Golf in the Kingdom

by Michael Murphy

  As the old doctor’s black and eloquent harangue developed I became aware of Agatha McNaughton. She smiled at each person as their turn came for Julian’s roasting. She had seen him do this before, I suspected, and would help carry her friends through it as she would a child who cried in the night. She gave Shivas a long and affectionate look when his turn came. Then she winked at me. When Julian was finished she quietly rose and brought us each a cup of tea. It was a time for silent thought, so many of the old man’s words had hit the mark. Eve Greene was furious, I thought, and had a difficult time returning Agatha’s understanding look. Adam looked dumbly into the fire. Agatha permitted the silence, but was seeing to it that we were comforted through our dark reflections. Dr. Laing spit into the fire again and muttered a few inaudible curses.

  Shivas was the first to speak. “Julian,” he said solemnly, “ye’ve made it difficult for me to sing the praises o’ gowf. There is somethin’ like the final word about yer speech. I think we need Agatha’s blessin’ now if we are to proceed.” He leaned toward her. “Now Agatha, lassie, tell us what ye think. Ye’re the fairest one here, and the only one to break the spell tha’ Julian has put upon us.” His sentiment was echoed by the rest of the group. We all wanted her warmth after the pounding Laing had given us. So Agatha spoke about golf and about the love men have for one another.

  “It’s the only reason ye play at all,” she said. “It’s a way ye’ve found to get togither and yet maintain a proper distance. I know you men. Yer not like women or Italians huggin’ and embracin’ each other. Ye need tae feel yer separate love. Just look—ye winna’ come home on time if yer with the boys, I’ve learned that o’er the years. The love ye feel for your friends is too strong for that. All those gentlemanly rools, why, they’re the proper rools of affection—all the waitin’ and oohin’ and ahin’ o’er yer shots, all the talk o’ this one’s drive and that one’s putt and the other one’s gorgeous swing—what is it all but love? Men lovin’ men, that’s what golf is.” The strong lines of her face were softened by the fire’s glow. “I think the loss o’ love is Julian’s real despair, whate’er his philosophized tells him. He misses the leisurely pace when there was time for more affection. Now don’t ye, Julian? I miss it too. Most of the women miss it, the ones I know. We hurry through our days.” She looked at Peter and took his hand. Then she lifted back her head. “Oh, golf is for smellin’ heather and cut grass and walkin’ fast across the countryside and feelin’ the wind and watchin’ the sun go down and seein’ yer friends hit good shots and hittin’ some yerself. It’s love and it’s feelin’ the splendor o’ this good world.” There was music in her gentle Scottish burr, a fullness in her feeling for us. It was becoming obvious by now that each of us had a different song to sing in praise of the mysterious game.

  “Oh, Agatha, Agatha,” said Shivas, “how can I say anything more after that? Yer eloquence leaves me dumb. It would be embarrassin’ for me tae say anythin’ at all, so I’ll not speak. Good friends, let me be now. I’ll just look into the fire and roominate about what ye’ve all said.”

  But his friends would not have it. They all urged him on. He protested again, but was drowned out by their urgings and derisions. “Humbug,” rumbled Julian, “enough now o’ yer habitual laziness. We willna’ let ye git away wi’ that.” It was apparent that they knew what a put-on artist he could be.

  “Well, now, what d’ye make o’ that?” Shivas said. “Ye really value my poor views on the subject, it almost makes me want to weep.” He smiled though as he said it.

