A Conversation With Author Tom Coyne

Last week, I wrote a review of the new book "A Course Called Ireland" by Tom Coyne. Coyne wrote a fine golf and travel book, and I wrote him and asked him if he would mind answering a few quick questions. Tom graciously took the time to answer, and here's what he had to say:

Old Man Par: Given the number of great courses you played during your round of Ireland’s linkslands, it’s probably hard for you to name an absolute single favorite…but I am sure you have a few that would make the final cut. If someone were to head over for a once-in-a-lifetime trip and could only play a handful of rounds, which tracks would you recommend as not-to-be missed?

Tom Coyne: It's tough to narrow down the choices, but if I was heading back and had a helicopter and I could travel to any golf course in a half hour's time, I'd start with Carne in Belmullet, hope over to Enniscrone, head down to Old Head in Kinsale, stop off at the European Club, jump up to Portstewart for the front nine, head down to Tralee for the back nine, and finish up at Ballybunion, playing the old course more than once. I could add a dozen courses to this list, and this itinerary makes zero sense if you're traveling by car (or by foot, as in my case), but this list would give you access to the absolute joy and madness of Irish links golf. If you're trying to plan a reasonable trip and you've never done Ireland before and might not do it again, I'd go Old Head, Waterville, Dooks, Tralee, BallyB, Doonbeg, Lahinch, Enniscrone, and Carne, sticking to the south and west of Ireland. There's incredible golf t o be found elsewhere in Ireland, but these courses are all stunners, the best of the best, you couldn't possibly leave Ireland feeling cheated with that itinerary.

Old Man Par: Your praise for Pat Ruddy’s European Club in County Wicklow was effusive – you seemed to really hit it off with Mr. Ruddy not only as a course designer but also as an interesting man. Have you kept in touch with him since you were there on your walkabout?

Tom Coyne: I haven't kept in touch with Mr. Ruddy since the trip, but I hope to run into him on a future trip to Ireland. He's an accomplished writer in his own right, so we'll have to see what he thinks about how I've written about his country and his golf course. It's interesting to hear the Irish react to the book -- all positive so far, but I wonder what some will think about this American's opinions, thoughts, impressions about life in Ireland.

Old Man Par: You mention in “A Course Called Ireland” that the social aspects of golf are (my words) more democratic, at least in the local non-resort courses like Cruit Island. That seems a lot different than here in the US, where golf seems to be a vehicle for business and social status more than the game itself. What in your opinion could the USGA do to help grow the American game at all levels, so that it more closely resembled the Irish and Scottish ideals?

Tom Coyne: I think golf as I experienced it in Ireland is an absolute ideal arrangement that we should strive to imitate here at home, but practically speaking, probably never will. Golf courses in Ireland are a part of the community. For the most part, they're not about status or class or wealth -- they're a place to go play a game when the sun is shining, or to go walk your dog if you're not interested in golf (or to even graze your heard as I found in some places). Memberships are not prohibitively expensive, kids and women have run of the course same as everybody else--if you want to play, grab your clubs and have at it. What a simple idea that completely got lost in the landscape of American golf. I'm speaking from the frustration of living in a part of the world (Philadelphia) with some of the best golf in the planet, but short of winning the lottery or Warner Bros buying the rights to A Course Called Ireland, I'm not going to have access to any of it, because golf here is a members only experience. There's a dearth of decent public golf here, and who knows how one changes that. You go to Ireland, you can play any course you would like, provided you've got some room left on the Amex. I'm stuck playing six hour rounds on cow pastures, while tee boxes in private golf America sit empty. But it's so fundamental to the way the game is organized here in America that I don't think it will ever change, nor do I sense any interest from the powers that be to do so. Consider the fact that in order to have an official handicap, the USGA has decreed that you have to be a member of a golf club. They might have the same rules in Ireland, but when everybody in town is a member anyway, it seems a less exclusive sort of thing.

Old Man Par: Any plans for a new golf book? Care to give us a peek as to what you have in mind?

Tom Coyne: I told my wife I was going to do Scotland on a motorcycle, golf clubs in my sidecar, and she threatened divorce. I'm tinkering with some new ideas, potentially less golfy this time, but you never know. The reception to this book has been strong from golfers and non-golfers alike, so I'm a bit up in the air about which direction I might go. That it won't involve any walking, or any Ireland, are about the only two guarantees I can make.

Thanks again to Tom Coyne for taking to time to answer my questions, and also for his wonderful golf books. "A Walk Called Ireland" is definitely a book that most any golfer and daydreamer will enjoy, and one the I recommend that you add to your bookshelf sooner rather than later. It is available at Amazon and other fine booksellers.

