A Course Called Scotland

Author: Tom Coyne
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1476754292
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “One of the best golf books this century.” —Golf Digest Tom Coyne’s A Course Called Scotland is a heartfelt and humorous celebration of his quest to play golf on every links course in Scotland, the birthplace of the game he loves. For much of his adult life, bestselling author Tom Coyne has been chasing a golf ball around the globe. When he was in college, studying abroad in London, he entered the lottery for a prized tee time in Scotland, grabbing his clubs and jumping the train to St. Andrews as his friends partied in Amsterdam; later, he golfed the entirety of Ireland’s coastline, chased pros through the mini-tours, and attended grueling Qualifying Schools in Australia, Canada, and Latin America. Yet, as he watched the greats compete, he felt something was missing. Then one day a friend suggested he attempt to play every links course in Scotland and qualify for the greatest championship in golf. The result is A Course Called Scotland, “a fast-moving, insightful, often funny travelogue encompassing the width of much of the British Isles” (GolfWeek), including St. Andrews, Turnberry, Dornoch, Prestwick, Troon, and Carnoustie. With his signature blend of storytelling, humor, history, and insight, Coyne weaves together his “witty and charming” (Publishers Weekly) journey to more than 100 legendary courses in Scotland with compelling threads of golf history and insights into the contemporary home of golf. As he journeys Scotland in search of the game’s secrets, he discovers new and old friends, rediscovers the peace and power of the sport, and, most importantly, reaffirms the ultimate connection between the game and the soul. It is “a must-read” (Golf Advisor) rollicking love letter to Scotland and golf as no one has attempted it before.

A Course Called Ireland

Author: Tom Coyne
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592405282
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
The hysterical story bestseller about one man's epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world's greatest round of golf By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and paean to the world's greatest game in the tradition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father has taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawn on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it-on foot. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking-averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland. Along the way, he searches out his family'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.

A Course Called America

Author: Tom Coyne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982128070
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Globe-trotting golfer Tom Coyne has finally come home. And he’s ready to play all of it. After playing hundreds of courses overseas in the birthplace of golf, Coyne, the bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland and A Course Called Scotland, returns to his own birthplace and delivers a “heartfelt, rollicking ode to golf…[as he] describes playing golf in every state of the union, including Alaska: 295 courses, 5,182 holes, 1.7 million total yards” (The Wall Street Journal). In the span of one unforgettable year, Coyne crisscrosses the country in search of its greatest golf experience, playing every course to ever host a US Open, along with more than two hundred hidden gems and heavyweights, visiting all fifty states to find a better understanding of his home country and countrymen. Coyne’s journey begins where the US Open and US Amateur got their start, historic Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. As he travels from the oldest and most elite of links to the newest and most democratic, Coyne finagles his way onto coveted first tees (Shinnecock, Oakmont, Chicago GC) between rounds at off-the-map revelations, like ranch golf in Eastern Oregon and homemade golf in the Navajo Nation. He marvels at the golf miracle hidden in the sand hills of Nebraska and plays an unforgettable midnight game under bright sunshine on the summer solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska. More than just a tour of the best golf the United States has to offer, Coyne’s quest connects him with hundreds of American golfers, each from a different background but all with one thing in common: pride in welcoming Coyne to their course. Trading stories and swing tips with caddies, pros, and golf buddies for the day, Coyne adopts the wisdom of one of his hosts in Minnesota: the best courses are the ones you play with the best people. But, in the end, only one stop on Coyne’s journey can be ranked the Great American Golf Course. Throughout his travels, he invites golfers to debate and help shape his criteria for judging the quintessential American course. Should it be charmingly traditional or daringly experimental? An architectural showpiece or a natural wonder? Countless conversations and gut instinct lead him to seek out a course that feels bold and idealistic, welcoming yet imperfect, with a little revolutionary spirit and a damn good hot dog at the turn. He discovers his long-awaited answer in the most unlikely of places. Packed with fascinating tales from American golf history, comic road misadventures, illuminating insights into course design, and many a memorable round with local golfers and celebrity guests alike, A Course Called America is “a delightful, entertaining book even nongolfers can enjoy” (Kirkus Reviews).

Paper Tiger

Author: Tom Coyne
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781592402090
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
Traces the author's year-long attempt to earn a competitor's spot at the PGA Tour Qualifying School, an endeavor marked by such challenges as crash diets, sports psychiatrists, and obscure tournaments.

