Speaker 1: Jeff, I called you, Jeff, Yes, absolutely, mm hm golf
Speaker 1: is that they anything in golf that doesn't change? Anything
Speaker 1: that changes the best in playing? Does this man a
Speaker 1: one time winner on the PGA Tour? The point Alan
Speaker 1: is he didn't go Hollywood. You need a fourth before
Speaker 1: we get to the episode, we should tip our caps
Speaker 1: to echo our corporate sponsors here and of course Lydia
Speaker 1: co the New World Number one is a long time
Speaker 1: Echo ambassador. Michael, do do you know my affection for
Speaker 1: Lydia and I share it? Just a charming person and
Speaker 1: an outstanding golfer. You've done her far better than I.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about her? Well? I still
Speaker 1: have her hat from the Olympics in Rio is his
Speaker 1: gorgeous New Zealand hat, and asked for I could keep it.
Speaker 1: She said yes. But one time I was talking to her,
Speaker 1: I said, where does your power come from? She says,
Speaker 1: it's from the ground. You know. It's like a really
Speaker 1: old school. And she has beautiful footwork. And I always
Speaker 1: watch her swing the club and she's like she's dancing.
Speaker 1: And as I'm as I'm observing this, I always noticed
Speaker 1: her her Echo Biome shoes like they just seem to
Speaker 1: give her superpowers. Have you have observed anything along those lines. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what the great teachers say. There's only one
Speaker 1: thing that connects you to the ground in this game,
Speaker 1: and that's your They don't say your echo shoes, but
Speaker 1: in this case, it is her echo shoes. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. The secret to Lydia COO's success along with
Speaker 1: many other talents. But she's wearing the right footwears all right.
Speaker 1: Back to ned A fourth, Hello and welcome back to
Speaker 1: NITA four, a podcast for Michael Bamberger, Jeff Ogilvie and
Speaker 1: myself invite a surprise guest on two of the people.
Speaker 1: Don't know who's on the line. I happen to do so.
Speaker 1: Um A little hint to you boys. He's a He's
Speaker 1: known as a golf writer, but he's only written one
Speaker 1: golf book, plus it's sequel. Um. He is a astronaut
Speaker 1: of the inner cell. To use a felicitous phrase from
Speaker 1: one of his one of his that he typed. Um.
Speaker 1: He found in a place called the Lyn Institute on
Speaker 1: the cliffs of Big Sir, which was really the first
Speaker 1: gathering spot for searchers and wanderers and seekers who wanted
Speaker 1: to explore the mind body connection. It's still thriving and
Speaker 1: after launching the helping to launch anyway, the the counterculture
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties and all these years later, Estlin
Speaker 1: is still a draw from all over the world. So um,
Speaker 1: any guesses who are our guest might be Oh, here's
Speaker 1: another important detail. We come from the same hometown, Salinas, California,
Speaker 1: and it's not John Steinbeg. So there's not too many
Speaker 1: type as we've come out of there. Michael was he
Speaker 1: was he delivered by John Steinbeck's physician father or grandfather.
Speaker 1: You're you're getting warmer. His father delivered John Steinbeg. Let
Speaker 1: me rephrase his father or grandfather? Was his father delivered
Speaker 1: John Seinbeck? I think possibly the grandfather, but you would
Speaker 1: know better than I. Well, well we can clear that up. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we know. Did John Updyke say of this
Speaker 1: writer to be named he took the lid off the
Speaker 1: game or something to that effect. Yes, I think it's
Speaker 1: now obvious that our guest is one Michael Murphy, author
Speaker 1: of Golf in the Kingdom. Mr Murphy, there you are.
Speaker 1: I remember you very well. And Michael Boberger, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's a dangerous group here. Um, what a what a
Speaker 1: pleasure the pledges Ahman, So this is the fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of Golf in the Kingdom in this slender little volume
Speaker 1: that that you typed up your first ever golf book,
Speaker 1: and um, it's in dirt all all this time. Can
Speaker 1: you believe that it's being Michael? Well, you know it's
Speaker 1: a miracle, you know, right having written it when I
Speaker 1: was five years old, you know it's it's lasted so long. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it goes on and on and sending very strange messages.
Speaker 1: My way is Golf in the Kingdom is beloved in
Speaker 1: Australia as it is here in the United States. I
Speaker 1: think so. I mean it's a universal book, right, I
Speaker 1: mean you have to have played a lot of golf,
Speaker 1: I think, to really fall in love with it, because
Speaker 1: I think golf is such a confusing game and it
Speaker 1: challenges everything in your brain, and everything you try to
Speaker 1: do makes it worse. And this sort of helps to
Speaker 1: get you there, you know, it helps to sort of
Speaker 1: show you why you're wrong, but you can't really grasp it,
Speaker 1: Like you can see it, but you can't grasp it.
Speaker 1: In the book. Every time you read it. It's sort
Speaker 1: of takes you where you want to go, but you
Speaker 1: can't get there. It's a magic book. I think you
Speaker 1: have to have played a lot of golf though, and
Speaker 1: I think it really helps to have played in Scotland. Jeff,
Speaker 1: I called you, Jeff, Yes, absolutely, well, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's had quite a readership outside the golf world, and
Speaker 1: that's what's been a a big surprise for for me
Speaker 1: through the years that um, people accuse me of a
Speaker 1: lot of getting them to play golf, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, I said, are you are you happy about that?
Speaker 1: Some of them say, oh, very happy and others say
Speaker 1: not so happy. But it's uh, it kind of it's
Speaker 1: struck a nerve, you know, with these kinds of and
Speaker 1: well when it was published, um outside the box experiences
Speaker 1: and that's I think it's that's been the it's lifeline
Speaker 1: UM into this last thing leadership. So uh, it's it was.
Speaker 1: It's a tremendous surprise to me. I mean, the range
Speaker 1: of experiences people have wanted to share with me, and
Speaker 1: certainly on golf courses, you know, people who have had
Speaker 1: these um feel of sympathy with the experiences in it.
