introduced into his swing to prevent hooks, but Fleck wouldn’t confirm that. Shivas, however, could see what it was. It was Hogan’s own presence, communicated directly to Fleck. His “inner body and command of true gravity” had emanated directly to the younger professional to such an extent that Jack Fleck won the 1955 Open title.

  Hogan was a true teacher but an unconscious one, said Shivas Irons, the mental part of his game had come so naturally. Just as Sam Snead was a natural “physical golfer,” Hogan was a natural “in the psychic sphere.” As far as I know, Hogan was Shivas’s chief golf hero. He had a theory that the famous player was not meant to win a fifth U.S. Open title because he had to pass “the secret” on. An occult process was working itself out teacher to teacher—Shivas Irons and Jack Fleck were now joined in the circulation of the golfing light. I have often wondered if some of it passed to me.

  It is good to remember that the mental states described in this book are familiar to golfers the world over. And I thought it might reassure you to know that Ben Hogan has been involved in such matters all along.

  A Hamartiology of Golf

  HOW THE SWING REFLECTS THE SOUL

  PETER MCNAUGHTON HAD REMARKED that nowhere does a man go so naked as he does before a discerning eye all dressed for golf. Shivas recalled the remark and asked me if I knew the word “hamartia.” (I can hear his broad Scots accent shading at times into the King’s English he had learned in his few years of formal schooling.)

  “It originally meant bein’ off the taraget, in archery or some such,” he said, “and then it came to mean bein’ off the taraget in general in all yer life—it got to mean a flaw in the character. Now I dinna’ have to tell ye that the body and the mind are both parts o’ the character, so when a man swings he tells us all about himself. Ye take MacIver now. He’s a marvelous methodic man, but damn he tries so hard, I dinna’ like to ask him out to dinner. He’s not much fun. He’ll niver be a brilliant one, but he’s got that bulldog will and ’ll probably learn somethin’ about true gravity before he’s through.” I thought of our playing partner and his absolute devotion to every maxim laid down by his teacher. Images of other people I knew began to parade before me.

  “Ye see, the basis for a change in the way a person plays the game must be laid in his entire life. Now take this talk about keepin’ yer eye on the ball. Everyone talks about it, it’s almost the first rool o’ the game. But there’s so much more to it than simply lookin’ there a’ that little thing, yer whole life is there, man, in the way ye do it, ye bring yer entire past into every shot. It’s all written there in yer bones and muscles and nerves. Ye take a man who aye looks down the fairway before he’s e’en turned into the ball, why I’ll show ye how he does it in everything else in his life.” He stood to demonstrate the movement of overanticipating during a golf swing, jerking his head and shoulders up as his hands came into the ball.

  “Now take every other kind o’ error.” He began to list them. “Lunging; now how does the fellow lunge into things generally? Maybe he disna’ have energy enough to get any power, or maybe he hasna’ learned that power comes with waitin’.”

  “Or blowin’ up, he disna’ ken what to do with excess energy or frustration or fidgetin’. God, I’ve seen players who fidget get back in the bar and keep jumpin’ around—nae center at a’!

  “Or boastin’, God, what bores some o’ them are. An enormous ratio o’ talk to skill. Compulsive talkers, recallin’ every feeble accomplishment, ye think they were heroes parring that one hole. They’re usually in bad health, I’ve noticed. Haven’t learned to get the feelin’ into their bodies, it’s so bottled up in their words.

  “Ye can tell a lot by listenin’ to the sounds a man makes, all the grunts and breathin’s around a green or on the tee. Sometimes I close my eyes to heer my pupils better—ye might try it yersel’ sometime, just listenin’ to yer foursome as if ’twere a piece o’ music. Are they makin’ good music or bad, just try listenin’.” He then described the varieties of sound he was talking about, various grunts, squeaks, and cries of the golfing world—I was amazed at the wealth of example he gave and its obvious accuracy. A golf course does give off an exhalation of sound that tells a lot about its clientele.

  “Yes, a man’s style o’ play and his swing certainly reflect the state of his soul,” he resumed his description of golfing hamartia. “Ye take the ones who always underclub. The man who wants to think he’s stronger than he is. D’ ye ken anybody like that?” He raised one quizzical eyebrow. “Think about the rest of his habits. Is he always short o’ the hole?”

