My husband has had two (both on the second 18 of the day) and one of them, oddly...on the same hole as the golfer in the story...although my husband was not hitting from the senior tees
What an amazing accomplishment - but I hate the guy because I still haven't bagged one yet.
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/299556
My husband has had two (both on the second 18 of the day) and one of them, oddly...on the same hole as the golfer in the story...although my husband was not hitting from the senior tees
Windsor (aka Loni)
a wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age
Any of you read and remember Golf In the Kingdom, the part where Murphy, under the tootledge of the fabled Shivas Irons, goes out in the dead of night loaded on single malt to an impossible three par and, blindfolding himself for good measure, sinks a whole in one? An unbelieveable description of what it means to swing, truly swing, a golf club if I remember.
There are actually Golf in the Kingdom crazies all over the place who have started clubs that advertise in the golf magazines.
The author, and quasi fictional protagonist, is the founder of Esylan (spelling), the new agey place in Big Sur that was all the rage back in the 60s and 70s. Anyway, Murphy bagged one blind in that book, and the description of that moment more than anything else seems to have given the book its cult-like status among golfers and single-malt drinkers alike.
Bravo to the guy who has the stones and love of life to pursue the great game without sight. Doing that, the hole in one must have been a piece of cake.
I'm a Golf in the Kingdom semi-crazy, but the mysticism parts of the book I found a little ponderous (though not something I'd reject out of hand). Murphy, who has acknowledged that the book and Irons are fictional, just absolutely beats the life out of his mystical views in a nonfiction treatment, The Future of the Body. What I found charming about Kingdom was the Scots' love of golf, socializing and philosophizing. Made me wonder if it was actually possible that there could be such a people inhabiting the same planet as the Merkins.
Spelling is Esalen.
great post! Been a real while since I read the book; don't remember much about it other than that scene; come to think of it, even though I was deeply involved with my Ashram and all when I read it, I remember having found found parts of the book impenetrably dense but well worth wadding through.
True story, I took a golf lesson from my man Mike Hebron a few years ago. Told him that my knees were shot, had taken a spill on a basketball court of all places and found that the ground came up much faster and harder than it used to back in the day. Anyway, he gave me a lesson right out of the Legend of Badger Vance (Mike knows I'm a space cadet): eventually had me closing my eyes and hitting my nine wood different distances; then told me I needed to put some "swing" into whatever it was that was making the thing move, and, before you knew it, he had me taking a slight divot and hitting two hundred yard shots with a nine wood.
In a moment in time and space, I found a golf swing when I thought none was possible, with the easy suggestions from a weather-worn, former gym rat, converted to a golf pro and philosopher of the art of learning to improve. Really happened, for a moment that is.
Anyway, the name Shivas Irons, and Murphy's disclaimers in the book that it had any connection to the Indian deity or to the Scottish label were riotous. I remember that too.
still searching for that first hole in one (unless tiger woods 08 on Wii counts). However, I have an Albatross to my name