Speaker 1: Michael you you're write in the book of the the
Speaker 1: Peak Experience, Hogan at the height of his powers. We've
Speaker 1: talked about Tiger in two thousand. Uh, Jeff Ogilby a
Speaker 1: wing for another Peak Experience. Was the writing of that
Speaker 1: book A peak Experience? Did you write it in a
Speaker 1: sort of fever dream. I've never had a chance to
Speaker 1: ask you that before. Well, it was, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not only the first book I wrote, but the first
Speaker 1: book I tried to write. And uh it uh, it
Speaker 1: just it came and it was actually uh a great
Speaker 1: folks at Viking Press. You know, it was back two,
Speaker 1: so it was not really edited. Um, so it came
Speaker 1: out and it's um. You know, I've written another seven books,
Speaker 1: but none of them came like this one. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: so um um relatively easily. But I've had the idea
Speaker 1: to write it ten years earlier, and then instead I
Speaker 1: started as an institute and you know, survive that, and
Speaker 1: then I sat down to write this thing. So I
Speaker 1: could argue that I was kind of you know, just stating.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was incubating it and it all just
Speaker 1: came out the way it did, and it struck a
Speaker 1: nerve and it's had this unusual publishing history, you know
Speaker 1: where Oh boy, anyway, that's a story into itself. So
Speaker 1: I would say it was in a state um of
Speaker 1: self discovery and um um, you know, since Jeff, you've
Speaker 1: joined this circle here, I will take the liberty to
Speaker 1: you know, be very frank about some of these um
Speaker 1: experiences that the book is attracted to me and triggered
Speaker 1: from the writing of synchronicities and coincidences and memories and
Speaker 1: this could happen. Uh, you know when you're writing, you
Speaker 1: guys know it. Uh um that certain um acts just
Speaker 1: channel stuff. It's just amazing. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: it was remembering my remembering you know. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a uh uh things that I knew, uh playing
Speaker 1: when I was in you know, I didn't start playing
Speaker 1: until I was fourteen, so those experiences in high school
Speaker 1: and stuff came back and um. So, yes, I was
Speaker 1: in a state when I wrote it. I would say,
Speaker 1: I was, Jeff, that sounds a little bit like being
Speaker 1: in the zone as a golfer, you know, like, can
Speaker 1: you relate to some of the things he's saying You're thinking,
Speaker 1: but you're not thinking. It just sort of comes back
Speaker 1: to you. Well, yeah, I mean, it's absolutely I always
Speaker 1: read it as an instruction book. I mean, it's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful story, but I always read it as an
Speaker 1: instruction book, UM, because it doesn't take if you take
Speaker 1: a deep dive into golf, it doesn't take you very
Speaker 1: long that you're the problem. Um. The the golf is
Speaker 1: that the only thing in golf that doesn't change, the
Speaker 1: only thing that changes the person playing. UM. And it
Speaker 1: didn't take me very long to realize that I was
Speaker 1: my problem, not the game. And I always felt that this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Golfing and Kingdom was an instruction book, is a little bit.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite books, which is an odd book,
Speaker 1: I guess for a young person to read, was gold
Speaker 1: um Zen in the out of Motorcycle Maintenance. Um, with
Speaker 1: this voice in his head that's going on this whole time.
Speaker 1: Just there's such annoying character that he just keeps bringing
Speaker 1: in you just fight through all these pages. And I
Speaker 1: just hated it. And that was like playing golf. I'm
Speaker 1: just annoying myself while I'm playing golf, Like can't I
Speaker 1: just get out of the way and just swing, Like
Speaker 1: I know I can swing it in there, but why
Speaker 1: can't I stop talking to myself and just swing. Um, so,
Speaker 1: I yeah, I loved the story. It's a beautiful it's
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of the best sort of exposure
Speaker 1: of the mystical side of golf, which has never really
Speaker 1: talked about very often, but it clearly exists, Like you say,
Speaker 1: with the synchronicities of stuff. I mean you have examples.
Speaker 1: I mean Tiger showed us a lot of times. I mean,
Speaker 1: how did he hold those parts on the last hole
Speaker 1: so many times? You know, like it's not because his
Speaker 1: strokers any better or he reads the green any better.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's obviously good at that. But how does
Speaker 1: that parton Tory Pines go in? How does Jack's partner
Speaker 1: eight six? I'm seventeen that the Master's going it never
Speaker 1: break broke that way ever? Again, I mean, these things exist, um,
Speaker 1: and it's clear and obvious. I think once you open
Speaker 1: your eyes to it, and I think Golf in the
Speaker 1: Kingdom shows you that. I think it's I think anyone
Speaker 1: who really wants to take a deep dive into often
Speaker 1: understand why it's such an enduring guy and everybody loves
Speaker 1: it so much has to read this book a lot.
Speaker 1: I think you have to read it a lot, because
Speaker 1: I think every time you rate it is more that yef.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all those remarks. I am very much. It's um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. The game has a peculiar genius for opening
Speaker 1: the world up. Of course, you get out on some
Speaker 1: of those golf courses and the world has already been
Speaker 1: opened up by all the love that's gone into say,
Speaker 1: you know, I was as a kid, I was very
Speaker 1: lucky to get to play pebble all the time, Pebble
Speaker 1: Beach and for five dollars back then. And boy, you
Speaker 1: go out there is never the same that golf course
Speaker 1: it and so it's the world. So you go through
Speaker 1: these big gardens and then this something happens to people,
Speaker 1: and people want to tell me about their experiences. And
Speaker 1: it's been a hell of a journey for fifty years
Speaker 1: listening to just as if I'm you know, father Murphy
Speaker 1: taking confession out on there on the golf course, that
Speaker 1: they hear that, you know, if they know about golf
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom, they want to tell me about their experiences,
Speaker 1: both negative and positive. Um. And that has been a
Speaker 1: rare privilege to to hear these stories for fifty years.
Speaker 1: So it's it's an amazing game. I still suspect, I'm
Speaker 1: all right, I believe, at least in my confident moments,
Speaker 1: that I'm still learning things about the game and what
Speaker 1: is it about it? Because you know, athletes have these
Speaker 1: peak experiences that they never talked about. And I learned
Speaker 1: that right away in response, you know, to them, to
Speaker 1: you know, pro athletes who have been reading the book
Speaker 1: and let me in adventures with them about this and that,
Speaker 1: and but golf evokes I think a wider range of
Speaker 1: um rich, deep, often far out experience and any other game,
Speaker 1: I mean certainly some high adventures, you know, um uh
Speaker 1: bring this out. But anyway, it's amazing. Golf is still
Speaker 1: under reported. Yeah, that's that's what That's what I said.
Speaker 1: And you know, Jeff's in Australia and you're north of
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and um, you guys have this deep connection
Speaker 1: separated by oceans. But you could you can talk lyrically
Speaker 1: about it. And uh, I'm wondering, you know, Jefvis, did
Speaker 1: people come up to you in the way that Michael
Speaker 1: is describing where they want to They want you to
Speaker 1: explain the game to them, and they want to share
Speaker 1: their stories with you. I mean, did you have that
Speaker 1: in common? You're both kind of these oracle figures. Oracle
Speaker 1: is a strong word. It's certainly people in airports, and
Speaker 1: it's golf courses and you're in the pub sometimes and
Speaker 1: it's you know, I've been working on my driver and
Speaker 1: I don't know. They keep telling me I'm not an
Speaker 1: inside path. But the ball doesn't do this, and the
Speaker 1: ball doesn't do that, and how do I do this?
