If you like, you can start by listening to the piece…
Golf's Transcendent Side: An Open Society
Here's a recent pitch, which I sent to NPR/AIR indie liaison Paul Ingles for comments before I sent it to editors and producers …
Steve Mencher
5 minute feature pitch – Zen and the Art of Golf…
The Shivas Irons Society is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a tournament in San Francisco on May 20th. If you’re not into golf, you’ve probably never heard of Shivas Irons – but he’s the protagonist of the most successful golf novel ever written.
From the Shivas Irons Society website:
“The Shivas Irons Society is a non-profit, charitable and educational organization named in honor of Shivas Irons, the mystical and awesomely talented golf professional who was introduced to us in Michael Murphy's classic novel, Golf in the Kingdom…”
Who’s Michael Murphy? He’s not only a writer, he’s the guy who co-founded the Esalen Institute. The whole Shivas Irons thing is, at its root, something like Zen and the Art of Golf… Last year’s event at Pebble Beach was typical, with some players teeing off at midnight on a moonless night, using glow balls, with glow sticks on the flagsticks and candles around the greens. This year’s gathering in San Francisco should be equally notable.
More from their website:
“The Society is dedicated to furthering the game of golf as a mindful pursuit and as a tool for personal growth and transformation. We are a network of golfers committed to promoting golf's value system, honoring the game's history and Scottish roots and celebrating the game for its many beauties and virtues. … We advocate respect for the environment, sponsor charitable activities, maintain a summer camp scholarship program for at-risk youth, and most recently have begun publication of a critically acclaimed art and literary journal to pay homage to the body of creative expression that the game has inspired.”
Baseball, of course, has spawned a literature as broad and vast as its pastoral roots. But golf literature has Golf in the Kingdom.
This story is about to become much bigger – with a feature film (based on the novel) now in production. More on the film
We’ll meet Murphy, and a few of the men and women who take golf seriously – not just as in getting up at 4:00 A.M. for weekend tee times, but as in a vehicle to change their lives and to improve the world. Before we start, I’ll identify three of these folks, make them as different as possible, and then follow them from their “real” lives onto the links.
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What's wrong with this pitch? Plenty - and here are comments from NPR/AIR indie liaison, Paul Ingles.