  “Then there are the ones who are always owerclubbin’ and landin’ on the next tee. It’s an X-ray of the soul, this game o’ gowf. I knew a married fellow from London who kept a girl goin’ here in town, a real captain’s paradise. Well, damned if he didn’t keep two score cards for a round, one for the first nine and one for the second. And changed his balls for the second nine too, just like he did in real life. I wonder which scorecard he showed his wife?

  “I could give ye hundreds o’ examples. Someone could put an encyclopedia together about it. Tak’ the lads who run around the course with nae ability to enjoy the game or their surroundin’s oor their friends. Some o’ them have heart attacks on the uphill holes. One man owns a couple of restaurants in Dundee, big promoter, out o’ breath all the time. I won’t play with him any mair. And he certainly has nae time for me. I’ve learned these hurryin’ types can hardly wait to take their putts, especially the short ones. That’s the time to make ’em a bet—ye can win a pile knowin’ that.” He paused, shaking his head. “There is a right speed for playin’ the game, a right speed. And for living all the rest o’ the day.

  “Then there’s the man who can’t stand prosperity. One or two good holes and he’s beginnin’ to imagine the worst. Ah take ’im home and get ’im to act out his catastrophic expectations and practice some meditation.

  “If I were to paint a picture o’ the gowfin’ world, it’d look like the Hell o’ Hieronymus Bosch. Ye ken that’s what he was really paintin’.”

  “Bosch!” I exclaimed.

  “Bosch,” he said, gravely nodding his head. “Toorns out he was a gowfer too, played a game called kolven. Ye can see it when ye look at the picture o’ Hell in his ‘Garden of Earthly Delights.’ ”

  There was not a trace of doubt in his voice that Bosch had played the game and drawn inspiration from it. I have a copy of the famous triptych and look at it from time to time to comprehend his words more fully. The panel on Hell does seem to reflect the agonies I have seen on many a golf course.

  The Rules of the Game (and How They Are Related to Fairy Dust)

  THE THOUGHT OF SHIVAS Irons playing golf sometimes strikes me as an utter absurdity. Can you imagine other philosophers and mystics out on the course? Saint Francis, for example, laboring over a 3-foot putt, or Plato slinging a bag of clubs over his shoulder and striding happily down the first fairway. How a spirit so mad for the deeper mysteries could devote a life to this frustrating sport is a question that still distracts me. I sometimes grow vague at dinner parties when I think about it. And when I think of his passion for keeping score and following the rules I am sometimes led to ponder the final absurdity. The thought of him counting all eleven strokes I took during that hole at Burningbush still bogles my mind. “Michael, I think ’twas eliven.” I will never forget those words and the image of faithful MacIver writing it down as if the number would be engraved on som
e Rosetta stone.

  How a spirit so large would confine itself to things so small is the kind of paradox that gives birth to philosophy. Life in its tormenting wisdom must have given it to me for a reason, I tell myself, perhaps as a koan, delivered by some guardian spirit at the proper moment. It is significant perhaps that I met him on my way to India in search of the Infinite Mind.

  Thinking about this paradox, I realize how fascinated he was with the mystery of the hole in golf. “Do ye know any other game where ye roam so far and wide to reach such a tiny goal?” he asked us all that night. “Why do we submit to such a thing?” He was speaking for himself, not us, for no one else at the McNaughtons’ that night had so given themselves to the game. But the question is still with me. Why we choose such an anally frustrating outcome for such a wide-ranging game is a puzzler. Hogan for one has sometimes said that putting should be abandoned, that it ruins an otherwise exciting game. Does it reflect some profound constipation in the Scottish and Anglo-Saxon character? One has to wonder. But more basic to golf’s paradoxical nature than putting and the spectacle of that tiny hole at the end of all our endeavors is the utter devotion to rules and exact scorekeeping that all true golf lovers maintain. “To cheat is to end the game,” say the journal notes of Shivas Irons.

  What is the reason for this scrupulous honesty, I ask myself, having doctored my own scores for years in endlessly ingenious ways. Does it spring from the bottomless need to test and prove oneself which is so apparent in all man’s quixotic endeavors on mountain tops and outer space—or in ravines with baffing spoons? That certainly has something to do with it. Is it a way to prove yourself good to the parent within, to the court of law society has planted in your brain, is it a way to alleviate the guilt we feel just being alive? Yes, we nod in agreement, that could well be part of the reason for such scrupulous trials. But these motives, certain as they may be, are not enough to explain my teacher’s horror at golfing dishonesty and his total acceptance of the game’s confining structure.