Speaker 1: And how do you guys spin the ball from fifty
Speaker 1: yards from the green? And um, most of it you
Speaker 1: can't explain. You just have to do, you know. UM.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest obstacle, which is what the book
Speaker 1: sort of hints at and points out, UM, is you
Speaker 1: just have to be totally and fully invested in what
Speaker 1: you're doing, so much to the point where you don't
Speaker 1: care about what happens next, you know, um it. And
Speaker 1: that's the challenge. It's how do you get into a
Speaker 1: golf shot so fully invested into a golf shot? I'm
Speaker 1: not really here where it goes, because if you care
Speaker 1: where it goes, that's where all the problems come from. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you think of someone like Dustin Johnson, who
Speaker 1: naturally is that way, he is so invested in what
Speaker 1: he's doing, but it just doesn't seem to care where
Speaker 1: it goes. And that's why he's so free and plays
Speaker 1: so nice. You know. Um. That's really what my feeling
Speaker 1: of the zone or the flow state or all this
Speaker 1: stuff that we talk about, is that it's being so
Speaker 1: invested in what you're doing that you forget about sort
Speaker 1: of what you're doing, you know, And that's impossible. It's
Speaker 1: a really difficult state to try to get into. It's
Speaker 1: almost you have to try to not get into it,
Speaker 1: but trying not to get into it's wrong as well,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So it's such it's this sort of
Speaker 1: thing that you can see but you just can't grab.
Speaker 1: And people want to know how we do it, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how we do it. Um. I just
Speaker 1: do it because I've been doing it for a long
Speaker 1: time and it just I don't know. It just sort
Speaker 1: of happens one day and I think, Michael, you said
Speaker 1: you didn't start to your fourteen, and I think that's
Speaker 1: younger than most, and I think you're sort of blessed
Speaker 1: to start that young. But I mean, I was hit
Speaker 1: ping pong balls around my house when I was three
Speaker 1: or four, and I think the earlier you can get
Speaker 1: to it, you're very you're at a very zend state.
Speaker 1: When you're three or four, you know, you're just taking
Speaker 1: it all in. You don't really care about results. You're
Speaker 1: just having just total immersion and joy and fun about
Speaker 1: hitting a ping pong ball down the hallway in your house.
Speaker 1: And I think you've sort of in you condition yourself
Speaker 1: to that's you get way in front of the curve.
Speaker 1: I think when you start so young, um, and when
Speaker 1: you look at Tiger was on TV when he was
Speaker 1: in nappies right or diapers sorry, um, like he was
Speaker 1: doing it from day one, and I think you sort
Speaker 1: of there's an imprint on your whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it, if it's physical or psychological or spiritual or something,
Speaker 1: there's an imprint. The earlier you start that you can
Speaker 1: be so fully immersed in what you're doing that, um,
Speaker 1: it's not about the result. The joy is in the
Speaker 1: doing it, not in where the ball goes. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the biggest challenge because the more people want
Speaker 1: to play well, the more they care about where the
Speaker 1: ball goes. But the more you care about where the
Speaker 1: ball goes, the hotter it is to hit it where
Speaker 1: you want to go. So I think that's why it's
Speaker 1: such an enduring game and the book is still so
Speaker 1: relevant fifty years later, because that really is the challenge
Speaker 1: of the game is too to be so involved in
Speaker 1: what you're doing that you forget about forget about where
Speaker 1: the ball is going to go. And that's a really
Speaker 1: hard thing to do. Uh. If I could just offer
Speaker 1: Michael too quick observations and then and then a question.
Speaker 1: One is this at this very much relates to golf
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom, your astounding youthfulness and uh, at your
Speaker 1: age is an inspiration to me, and I'm sure Alan
Speaker 1: and Jeff as well. And the other thing, the other
Speaker 1: quick observation is the astounding quality of the writing, where
Speaker 1: like you feel like you're in front of the fireplace.
Speaker 1: You can smell the heather, you can smell the whiskey,
Speaker 1: you can smell Michael's desperation. Um, and how if you
Speaker 1: just consider just the first half of the book, it
Speaker 1: is absolutely a classic example of quality writing in the
Speaker 1: sense that the character starts in one place, goes through
Speaker 1: a series of adventures, finishes someplace else. So I read
Speaker 1: it as a probably just a little out of college
Speaker 1: or early twenties, and it has been, as Cheff and
Speaker 1: Allen have said, something you read again and again as
Speaker 1: I read The Great ASPI and some other seminal works
Speaker 1: in my life, because every time you get more out
Speaker 1: of it. Anyway, that was just two quick observations I
Speaker 1: wander to share, and Jeff part of me if I'm
Speaker 1: not getting this correct. But I'm gonna say something Michael
Speaker 1: that I believe I heard Jeff say this, And I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: with all your study of peak experience and knowing Murphy
Speaker 1: in the book, but particularly knowing Shiva's irons as you do,
Speaker 1: what what your sense of this would be. I believe
Speaker 1: Jeff once said, you know, he played an outstanding golf
Speaker 1: and he won an he won of US Open, and
Speaker 1: then he tried to get better and and Jeff correct
Speaker 1: me if I have this wrong. Some years later, sometime later,
Speaker 1: he discovered a better goal is just get better, but
Speaker 1: don't try to get better, because he in the trying
Speaker 1: to get better, confusion emerges. You get better, like we're
Speaker 1: you know, I think we would all say by doing
Speaker 1: Jeff correct me if I've got any part of that wrong,
Speaker 1: which I may very well have. And Michael, I wonder
Speaker 1: if that question even made any sense. Do you have
Speaker 1: an insight into that conflict between trying to get better
Speaker 1: at something and just getting better at something. I've got
Speaker 1: an answer I would love to hear, Jeff, But you know,
Speaker 1: either the first huge influence on me when I flipped,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was at stand for as a student.
Speaker 1: You guys know the story, and it was a blow
Speaker 1: to the family. And you know, I went from you know,
Speaker 1: semi respectable to completely disreputable and to become they thought
Speaker 1: was a yogi or they called me a yogi. Where
Speaker 1: I grew up, Selina's a tough town. Yogi is about
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing you possibly could have been in
Speaker 1: ninety or fifty so um anyway, um the influence triarra Bindo,
Speaker 1: the great Indian philosopher and thinker, and uh so he um.
Speaker 1: One of his many maxims was don't try to have
Speaker 1: the same experience twice. Okay, practice faithfully whenever you're the
Speaker 1: art the pleasures of practice, but um, never try to
Speaker 1: have the same experience twice. And this is a dictum
Speaker 1: in the ratist mystical traditions, because you say, well, if
Speaker 1: you're a Buddhist practice you're trying to give up attachments
Speaker 1: there or whatever the ethical system is you're using or whatever.