  And so his talk about golf began. He first asked Agatha some questions about what she had said, getting her to admit the game had its foul aspects as well as its noble and beautiful ones. He gave Julian credit for having stated so well the dark and tragic side, man’s “hamartia” in golf and everything else. He got her to agree that people were usually hypnotized by the game, just as they were by most of the other activities in their lives, that Julian had been eloquent on that subject too. “But we must remember that hypnosis is first cousin to fascination,” he said, “and all art and love depend on fascination. Ye can hear Beethoven playin’ on the radio and not recognize it nor feel it at all if ye’re preoccupied wi’ somethin’ else. But once ye turn to hear it, down ye go into his world, into his deep and stormy world. Or a poem bein’ read by a friend, or a lovely face—if ye’re not fascinated by it, it goes right by unnoticed. So it is with golf. There’s no use playin’ if the fascination doesna’ take ye.” He was silent for a while. “Now ye’ve brought in Seamus MacDuff, so I must tell ye what he tells me, him bein’ my main teacher about the game. Accordin’ to him, life is nothin’ but a series of fascinations, an odyssey from world to world. And so with golf. An odyssey it is—from hole to hole, adventure after adventure, comic and tragic, spellin’ out the human drama. Fascination holds us there, makes us believe ’tis all-important. Now, and this is the point Seamus makes so often and which I love so much, fascination has a gravity of its own. It can draw upon the subtle forces, draw them round us lik’ a cloak, and create new worlds.” He looked at me as he said this. Suddenly his face began to shimmer. I felt the same presence I had felt on the course with him. “Worlds of subtle energy when the fascination takes us,” he said, drawing us into his spell. “Now this happens all the time, every day, and we go like Ulysses from place to place, hardly knowin’ what we’re about. But—and this is the second point from old Seamus’s book—we can begin to look around and ken these many worlds, what they are and what they make us. World upon world, all the heavens and hells of our daily lives. ‘Man the great amphibian,’ ” he began reciting from the Religio Medici, “ ‘whose nature is disposed to live, not only like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds.’ And his odyssey does not end here or there or any place we’ve seen yet.” He paused again, gazing across the room as if waiting for the next inspiration. “So as we ken these many worlds, see them with a clearer eye, we learn to move more freely—and learn o’ worlds tha’ lie beyond.” He raised a long finger and held it in front of his nose. “Yes, worlds within worlds right in front o’ our nose. Think about the times ye really concentrated upon a thing, did ye see it change in front o’ your very eyes? Now, did it not? The lovely face tha’ grew lovelier still, the new music in the old tunes, the new meanin’s in the familiar poem, the new energies in the old swing? Yes, worlds within worlds here, with new shapes, new powers. Now did ye e’er make a ball curve in the air just by willin’ it? New powers there, will ye na’ say? So this is the first point o’ my speech, my friends, namely that fascination frees our journey through the worlds and opens the doors to where we want to go. In this I think—when I get into my metaphysical mind—I think we’re like the great God, who lost Himself in this dark unconscious universe and wends His way back toward light and fullest knowin’. Forgettin’ and rememberin’, losin’ and findin’ our original face—the great God and all of us are in the game togither. We’re all o’ us joined to the growin’ world, with God we’re wakin’ up.” There was total silence in the room now, except for the sound of logs snapping in the fire. Then a smile appeared on his face, it broadened to a grin, he began to laugh. “Oh, we forget and remember every day, forget and remember what we’re all about. And so, my friends, we come to discipline and the loveliness o’ rools, the very loveliness of the game o’ gowf. Fascination is the true and proper mother of discipline. And gowf is a place to practice fascination. ’Tis slow enough to concentrate the mind and complex enough to require our many parts. In that ’tis a microcosm of the world’s larger discipline. Our feelin’s, fantasies, thoughts and muscles, all must join to play. In gowf ye see the essence of what the world itself demands. Inclusion of all our parts, alignment o’ them all with one another and with the clubs and with the ball, with all the land we play on and with our playin’ partners. The game requires us to join ourselves to the weather, to know the subtle energies that change each day upon the links and the subtle fee
lin’s of those around us. It rewards us when we bring them all together, our bodies and our minds, our feelin’s and our fantasies—rewards us when we do and treats us badly when we don’t. The game is a mighty teacher—never deviatin’ from its sacred rools, always ready to lead us on. In all o’ that ’tis a microcosm o’ the world, a good stage for the drama of our self-discovery. And I say to ye all, good friends, that as ye grow in gowf, ye come to see the things ye learn there in every other place. The grace that comes from such a discipline, the extra feel in the hands, the extra strength and knowin’, all those special powers ye’ve felt from time to time, begin to enter our lives.”

  I thought of our round that afternoon. “Those special powers and knowings,” I knew what he meant. That drive on the first hole, curving gently to follow the path I had seen. The crystalline view from the thirteenth green, yes, I knew what he meant.

  “My friends,” he said, “devoted discipline and grace will bring ye knowin’s and powers everywhere, in all your life, in all your works if they’re good works, in all your loves if they’re good loves. Ye’ll come away from the links with a new hold on life, that is certain if ye play the game with all your heart.”

  Evanescent corridors of memory intervene between my writing and his talk, so there are gaps in this brief account. I remember well, however, the applause and hurrahs that followed and the magical presence he left in the room.

  But this was not to be a gathering for contemplation. We were soon embarked on a lively discussion of shanking and the problem of evil; Peter, well influenced now by drink, maintained that in terms of body language it was the clearest example of the game’s diabolical nature. Then suddenly there was a loud banging at the front door and raucous shouts from the street below. Someone was trying to get in. A large, ebullient man who looked to be in his late twenties came bursting into the room. He was dressed in an orange sweater and enormous red Tam O’Shanter. He demanded loudly that we join him in his revels. “Come on, ye sober logs,” he bellowed, grabbing Peter’s shoulders, “come to Clancy’s house to celebrate my victory.” He wrestled Peter around the room knocking over a chair. I was alarmed, he was so enormous. He must have been six feet five or so. He caught Agatha in a bear hug, then Kelly with a hammerlock around the neck. Then he saw Shivas sitting in a corner. “My God, look there,” he cried, “who let him in, the hound of hiven, the bastard. He hounds me e’erywhere, the terrible man hounds me e’erywhere.” He took off his Tam O’Shanter and sailed it across the room onto Shivas’s lap. “A hole-in-one,” he bellowed.

