...I joined the society a few years ago after sitting on the lip for years. I don’t know why I waited. I adore Golf in the Kingdom and everyone I've ever met who loved it too. It’s been on my top-ten shelf ever since I sequestered a top-ten shelf for books. To the best of my knowledge, however, none of the other top-teners: Moby Dick; Antoine St. Exupery’s Wind, Sand, Stars, Peter Mathesson’s The Snow Leopard resulted in the creation of a tribe committed to everyday mysticism, a tribe that considers golf a legitimate yoga. When I’ve been around Shivas members there was little talk of swing planes or handicaps. There was no pecking order based on how far we hit our driving irons, or whether we even carried one. The golf and the sitting together afterward was a celebration of our shared experience, our glasses raised to the mystery of being alive. The Shivas Irons Society, the fact that it exists at all, is a miracle. It has renewed my love of golf, the possibilities of connection and how good it feels, if only every now and then, to be free from fear.