Speaker 1: The method and practice is important. But it's what Jeff's
Speaker 1: hitting right in in the core of the problem, that
Speaker 1: are we're wired in such a way we're built for
Speaker 1: the new, for novelty. So you could make the argument
Speaker 1: that once you try to imitate yourself as a writer,
Speaker 1: I can say this, if you already try to imitate yourself,
Speaker 1: you're going to become a hack writer. I mean, you
Speaker 1: gotta let new stuff in and you have to, as
Speaker 1: it were, risk becoming disreputable again, you know, because God
Speaker 1: knows what this thing is gonna uh happen. Uh. This
Speaker 1: this letting go experience, but it's letting go within what
Speaker 1: you've been practicing. Um so this is this is one
Speaker 1: of the tenderest, most delicate problems. I mean, and Jeff
Speaker 1: nailed it right there. And you know, um uh, you
Speaker 1: know Hogan was actually good on this point, you know,
Speaker 1: and I do think it was. It was a subliminal
Speaker 1: influence on me. You know, I wasn't thinking of him
Speaker 1: when I wrote the book, but having watched him practice
Speaker 1: so much over there Double Beach growing up, and people
Speaker 1: gather on to watch him, and there was an enchantment.
Speaker 1: And you'd see six or eight of the pros, the
Speaker 1: touring pros, they're watching him practice. So um so when
Speaker 1: they asked him about some of these shots, you know,
Speaker 1: he had a tremendous repertoire of shots he could make.
Speaker 1: And some of those Texas players, my god, they hit
Speaker 1: They played this low game, all these low shots, and
Speaker 1: then they could aeroplane it and it would rise and okay,
Speaker 1: here you have a rising one. That's a draw or
Speaker 1: or a fade and whatever. So he pulled his shots off,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was sometimes asked, um, how how
Speaker 1: is it that under a pressure you can hit so
Speaker 1: many of these extraordinary shots and and he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm a looking guy. And they said lucky. You practice
Speaker 1: more than anybody else. And he said, well, the more
Speaker 1: you practice, the luckier you get. But he was he
Speaker 1: was getting at this thing that I think Jeff's getting
Speaker 1: at same thing. Um uh, the new see. And of course,
Speaker 1: if you want to get metaphysical, you know, you know
Speaker 1: that the whole section singing the praises of golf, that's
Speaker 1: a It was a parody of a Plato symposium. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about this, and I think so
Speaker 1: if you walk through Plato symposium, all the characters are
Speaker 1: kind of a you know, I was having fun with
Speaker 1: that idea. And and as you know, the great philosopher
Speaker 1: Whitehead said, Western philosophy is nothing but a series of
Speaker 1: footnotes to Plato. So it's kind of embedded this ancient
Speaker 1: it's embedded in there. I mean, we could be fun
Speaker 1: talking about that. So a lot of these and one
Speaker 1: of the great truths is that we're born to eternal novelty.
Speaker 1: And that's a hard truth for a lot of religious teachers.
Speaker 1: And we know, I don't know where you guys want
Speaker 1: to go with this esoteric meeting we're having here. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll follow you anywhere. We'll follow you anywhere. Well know,
Speaker 1: you said something, you said something an interesting minute ago
Speaker 1: that I want to explore. You know, this idea being
Speaker 1: disreputable because you know, you came from a family of doctor,
Speaker 1: you were expected to be a doctor. You went to Stanford, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on a premed track, and then then you
Speaker 1: took a philosophy class that blew your mind and sent
Speaker 1: you down this this whole other path. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: I read like like when I just reread Portnoy's Complaint
Speaker 1: by Philip Roth, and I'm like, which is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite books, Like, I can't believe this guy type
Speaker 1: this out and his whole family could read it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like so raunchy and the amount of courage it
Speaker 1: takes to put something out there to the whole world.
Speaker 1: And of course he's not it's it's an act of fiction.
Speaker 1: He's not the narrator, but people naturally wonder about the
Speaker 1: writer behind the words and the bravery of that and
Speaker 1: many other books, you know, Tropica Cancer, Tropica Cancer. Henry
Speaker 1: Miller reading that book is like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: can't leave. You just wrote that it's wild. Um, and
Speaker 1: of course you don't, you're not working blue like that,
Speaker 1: But um, how hard was it for you to to
Speaker 1: put this book out into the world and or even
Speaker 1: just to go down this path knowing, uh, the way
Speaker 1: selling us the way I do it is this dusty
Speaker 1: farming town. It's it's not a hotbed of open mindedness.
Speaker 1: And so for um, what was the struggle like for
Speaker 1: you to take on this new world, this new identity
Speaker 1: and leave behind what was expected of you. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was not a struggle. I mean they were thrilled that
Speaker 1: I wrote a book. My brother was the designated writer
Speaker 1: in the family and he had this nationwide bestseller, you know,
Speaker 1: The Sergeant, and so I came along and so it's
Speaker 1: actually me becoming reputable. Oh my god, I published a book.
Speaker 1: And of course had you know, escalately been going for
Speaker 1: ten years at that point. But um, but there are
Speaker 1: different kinds of being reputable, reputable with whom you can
Speaker 1: be so anchored in being reputable in a small circle
Speaker 1: of your um pals or your family or your associate,
Speaker 1: you know, your colleagues, and it's hard when you're really
Speaker 1: good at something to break set. You know. This is
Speaker 1: stupendous problem in the arts, really, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we do. You know, I do have friends in the
Speaker 1: movie business, and you know a lot of folks in
Speaker 1: Hollywood come up to us and this is a standing
Speaker 1: um issue and it's uh like going and on about this.
Speaker 1: So reputable doesn't mean just about sex. It's about whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you're supposed to do that's engraved in you.
Speaker 1: And it's the reliabilities we need, we need, we need reliabilities,
Speaker 1: But how do you live a life that's balanced and
Speaker 1: reputable and still full of the new? And boy, when
Speaker 1: you get as old as I am, you know, and
Speaker 1: your watch your friends going down one you know, it's
Speaker 1: like in an ancient forest, one tree after another falling
Speaker 1: down around you and my wife and I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm ninety two now, so you can imagine. I mean,
Speaker 1: they they've been falling faster. And how stuck people get
Speaker 1: as they get older, you know, how stuck and the
Speaker 1: limitation of options. So, um, I think what Jeff says
Speaker 1: about shot making itself is a microcosm of our larger
Speaker 1: station in life, what you think, and it's and I
Speaker 1: think the ultimate thing is that um the game of
Speaker 1: all games. The reason the cosmos is here is the
Speaker 1: unfoldment of this greater life that awaits us. You know,
Speaker 1: if we're going to get really serious there, you know,
Speaker 1: a greater life is pressing to be born in us,
Speaker 1: really and um, you know it's one of the attractions
Speaker 1: of sport, I must say. I you know, I've always
Speaker 1: been a a nut about sports and loving it. But
Speaker 1: it's an enactment of the new. I mean, what a
Speaker 1: new great um athlete appears, or a great new team
Speaker 1: or somebody does a great thing that's never been done.
