Episode 29: Tom Coyne

Tom Coyne’s fourth book is “A Course Called Scotland,” a funny and poignant tale of his journey playing over 100 links courses in Scotland, England and Wales in less than 60 days. His goal was twofold: to find out the meaning of golf, which must exist somewhere in those sacred links soils; and to hone his game enough to pass through a qualifier at the end of his trip and gain entry into the Open Championship. With this, his previous books and vast magazine filings, Coyne has become one of golf’s most entertaining and knowledgable man of letters, a go-to scribe for conveying the joy and adventure of traveling with sticks.

He joined Derek Duncan to talk about how media has changed since the release of his last book, being one of the few people in the world to play virtually every links course in the UK and Ireland, how to write distinctively about dozens of courses that are essentially very similar, how American golf enables technical golf swings while links golf demands creativity, the irony of Americans taking a British game and making it snobby, the importance of resurrecting caddie programs, links courses being critic-resistant, the tragedy of Trump International in Aberdeen and whether the Bandon Dunes courses are true links.

(photo: crudenbaygolfclub.co.uk)

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Listen here to Derek Duncan discuss Tom Coyne’s “A Course Called Ireland” with hosts Rod Morri and Adrian Logue of the iSeekGolf Podcast.

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