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Tom Coyne is an American writer and professor. Coyne has published three books, A Gentleman's Game, Paper Tiger, and A Course Called Ireland as of 2009. A Gentleman's Game was adapted into a full length film starring Gary Sinise and Dylan Baker. Coyne attended the University of Notre Dame, and then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he is now an English professor at Saint Joseph's University. Visit Tom Coyne's website at www.tomcoyne.com
Tom Coyne's Bestselling Book "A Course Called Ireland"
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 designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father had taught him to love 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 began 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 story of a walking- averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland and often 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’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.
Reviews for A Course Called Ireland
“Walking across the face of Ireland with golf clubs, golf shoes, a stout supply of golf balls, and a change of underwear in tow, step after sometimes painful step over a period of four months is so daunting a prospect that that only thing which could possibly justify it is this triumphant book. A Course Called Ireland is knowing, warm, irreverent, funny, profound, compulsively readable, and, rarest of all, original—a book that seeks out and incisively pins down the character and fabric of Ireland today.”
—James W. Finegan, author of Where Golf is Great
“Tom Coyne’s purely delightful adventure reminds us of why we love this game, with all its quirks, characters, unexpected bends in the road, and small epiphanies. I thoroughly commend this bittersweet yeoman’s tale to any fellow who simply feels the urge to play his way over the horizon.”
—James Dodson, author of Final Rounds
"This is the ode to Ireland James Joyce would have written if Joyce had been a compulsive golfer, really funny, and had Tom Coyne's legs. A Course Called Ireland makes you want to bag the mortgage and hit the road, a sack on your back. Coyne’s book is an adventure, a pleasure, and a dream.”
—Michael Bamberger, author of To the Linksland
Read more about Tom Coyne and A Course Called Ireland
The New York Times (review)
The Wall Street Journal (review)
The Chicago Tribune (review)
Minneapolis Star Tribune (review)
The Boston Globe
The Montreal Gazette (review)
The Austin American-Statesman (review)
The State (review) Fairways and Greens Magazine (review)
Golfweek (review)
Shelf Awareness (review)
TravelGolf.com (review)
Cybergolf (interview)
The Daily Times (review)
The Golf Watch (interview)
Me and Old Man Par (review)
World Golf (review)
The Star-Ledger (review)
The Golf Blogger (review)
Purchase "A Course Called Ireland" at
Tom Coyne on Celtic Golf
"In 2007, I
spent four months playing the world's greatest round of golf. As anyone
who has ever been lucky enough to tee it up in Ireland can attest, that
round of golf would have to take place in Ireland. Instead of playing
some or part of Ireland, I decided to play the whole thing--57
links courses, 1,100 miles on foot, and 4,500 strokes--and survived to
tell the story. I can't be more excited to get back
to Ireland, with the best Irish tour operator in the
business – Celtic Golf. I hope you can join us." ~ Tom Coyne
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