Dream Golf

Author: Stephen Goodwin
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616200111
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Book Description
"Mike Keiser followed his instincts to build courses that speak to golf as a rugged adventure. Steve Goodwin's spirited book will speak to the golfing soul in you." —Lorne Rubenstein, columnist for The Globe and Mail (Canada) and author of A Season in Dornoch On a wild, windblown bluff high above the Pacific sits one of America’s premier golfing destinations, Bandon Dunes. Golf enthusiast Mike Keiser had the dream of building this British-style "links" course on a stretch of Oregon's rugged coast, and Dream Golf is the first all-inclusive account of how he turned his passion into a reality. Now, in this updated and expanded edition, golf writer Stephen Goodwin revisits Bandon Dunes and introduces readers to Keiser's latest effort there, a new course named Old Macdonald that will present golfers with a more rugged, untamed version of the game. This "new" approach to the sport is, in fact, a return to the game's origins, with a very deep bow to Charles Blair Macdonald (1856 –1939), the father of American golf course architecture and one of the founders of the U.S. Golf Association. This highly anticipated fourth course, designed by renowned golf course architect Tom Doak along with Jim Urbina — as detailed in Dream Golf — will further enhance Bandon Dunes' reputation as a place where golf really does seem to capture the ancient magic of the game.

Call the Nurse

Author: Mary J. MacLeod
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1611459176
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Book Description
Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud owners of a near-derelict croft house—a farmer’s stone cottage—on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse. Call the Nurse is her account of the enchanted years she and her family spent there, coming to know its folk as both patients and friends. In anecdotes that are by turns funny, sad, moving, and tragic, she recalls them all, the crofters and their laird, the boatmen and tradesmen, young lovers and forbidding churchmen. Against the old-fashioned island culture and the grandeur of mountain and sea unfold indelible stories: a young woman carried through snow for airlift to the hospital; a rescue by boat; the marriage of a gentle giant and the island beauty; a ghostly encounter; the shocking discovery of a woman in chains; the flames of a heather fire at night; an unexploded bomb from World War II; and the joyful, tipsy celebration of a ceilidh. Gaelic fortitude meets a nurse’s compassion in these wonderful true stories from rural Scotland.

Golf on the Rocks

Author: Gary Sutherland
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 0755387937
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 182

Book Description
Gary Sutherland was a lapsed golfer, until he acquired his late dad's putter. After studying a crumpled golf map of Scotland, Gary decided to embark on a voyage. His target was to play 18 rounds of golf on 18 Scottish islands in honour of his dad, a ship's captain who, when he wasn't at sea, was never off the golf course. His journey would take him from the Northern Isles to the Outer Hebrides. Playing in the Harris hail and Arran sunshine, he would encounter an odd variety of golfing hazards, including sheep on the tees, cows on the fairways and electric fences round the greens. This is golf in the raw - a million miles from St Andrews. It is a life-affirming tale of remembrance and discovery. It's about having a laugh and holding on to what's dear. And it's about a putter with magical properties. You can believe what you choose to, but it all happened...

Golf in Scotland

Author: Allan McAllister Ferguson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780971032644
Category : Golf
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A guide to golf courses tee times, lodging, and transportation in Scotland, including 13 itineraries.

Final Rounds

Author: James Dodson
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553375644
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
James Dodson always felt closest to his father while they were on the links. So it seemed only appropriate when his father learned he had two months to live that they would set off on the golf journey of their dreams to play the most famous courses in the world. Final Rounds takes us to the historic courses of Royal Lytham and Royal Birkdale, to the windswept undulations of Carnoustie, where Hogan played peerlessly in '53, and the legendary St. Andrews, whose hallowed course reveals something of the eternal secret of the game's mysterious allure over pros and hackers alike. Throughout their poignant journey, the Dodsons humorously reminisce and reaffirm their love for each other, as the younger Dodson finds out what it means to have his father also be his best friend. Final Rounds is a book never to be forgotten, a book about fathers and sons, long-held secrets, and the lessons a middle-aged man can still learn from his dad about life, love, and family. Final Rounds is a tribute to a very special game and the fathers and sons who make it so.

Meet Me In Scotland

Author: Patience Griffin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698145232
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
You can run from your problems, but you can’t hide from love in the Scottish seaside town of Gandiegow.... When a video of her calling happily ever after “a foolish fantasy” goes viral, marriage therapist Emma Castle is out of a job—and off to Scotland. The tiny town of Gandiegow is the perfect place to ride out the media storm and to catch up with her childhood friend Claire. But also in Gandiegow is the one man she hoped never to see again. She’s successfully avoided Gabriel MacGregor since Claire and Dominic’s wedding, only to find he’s now the village doctor—and just as tall, dark, and devilish as ever. Claire and Dominic’s blissful marriage, however, is not what it used to be. Soon Emma and Gabriel find themselves taking sides even as the sparks begin to fly between them. Can Emma help her friends—or regain her career—as she struggles with her own happily ever after?