  Shivas put the Tam on his own head and pointed a menacing finger at the intruder. “Ye’ll na’ disrupt our higher talk, Evan Tyree. We’er onto better things and will na’ be led by you nor any man to celebrate mere victories o’ the flesh.”

  Evan Tyree was the local golf champion, one of the best amateur players in British history, they said. When it came to scoring, he was the most proficient and famous of Shivas’s pupils. He had just won a notable British tournament.

  “My good friends, I’ve celebrated about the town wi’ all the sober judges and potentates and will na’ leave ye, the very arcane priests o’ gowf. And ye’ll na’ tell me, Shivas Irons, to sober up—for God or any other one.”

  “Nae, nae, Evan, ye canna’ end our party here,” said Peter. “We’ve been singin’ the praises o’ gowf the night, each sayin’ what it is that makes its mystery and allure, so now ye do the same. Tell us what the game means to you, great champion.”

  The rest of the group joined to urge the colorful intruder on. “Let’s get the genuine word from a genuine champion,” said Shivas. “Now we’ll hear what it’s really all about. Evan will put our poor talks to shame.”

  Evan Tyree walked across the room, grabbed the enormous Tarn from his teacher’s head and placed it on his own. “Let me wear my champion’s crown if I must speak,” he said. He drew himself to his full height and looked up at the ceiling. “But I winna’ speak o’ gowf, oh, no. I can only tell ye about my teacher, for ’twas he wha showed me the way.” He bowed deeply, doffing his Tarn to Shivas. “ ’Twas he wha taught me a’ the graces o’ the gemme, to hold my temper when retreatin’ from par and bogey, to use the inner eye to make the game a very prayer.”

  He held his hand to his chest. “When I was young and he was first a legend, I had the privilege o’ playin’ with him on many a day. And I wid throw my clubs and shak’ my fist at God and scream across the links like a banshee. ’Twas he wha showed me self-control. For he would miss his shots, deliberately I later learned, and stay so cool to embarrass me. One day he shot a ninety, yes, a ninety, my friends, and laughed and complimented me all the way. Had a grand time, he did, never lookin’ back at par, never panickin’ or cursin’, just steady through it a’, the same as he always is. And that I say is the mark o’ a brave and holy man, that he can retreat like that from par without a whimper. I’ve never forgotten that holy round, the memory o’ it haunts me still and settles me after many a rotten hole.

  “And morower, ’twas he wha showed me the religion o’ the game. I’ll ne’er forget the time he stood there on ol’ thirteen upoon the hill, for hours lost in contemplation, doin’ his meditatin’ while standin’ up. Jist a boy I came to watch him there at sunset, and he stood into the wee hours, waitin’ for his inspiration. I learned a thing or two about the higher laws tha’ night watchin’ him there lookin’ out tae sea.

  “And all the times I’ve tried to lead the man astray, a hundred times, wi’ bets and drinkin’ and fornicatin’, but there he stands like the Rock o’ Gibraltar, givin’ in to his prayers and contemplations but niver once tae me. Oh, we’ve gone out on the town so many nights and howled at the moon together and laft until the sun come up, but ne’er once did he j’in me in my wretched time wi’ the men and women o’ the town here. When we went to London I thought I would corrupt him then, for once and for all. So I took him to the greatest place in Mayfair, full o’ the finest lassies o’ England and the Continent. I thought that night I would see him fall but what d’ye think happened? He was the sensation o’ the house, regalin’ fower or five o’ the lassies wi’ his stories and winnin’ smile, a regular satyer on the face o’t. And disappear, he did, upstairs wi’ a few o’ them. But he winna’ tell me to this day what he did. Oh, he is a hard man when it comes to deviatin’. Only in the upward direction will he go astray.”

  “Enough now, Evan,” Shivas broke in, “ye’re only tryin’ tae rooin my reputation among the lassies, makin’ me out tae be some kind o’ churchmoose. But we winna’ be fooled by all o’ that. It’s my very own wildness that has so influenced you, just look at yer wild ways.” Evan Tyree, I learned, was vastly erratic in tournament play and private life. Contemplation did not seem to be his calling. He picked Agatha up and fell with her in his lap onto the floor. “Now, Agatha darlin’, ye’re my true love, let’s rin awa’ frae Peter,” he said and smiled drunkenly.