Speaker 1: The world lights up to some degree. It really does,
Speaker 1: don't you think. I mean, I mean, you guys are
Speaker 1: out there reporting on this all the time. It's um
Speaker 1: uh you know, the suspense, the trauma, that the newness.
Speaker 1: But Jeff, you you know, and I mean you've done
Speaker 1: it many times in your life. What do you you want?
Speaker 1: What well US Open, Ryder Cup with three World championships
Speaker 1: or what do you call those big ones? Yeah, they
Speaker 1: used to be called w tcs. Um. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think you hit on a couple of things that
Speaker 1: I've had along the way and felt, um, the new
Speaker 1: thing is fascinating. Jack told us he Actually I wasn't
Speaker 1: sitting there at the time, but Jack used to love
Speaker 1: walking around the locker room a memorial sort of holding
Speaker 1: court like waiting for golfers to ask him questions. Um.
Speaker 1: And he was fantastic to talk to. But there was
Speaker 1: one day I wasn't there, but he told a story
Speaker 1: and the boys and some of the someone told me.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who told me, but they asked him
Speaker 1: sort of what swing thoughts and what did you think
Speaker 1: about when you play golf, and did you ever have
Speaker 1: any favorite swing thoughts or sort of ways you went
Speaker 1: about it? And he says, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: playing my best I tried to I got to the
Speaker 1: range every morning and tried to have a new thought
Speaker 1: from yesterday, no matter how well I played yesterday, I
Speaker 1: tried to think something new today. Um. Because he thought
Speaker 1: they'd get stale very quick. And he tried to do
Speaker 1: something new every single day because he realized that exactly
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Michael, that it's all about new, um
Speaker 1: and fresh and a new experience, and it's got to
Speaker 1: keep you engaged. And if you sort of get stuck
Speaker 1: in the tram tracks, you keep going the same direction,
Speaker 1: you've got to get out of the tram tracks and
Speaker 1: sort of get something news. I thought that was fascinating
Speaker 1: that Um he always tried. I mean, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost the discipline it takes to have a
Speaker 1: great swing thought on Thursday and shoot sixty five and
Speaker 1: hit the ball perfectly and come out on Friday and
Speaker 1: do something differently. That's almost impossible to do. And it's
Speaker 1: the greatest golfer of all time, well, one of the
Speaker 1: two greatest golfers of all time actively tried to do that.
Speaker 1: He tapped into something that most of us haven't. I
Speaker 1: think is pretty interesting. Um And I think, like you say,
Speaker 1: it's the new thing it golf is a bit like music, right,
Speaker 1: It's there's no destination for music, it's just music for
Speaker 1: music's sake. And I think we all played golf with
Speaker 1: a destination in mind. And I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: it's about. I think we want to play golf for
Speaker 1: golf's sake. Um And I think, well, that's the enduring
Speaker 1: part of this book, is it. It's trying to point
Speaker 1: you to that direction, Like it's there's no destination here, Like,
Speaker 1: just get immersed and get fascinated with the game, and
Speaker 1: the more you get fast and added with the game,
Speaker 1: the more you're going to get out of it. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's this metaphysical philosophy stuff. I
Speaker 1: think golf is a very good If it doesn't send
Speaker 1: you that way, you're not really paying attention. I think
Speaker 1: this golf is a is a window to this world
Speaker 1: that or a doorway that if you start playing golf
Speaker 1: and you get in, you get involved, it's going to
Speaker 1: take you the direction that Michael's talking about. I just
Speaker 1: think it has to unless you're not paying attention as
Speaker 1: you read too many Golf Digest instruction articles and um
Speaker 1: um not picking on any publications, but you just you
Speaker 1: get down this rabbit hole of cutting golf into little pieces,
Speaker 1: and the nature of cutting is you can always cut
Speaker 1: it to a smaller piece. Um. I think golf has
Speaker 1: got this disease, or maybe humans have got a disease,
Speaker 1: probably of taking something beautiful and cutting it in half
Speaker 1: and wondering how it works. And then you cut it
Speaker 1: in half, you realize you can cut it a half again,
Speaker 1: and then you cut in half again. You can cut
Speaker 1: it a half again, and that never ends with golf,
Speaker 1: with anything, and golf were very susceptible to do this.
Speaker 1: And I think the secret, not the secret, the secrets
Speaker 1: that a right word. That's been a really ruined word.
Speaker 1: But um, the idea is that you're trying to put
Speaker 1: all the pieces back together, You're not trying to cut
Speaker 1: it up. You know most people are going the other
Speaker 1: way with it. Um. I think it's fascinating. And back
Speaker 1: to Hogan just a little quickly under start the Hogan thing.
Speaker 1: Um we ask everybody asks Hogan or great golfers, Well,
Speaker 1: how do you do that? And then afterwards they start
Speaker 1: thinking about it and chop it up after they've done it.
Speaker 1: But they didn't learn how to do it by chopping
Speaker 1: it up and doing that. They just loved Hogan just
Speaker 1: loved practice. He wasn't practicing to get better. He woke
Speaker 1: up in the morning and couldn't think of anything better
Speaker 1: than just to try to hit great golf shots. He
Speaker 1: was just immersed and fascinated with hitting great golf shots.
Speaker 1: And that the byproduct of that was the one golf tournaments.
Speaker 1: I don't think he tried to win golf tournaments. He
Speaker 1: woke up in the morning and all he wanted to
Speaker 1: do was hit great golf shots. And I think, um,
Speaker 1: when if you try to copy that, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to light the fire in yourself
Speaker 1: to be fascinated yourself, and you've got all you want
Speaker 1: to do in the morning is to get up and
Speaker 1: at great golf shots or right great? Right? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean I assume writing the I feel like if you
Speaker 1: just love writing and just start writing and keep writing,
Speaker 1: something good is going to come out of it. The
Speaker 1: more you just get into writing, well, that's the good result.
Speaker 1: If you set out with a destination in mind, you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna not right right as well, because you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're putting yourself in tram tracks and you're you're giving
Speaker 1: yourself a destination. Um. And the great things in life
Speaker 1: don't have a destination. They just they exist for themselves.
Speaker 1: You just you play golf because it's fun to play.
Speaker 1: You don't play golf to get anywhere. Um. And human
Speaker 1: nature as we're always trying to get somewhere with something.
Speaker 1: But how do you know where you're trying to get.
