A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint, and the Next Tee
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Product Description
An epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world’s greatest round of golf
In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was well familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on crafty a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father had taught him to like the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawned on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country started to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it. And since Irish golfers didn’t take golf carts, neither would he. He would walk the entire way.
A Course Called Ireland is the tale of a walking- averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland and regularly battling through all four seasons in one Irish afternoon. Coyne plays everything from the top-ranked links in the world to nine-hole courses crowded with livestock. Along the way, he searches out his family tree’s roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs. By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and a paean to the world’s greatest game.
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I liked the thought for the book. (Spoiler Alert – next sentence only.) Sorry to say, it was written by a name that comes across as arrogant and smug even when he is telling you how he or one of his friends leaves human excrement on an Irish B&B room floor. (O.K. it was a Carpet Spoiler Alter – get it). Coyne has answers to everything from American obesity (although he starts the journey in terrible shape) to Ireland’s political problems (hating this book may be the one thing that could reunite Ireland). I ordered this book because I really liked Paper Tiger. In Paper Tiger, he describes a year in which he devotes himself to improving enough at golf so that he can play as a pro. Paper Tiger works because it is about golf. Getting better, new equipment, getting worse, fantastic teachers, terrible / excellent shots, additional golfers, etc. A Course Called Ireland does not work because this book has way too much Coyne in it – his opinions, how he is a better golfer than his friends, how the course he is on is so much superior to the parkland course that you will play this weekend, how he is so much cooler than his friends, etc. Skip this book, check out Paper Tiger from the library and send the money you save to the B&B owner in Ireland.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
In 2006, I was fortunate enough to experience a golf trip to Southwest Ireland, playing a few of the courses visited by Coyne. That trip added immeasurably to my enjoyment of this book, and in the event of a return trip, I will certainly reread this book and follow some of the leader’s suggestions.
Tom Coyne, a golf writer and PGA Tour wannabe, plans the essential Irish golf trip, preparation to play every links course in Ireland, via a counterclockwise circuit of the island, ON FOOT. This latter condition, though perhaps adding to some extent to the book’s allure, was really to some extent silly, and likely added nothing to his enjoyment or understanding of the island or its people, additional than to add a month and a half of walking time.
Doubtless, Coyne’s itinerary provided him a far deeper understanding of Irish culture than that loved by most week long golf trips, housed in upper scale resorts catering to Americans, but, walking between the towns added small. It was the days and weeks spent in modest bed and breakfasts and neighborhood pubs that added flavor to the trips. More such time could have been spent were it not for the hundreds of hours spent by Coyne slogging along Irish highways and beaches. But, of course, it was the walking tour that added cache to the journey and doubtless provided the media exposure that he required to finance the trip and publicize the book.
Overall, this was a very entertaining travelogue, but I was at times place off by Coyne’s repeated references to “rich Americans” and “luxury tour busses” in an nearly sneering, holier than though tone. It was rich foreigners and money spending tourists that allowed construction and maintenance of many of the courses that Coyne played, professed like for and rarely had to pay a penny to play (trading upon his notoriety to access such courses as Ancient Head and Royal County Down).
Also offputting were Coyne’s moments of amateur psychological analysis. Sure, by virtue of the months he spent among the Irish people, he achieved an understanding and insight few of us would have an opportunity to garner. But, he trades on this experience to make some truly astonishing assumptions.
(SPOILER ALERT) Most troubling was a situation in which Coyne and two of his traveling companions of the moment (he cycled through a variety of friends and relatives throughout the trip) became so inebriated that they really defecated on the floor of their bedroom. While acknowledging the horror of the offense, Coyne spends the next several pages assassinating the character of the bed and breakfast owner who had the effrontery to track down the offenders, who had attempted to run away lacking taking responsibility for their actions. Coyne attributes this to an overly familiar culture and whines that he will permanently be identified in the region for the offense, of which he was certainly guilty.
In all his bemoaning of “hideous Americans” and luxury tour bus inhabitants, I doubt any have generated the terrible will toward golfing tourists that Coyne and his companions did by defecating on the floor of a bed and breakfast and then running away.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
What a fantastic book !Tom Coyne ia an brilliant writer and storyteller.I too have played golf in Ireland.Many of the courses that Mr. Coyne writes about in this book I played.It was a fantastic trip revisited thanks to Tom Coyne and his most entertaining book.
Dennis M.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
How this guy convinced his sainted wife to let him golf in Ireland for 4 months with a series of friends could be a book unto itself (and no doubt a best seller). This was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time. Coyne captures not only the character of just about every links course in Ireland but also the character of the Irish people themselves. Coyne’s coverage of the pubs and B & B’s he encounters along the way are better than any travel guide you’ll ever find. My family tree and I went to one of the pubs he recommended this summer (the Beach Bar). We had one of the most enjoyable meals we’ve every had in Ireland. Reading one passage on a business trip about the “Incident” had me laughing so loud the flight attendant questioned me to place the book down. I eagery await Coyne’s next book (how about walking from Malin Head to Kinsale and playing every parkland course?). Well done!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The book chronicles Tom Coyne’s walk around Ireland’s perimeter to play every links-style course on the Island. When he’s on the course his prose is generally fine … and as a name who’s played a excellent number of the courses he describes, it brought back fine memories for me.
The problem is, once he’s off the course, he sometimes strays into “frat boy” storytelling which left me wondering, “Does Coyne really reflect his audience is 20-year-ancient men … and if so, why is he trying so hard to impress them?” There’s a several-page digression about two-thirds of the way through the book called “The Incident.” I won’t clarify it except to say you won’t miss a thing if you skip yet to be to the next chapter. Coyne’s editor had to be asleep at the veer to let that passage through.
Such missteps aside, there is still a lot of excellent material here, not only about golf but about the people of Ireland.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5