Golfing on the Roof of the World (eBook)

Rick Lipsey returned from a vacation with an unusual job offer. After playing a few rounds at Bhutan's Royal Thimphu Golf Club, one of the members asked if he'd consider becoming the kingdom's golf pro. 'Sure, I'd love to move to Bhutan,' Lipsey flippantly responded. Next thing you know, he, his wife, and their infant daughter are boarding a plane for this remote Himalayan country. With one foot in the ancient world and the other in the twenty-first century, Bhutan is working to successfully meld the old and the new, from subsistence farming and religious festivals to the Internet and World Wrestling Entertainment. In Golfing on the Roof of the World, Rick sets great golf travel writing against the bigger political story of Bhutan's entrance to the modern world. Not only does he teach and play golf in the shadow of the world's tallest peaks, but he also comes to understand the seismic shifts in store for the last Buddhist kingdom where peace and spiritual prosperity have abounded, and the national standard for measuring success is Gross National Happiness. PRAISE: '[Lipsey]...knows the Zen-like secret to the success of every good golf book: keep golf out of it. Thusly, the great pleasures residing within this joyful work come not from any great insight into the nuances of the sport itself (although he does write on golf with fludity and vision) but from its setting and the relationships therein....if his loving descriptions of the generous people and gorgeous landscapes are only exaggerated by half, he still does the country proud.'-Publishers Weekly 'What a hoot!'...At times funny and at times thoughtful, this story will amuse anyone who understands the international appeal of golf and travel.'- Virtuoso Magazine 'It's hard not to like a story set in a nation that counts the Gross National Happiness Index as one of it's best inventions.'- Christian Science Monitor '...this charming account captures a remote For lovers of golf and travel, a journey to the only golf course in the last Buddhist kingdom.

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Rick Lipsey returned from a vacation with an unusual job offer. After playing a few rounds at Bhutan's Royal Thimphu Golf Club, one of the members asked if he'd consider becoming the kingdom's golf pro. "e;Sure, I'd love to move to Bhutan,"e; Lipsey flippantly responded. Next thing you know, he, his wife, and their infant daughter are boarding a plane for this remote Himalayan country. With one foot in the ancient world and the other in the twenty-first century, Bhutan is working to successfully meld the old and the new, from subsistence farming and religious festivals to the Internet and World Wrestling Entertainment. In Golfing on the Roof of the World, Rick sets great golf travel writing against the bigger political story of Bhutan's entrance to the modern world. Not only does he teach and play golf in the shadow of the world's tallest peaks, but he also comes to understand the seismic shifts in store for the last Buddhist kingdom where peace and spiritual prosperity have abounded, and the national standard for measuring success is Gross National Happiness.