Speaker 1: You don't know where you're trying to get, you know,
Speaker 1: so how do you get somewhere? You can't decide where
Speaker 1: to go with your golf because alway they think is
Speaker 1: you don't know where it's going to go. So just
Speaker 1: have fun doing it, okay. T Jeff's wint it's a
Speaker 1: really odd game, as almost all games are, because there
Speaker 1: is no product in the end. There's a trophy, maybe
Speaker 1: your name's on it, maybe it's not, but there's no
Speaker 1: product in the end except for some kind of vague
Speaker 1: internal feeling, which, of course, Michael, you captured you know
Speaker 1: so extremely well, and in your book. Yeah, it's even
Speaker 1: more than the feeling itself. It's trying. It's the quest
Speaker 1: to find that feeling, right like, because the feeling can
Speaker 1: be fleeting, but to me, like when I when I'm
Speaker 1: playing my best, uh, I'm just like there's a sensation
Speaker 1: of trying to get it. It's just like total effortlessness
Speaker 1: when I swing the club and uh, and then you have,
Speaker 1: you know, five minute walk you get to try it again,
Speaker 1: and there's those five minutes like the hardest. You're just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: don't get too excited, don't think about well, okay, if
Speaker 1: I if I birdied this hole and I finished with
Speaker 1: two pars, I can you shoot my best score ever? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the walk to me is one
Speaker 1: of the hardest parts of golf, with to not not
Speaker 1: getting your own way and not get not start chasing
Speaker 1: a different feeling. Like it's uh, I think I think
Speaker 1: Sis might have had something to say about this. You know,
Speaker 1: let the nothingness into your shots, right, Like that's that's
Speaker 1: one of the most oft repeated lines from Golf in
Speaker 1: the Kingdom. But the nothingness is the key. It's uh,
Speaker 1: that's that's like kind of where that's what I'm always
Speaker 1: chasing the different words in different languages around what you know,
Speaker 1: nothing is about. I mean, there's you know, Buddhism is
Speaker 1: based in that no notion. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: beautiful Sanskrit words for this, but you know words, you know,
Speaker 1: you could get approximations to experience with words and words
Speaker 1: themselves then can produce great experiences. But um uh. Finally,
Speaker 1: that word um you can get you close, but by itself,
Speaker 1: it can't get you there. I mean you have to
Speaker 1: experience it. Ah, that's what he meant. You know, he
Speaker 1: might have called it something else. You know some Sanskrit
Speaker 1: word shunyums that's the word sunyumnata, and it's trying, you know,
Speaker 1: your emptiness, um, nothingness, the fertile void. You know, different
Speaker 1: translators will translate that word. But people have been testifying
Speaker 1: to this and to this, these further dimensions of human experience,
Speaker 1: you know, for thousands of years um, and as it
Speaker 1: comes into the culture. It's just amazing to me that
Speaker 1: writing this book, I UM the golf is a doorway
Speaker 1: for lots of people into this the first time they've
Speaker 1: ever had a deep Buddhist I mean, people will sit
Speaker 1: in um retreats for years and not have some of
Speaker 1: the experiences they have on golf courses. It's it's a
Speaker 1: great irony, um. But there it is, this, these possibilities
Speaker 1: waiting for us, and golf has a peculiar genius for
Speaker 1: bringing people towards it. It's it's just a fact. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, you know, fifty years I've been you
Speaker 1: know this. Uh, the gift of writing the book has
Speaker 1: given me just to watch this window oh keep opening
Speaker 1: from that game. It's uh uh, it's it's a fact. Um.
Speaker 1: There it sits and we argue about it from so
Speaker 1: many different angles, you know, and you know, are the
Speaker 1: Southeast nice people are not nice people? You know are whatever.
Speaker 1: There's always something brand new to argue about or on
Speaker 1: the game, the politics that um, oh god, everything, the
Speaker 1: ecology of it, and uh, and yet people come back
Speaker 1: to this um incredible uh something that UM delivers. These
Speaker 1: experiences are people experience, you know, having started this and
Speaker 1: it's been going for sixty years now, and people come
Speaker 1: from all over the world in search of these uh,
Speaker 1: larger possibilities in human life. And it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and some of my um somewhat disreputable moments, I've proclaimed
Speaker 1: that golf's delivering more experience, more stories than Buddhist practice
Speaker 1: in America, And of course it's upset some of my friends.
Speaker 1: But uh, then they start thinking about it, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: but that anyway, Michael, you've told me that, Um, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of that. You made such a study
Speaker 1: of Hogan, and you sat near Mrs Hogan. I think
Speaker 1: at Olympic and the influence Hogan had on you, and
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of Hogan and Siva's. I
Speaker 1: never got a chance, of course, to be around Hogan,
Speaker 1: but I think of Sheba's your character, Sheva's irons is
Speaker 1: having so much warmth and humanity in connection with other
Speaker 1: people that I don't necessarily so associate with Hogan. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's correct or not, but I'm wondering
Speaker 1: what else came to you that let you fill in
Speaker 1: Sheba's in such a rich way. You're my psychoanalyst. Yes,
Speaker 1: a matter of speaking, I mean, oh boy, Um, well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's that, Michael, which of which I'm conscious,
Speaker 1: and that which is of which I'm unconscious. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: anybody who writes um a book that is in the
Speaker 1: is imaginative and and you know, I say, people say, well,
Speaker 1: is it fiction or or nonfiction? I say, well, it's
Speaker 1: semi it's it's semi fiction because the experiences my kind
Speaker 1: of discipline was, and I do differentiate it from I
Speaker 1: call it mystical realism because people want explanations as as
Speaker 1: distinguished from magical realism. You know, in the great Latin
Speaker 1: novelists with gold fish from the sky and redwood trees
Speaker 1: that put their arms around you and all. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like that, exactly in golf in the Kingdom. These are
Speaker 1: experiences that people have. And you know, I wrote a sequel,
Speaker 1: it's the sequel, you know, the Kingdom of suba Science.
Speaker 1: All those experiences actually happen to people and so um
Speaker 1: uh so too, um so, all of that came into
Speaker 1: play writing the book. So um so, I channeled the character,
Speaker 1: you know, but it did. He did. He materialized in
Speaker 1: front of me and pretty soon this could happen. You
Speaker 1: asked me about the state I was in. Pretty soon,
Speaker 1: um I was hearing the stuff I wrote down, you know,
Speaker 1: I was hearing it. And people think, well, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know this is on the edge of schizophrenia. Uh well,
Speaker 1: accept writers are flirting with the same sorts of things
Speaker 1: as certain psychotics. Uh do you know the you know,
Speaker 1: the m m PI in the Minnesota Multiphasing Inventory. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get too fancy here, but it's it's
Speaker 1: been given to more people than any other single test, millions.