Reading: "A Course Called Ireland" by Tom Coyne

Sitting in an office Monday through Friday may pay the bills, but it does give rise to Walter Mitty-ish fantasies: winning the lottery, NC State mattering in basketball again, writing the great golf novel, or perhaps taking several months off and playing golf overseas. These daydreams sometimes fill the interstices of a busy day, and somehow they can help a regular guy like me trudge through another assignment or another meeting. Don't get me wrong, I like my job and enjoy my coworkers, but at the same time, living the life of Riley doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Tom Coyne may disagree, but that's really what he got to do for himself as he trekked around Ireland, playing golf all the way and getting to know the land of his forebears:for a time, he got to be Chester A. Riley. Even though he got lonely, had sore feet, spent more time underneath pouring rain than he'd like, spending four months playing golf in Ireland can't be described anything but life lived well. And I would bet anyone who has read 'A Course Called Ireland' would agree -- and maybe looked out of their office window, wishing they could have an adventure like Coyne's. Sore feet and drenched clothes would be a small price to pay for getting to explore a special part of the world and getting to play a lifetime's worth of great golf courses.

You may remember Coyne as the guy who took a year to see if he could become a PGA caliber player if he used the same training techniques, regimens and teachers as the guys who make a high living playing the game. In the end, he fell a little short, but reading Coyne's journey in his book "Paper Tiger: An Obsessed Golfer's Quest to Play With The Pros" was a delight for those of us who have harbored that particular fantasy. Difference is, Coyne gave it his shot, and wrote a great book in the process. And while he may not have sharpened his skills sufficiently to be the next Tiger Woods, he did sharpen his pencil and become the next golf-writing version of George Plimpton. Plimpton wrote one of the most literate and funny books on the 1960's era of golf, "The Bogey Man" and "A Course Called Ireland" approaches that level of writing. Coyne's writing skills are also reminiscent of a young Tom Wolfe in his groundbreaking "The Last American Hero." That's pretty heady company for a writer, and that's where Coyne belongs.

Here's the premise of "A Course Called Ireland:" Coyne spent sixteen weeks trekking his way around the coastline of Ireland, playing roughly sixty golf courses, playinh over nine hundred holes and covering more than one thousand miles. On foot. He said that in Ireland, you walk golf courses, and since he considered his trek 'a round' of the linksland courses of Ireland, he'd walk too. That's a lot of walking. His golfing itinerary included the famous resort courses and also the unknown local nine-holers where sheep and barb-wired pastures marked the edges of the fairways. Not being an experienced hiker he discovered a lot along the way about the Irish, things not covered in the guidebooks and he also discovered a lot about himself he never knew before. Reading through "A Course Called Ireland" it seemed like Coyne had one helluva time along the way -- in both senses of the the word. In that sense, you come away from Coyne's book with a feeling that he was honest about travel writing in a way not seen since Paul Theroux.

Coyne visited places I had never heard of, for example the Cruit Island Golf Club (click link for photo), in County Donegal -- and I have an Irish stepmother from Dublin. He described Cruit Island as a hidden gem, and looking over their web site, you get that exact feeling: a special golf course off of the beaten tourist track that's so authentic that they don't have a fancy web site for the curious...it looks like a place where a visitor is more than welcome but one that is designed for the members. I like that. As nice as Pebble Beach is in California, a trip there leaves one feeling a bit...overdone. Coyne didn't get that experience at Cruit Island and I suspect that no one else would either. That's golf the way it's meant to be, and something that American golf needs to return to if it wants to grow the game here.

Another thing that Coyne comes back to repeatedly is the uniquely Irish thing called "the craic." Pronounced like "crack," the craic is a Gaelic work describing something akin to "fun, with enjoyable company." That's my stepmother's best definition of the word, but she says that the craic is much more than that, yet somehow even simpler than the definition. That's always intrigued me, and when Coyne writes about it many times in the pages of 'A Course Called Ireland' it intrigues me even more. Coyne makes me want to have a craic or two of my own, and the only place you can truly have one is on the Emerald Isle. Perhaps that's why a trip overseas to visit is now on the forefront of our 2010 vacation thinking.

(pictured: Waterville Golf Club, one of Coyne's Irish desinations. Photo: George P. Burdell, via Flickr)

In summary, "A Course Called Ireland" will make you laugh, feel sad, feel sorry for Coyne, feel jealous of him and also may have you in front of a computer checking out the prices for flights and hotels for your own Irish adventure. For summertime reading, I can't recommend it enough. No matter where you are on this old Earth, reading it will be a craic of a good time.

You can read an excerpt here.

To purchase "A Course Called Ireland", click the photo of the book, or visit your local bookseller.

Photo of Tom Coyne, above, courtesy of the author.