Speaker 1: And there's something called the schizophrenia scale. And when you know,
Speaker 1: when it's given to a lot of writers, they scored
Speaker 1: very high on the schizophrenia scale. Um, because it's um,
Speaker 1: but it's also has to be accompanied by some of
Speaker 1: the stability scales. But it's opening that the doors of
Speaker 1: the mind and this stuff comes. Uh. So that was
Speaker 1: you know, it was the first book I tried to
Speaker 1: write let alone, right, Um, so the you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of quasi channeling. And you could say that in
Speaker 1: great art and in great sports performance, and I think
Speaker 1: it's again I would argue with Jeff, this will getting
Speaker 1: that this thing if you can open the not only
Speaker 1: the doors of perception, but open up all the hidden
Speaker 1: windows of your mind body complex. I mean, would you
Speaker 1: think about what goes into hitting a let's say a shot.
Speaker 1: Let's I'm thinking I was right next to Hogan when
Speaker 1: he hit a shot at that opening loss to fleck.
Speaker 1: And it was in grass pretty I mean it was
Speaker 1: in the rough, and but it was one of these
Speaker 1: low shots of these some of these Texas players you know,
Speaker 1: tell me Bold and Jimmy to marry. They did these
Speaker 1: little shots. It would rise, but this one, honest to God,
Speaker 1: to the left of the pin, rising and fading out
Speaker 1: of high grass. All right. How many muscle fibers in
Speaker 1: his body and how many nerves and his brain and
Speaker 1: cerebellum and everywhere else were involved in that? Nobody could
Speaker 1: cut pozzib We count them and he couldn't. I would
Speaker 1: argualy channel that shot. He channeled it. Now. I think
Speaker 1: he probably had an image of that's what he wanted
Speaker 1: to do. He wanted to play a low rising and
Speaker 1: fade into that um. And uh. It was interesting because
Speaker 1: before he hit the shot, I was standing near him
Speaker 1: and he yelled at someone, how Sam. He kind of
Speaker 1: measured himself against Sam. Sneed a lot, and and the
Speaker 1: guy yelled back, oh, he's under so many under or whatever,
Speaker 1: and he shook his head. He took that into consideration.
Speaker 1: He may have been computing how much he was going
Speaker 1: to go for, you know, a lower or higher score.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but anyway, there was the settled sense
Speaker 1: centered down computing that and then pulling the shot off. Well,
Speaker 1: you have to believe me, and that is like me
Speaker 1: writing a paragraph, uh and not anticipating it. I didn't
Speaker 1: see it coming. You see what I mean? You guys,
Speaker 1: well you know you're writing right as writers. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't know this sentence exactly is coming and don't
Speaker 1: you but it appears. And that is this marriage that
Speaker 1: we all have with our unconscious, our subliminal mind. People say, well,
Speaker 1: what do you how do you see the unconscious? Well,
Speaker 1: I say, well, think one image in Star Wars the
Speaker 1: movie are two D two. You know, the little the
Speaker 1: robot goes wrong. Okay, we each have our R two
Speaker 1: D two. It's our unconscious. It's always working. So you
Speaker 1: have to know how to listen are too D two
Speaker 1: But so one. For for a writer, it comes as
Speaker 1: a sentence or an image or even a paragraph. When
Speaker 1: you get one of these long runs, it's um, I
Speaker 1: actually do think um. I owe some of it to
Speaker 1: my Irish ancestry, because you know, the father's side of
Speaker 1: the family. All this, I mean, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of competition for who is going to blow the longest
Speaker 1: riff at dinner. I mean there was, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was it was you know. Uh. You know, these cultural
Speaker 1: steriotypes often have some truth in them, but you rejoice,
Speaker 1: you know, ulysses or something. I mean some of those
Speaker 1: are paragraphs that he channeled. Okay, and the same with
Speaker 1: certain rounds of golf. I'll tell you. The only person
Speaker 1: who ever played a great game in his life that
Speaker 1: I played against once was Kenney Ventury and he was fifteen.
Speaker 1: I was sixteen. And um he uh became famous in
Speaker 1: our part of the world up here, you know, um
Speaker 1: in northern California when he was UM. I would say,
Speaker 1: from the time he was about seventeen to twenty that
Speaker 1: he would uh maybe get five or six holes where
Speaker 1: the ball was stiff to the pin, I mean within feet,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was um. And then he went
Speaker 1: out on the tour there and he did well. But
Speaker 1: he I remember that as a kid having known him,
Speaker 1: and UM, I can't say I played again stim. I
Speaker 1: mean we were matched with each other. It was a
Speaker 1: pathetic mismatch. But anyway, um uh. So the point I
Speaker 1: want to make is this are too deep to that
Speaker 1: we that is in us uh is the subliminal mind,
Speaker 1: our secret magic. Uh. It can be there for a
Speaker 1: few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few hours
Speaker 1: or over a period of time. It's uh, you know
Speaker 1: this comes up a lot, don int es um people
Speaker 1: coming from the you know, from all over the world
Speaker 1: to talk about this stuff. It's um. Uh, it's hugely
Speaker 1: and once again, golf is an incredible venue for people
Speaker 1: to experience this stuff. It's amazing. I mean, well, Jeff,
Speaker 1: obviously in your life, I mean you've done it. I mean,
Speaker 1: to win those big tournaments, Jesus. And the competition you
Speaker 1: guys are against. You know, in Hogan's day, do ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen guys out there who could really play? But
Speaker 1: now you guys watched about a couple of d well,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody out there now everyone hits the ball
Speaker 1: much further than any anybody thought of hitting it when
Speaker 1: I was younger, when Hogan was playing. I mean, you
Speaker 1: hear it further. Um. But all that competition, and it's
Speaker 1: a a cohort of magic has emerged. And say, although
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting that certain players, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of people turn on you know, we don't need
Speaker 1: to repeat this to just watch Tiger you know and
Speaker 1: and so and um, you could argue that in the
Speaker 1: old days, I mean when Hogan was playing, and some
Speaker 1: of those guys were such characters, you know, so people
Speaker 1: was kind of like watching the Harlem Globe Trotters. You
Speaker 1: go to the Crosby clam Bay can see some of
Speaker 1: these guys play. It was colorful characters. Some I don't
Speaker 1: know how you feel about this job, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of um, more conformity on the tour. I do
Speaker 1: have a question for you, Michael. I mean that you're
Speaker 1: not playing a ton of golf anymore, presumably, Um, do
Speaker 1: you still do you dream about golf? Do you can
Speaker 1: you still summon in your body the sensation of hitting
Speaker 1: golf shots? Like how much does the game live within
Speaker 1: you still? You know, great athletes do leave legacies in
Speaker 1: the minds of people who were near them when they
Speaker 1: were playing or even on television. I mean, we all
Speaker 1: know there are certain shots that are are get me
Speaker 1: take that shot. When Hogan hit that shot, that's in me,
Speaker 1: I can feel it. It was so thrilling. It's like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, remembering the most delicious experiences in your life.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's not to be too crass, but
Speaker 1: you can remember some erotic highlights. There are certain things
Speaker 1: you will never forget. And it's not just that you
Speaker 1: have a mental image. You feel it, particularly if you
Speaker 1: ever played the game. You know, um, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And it's almost as good as the real thing.
Speaker 1: The remembering might be better. I was watching Tiger and
Speaker 1: I actually was experiencing on some of those drives you
Speaker 1: and I was experiencing lust. I'm sure that's true. So
Speaker 1: there's a lineage, I mean, I'm sorry, a legacy that
Speaker 1: great athletes leave out there in the memories of others
Speaker 1: really well. And and also great writers and great storytellers.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jeff's up and down on the seven second
Speaker 1: hole at Wingfoot will live on forever. I mean, just
Speaker 1: as golf in the Kingdom will, just as to the
Speaker 1: links Land will. I mean, it's uh, it's kind of
Speaker 1: neat to bring together people on this, on this this
Speaker 1: one conversation who have touched a lot of folks in
Speaker 1: different ways, and uh, you know, it's it's fun for me.
Speaker 1: I I feel like I'm just having an out of
Speaker 1: body experience watching you guys talk about these things. But
Speaker 1: it's it's one of the great things about the nineteenth Hole.
Speaker 1: You know, you play over in Scotland and my god,
Speaker 1: you're rubbed raw in the wind and it's okay. But
Speaker 1: if you go into the clubhouse and you have a
Speaker 1: single maldis a single and you don't get halfway up
Speaker 1: to heaven, You're not going to get there when you die.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know what I mean. I mean it's
Speaker 1: because it opens up um uh, well, it just inhibits
Speaker 1: you to some extent and in that just an ambition,
Speaker 1: amazing things are rise and um so that in that
Speaker 1: sense we're so vulnerable and contagious to one another. And
Speaker 1: when you have a sports arena with millions of people watching,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's at times I just think underrated
Speaker 1: how an athlete can do something. It's a thrilled at
Speaker 1: last and reverberates forever as long as that anybody who
Speaker 1: experienced it, there's alive the legacy of our greatness to
Speaker 1: one another. And um, let's say somebody who's been down
Speaker 1: and out and has uh not done a lot of
Speaker 1: good in life and does one incredible, great and good
Speaker 1: thing and it reverberates where it reverberates, so we can
Speaker 1: all add to this in incredibly cruel but grace laden
Speaker 1: world we live in. I mean, you know, um and
Speaker 1: uh so anyway, it's um. People say to me, Um,
Speaker 1: I love a challenge like this. M Well, of course,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Mike, it's a silly game.
Speaker 1: I said, well, what I mean, a little ball into
Speaker 1: this hole and you walk around like this and everything else.
Speaker 1: So I know when they're setting me up like that,
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna win, and because I could come back
Speaker 1: with all of the good things that happened, you know
Speaker 1: in this game. I'm serious and it's um. It's a
Speaker 1: largely enchanted game that uh well, it does what it does,
Speaker 1: and it's these um and sport generally. Um uh it's
Speaker 1: oh boy, I'm inhibiting myself right now because you know,
Speaker 1: my wife and I are very involved in Russian American
Speaker 1: relations and we're living in this now as hell that's
Speaker 1: perpetrated by Putin. I don't I don't want to go
Speaker 1: down that road with you guys, but uh so, I
Speaker 1: often say it's too bad in Russia. They forgive me
Speaker 1: for this, but that they don't play golf. You know.
Speaker 1: It's uh, I get some of these guys out there
Speaker 1: and out of these warhols that they live in. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been a a nation that has suffered enormously and
Speaker 1: it's so huge, and it's produced this readiness to fight
Speaker 1: and this monsters. I'm sorry to intervene with, but that, Um,
Speaker 1: we've got to be thankful for these activities that we
Speaker 1: do have that are life giving and healthy and God
Speaker 1: bless golf give rise to this transcendence, these transcendent moments,
Speaker 1: but we go beyond ourselves, thank God. Michael and Jeff
Speaker 1: give me final thoughts for our guest on Uti for
Speaker 1: with Michael Murphy here. Wow, this has just been a pleasure. Um,
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed listening the whole time. This is fascinating. We
Speaker 1: could do this all day. I think it's important. I
Speaker 1: think of more. I mean, you wrote this book fifty
Speaker 1: years ago. It should have been paid. I mean, everybody
Speaker 1: loves it. But everybody loves it and then they go
Speaker 1: off and don't really live it, you know, they get
Speaker 1: distracted by everything else. And I think it's more relevant
Speaker 1: now because, as I said, we're cutting it up into
Speaker 1: so many small pieces and we'd of thing the point, Um,
Speaker 1: all the holiday golf is just there. If a golf
Speaker 1: psych and that's how we don't have to fought wols,
Speaker 1: because we fought the wool with ourself every time we
Speaker 1: play golf, and we learned about ourselves every time. And
Speaker 1: I think, uh, it's just been fascinating. I've enjoyed the
Speaker 1: whole thing. We can do this trial. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: Allen for arranging this, and uh, Michael, I hope I
Speaker 1: have many more opportunities to say this to you, but
Speaker 1: I just want to say you're a hero to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm incredibly grateful that you are the person you
Speaker 1: are and that you've written down the words that you have.
Speaker 1: You probably know I believe I have this right that
Speaker 1: Gorbachov gave Reagan a driver made out of a nuclear missile,
Speaker 1: but maybe someone gave it to Clinton. That the point
Speaker 1: really is they should have just kept it. Uh. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you ever cared to write a sort of sequel
Speaker 1: about a mystical conversation between Hogan and Tiger, I think
Speaker 1: people would eat it up. Uh. But thank you for
Speaker 1: the example of of your life and and everything that
Speaker 1: you've given us. Michael. Thank you God, that's generous words,
Speaker 1: and thank you for all your great stuff about life
Speaker 1: in this good green world. And anyway, and and Jeff,
Speaker 1: thanks for those generous remarks. I I very very much
Speaker 1: appreciate them a lot. Really well, I'm just gonna build
Speaker 1: on what these other guys said. It's absolute pleasure talking
Speaker 1: to you as always. Michael, Uh, congratulations fifty the anniversary
Speaker 1: of golf in the Kingdom. What a run uh years old.
Speaker 1: I think anyone who listens this podcast will know that
Speaker 1: you haven't lost anything off your fastball. It's it's heroic
Speaker 1: the life you continues to lead. So um, this has
Speaker 1: been this has been a tremendous pleasure and honor. Thank
Speaker 1: you for for rounding out our foursome here. We're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna sign off on from this podcast, but I
Speaker 1: know the conversation will continue for quite a long time
Speaker 1: amongst all of us in different ways. So thanks everybody
Speaker 1: for listening, and uh, we'll do this again soon. That's
Speaker 1: the end. Mm hmmm, Oh my god. It's a dangerous
Speaker 1: group here.