00:00.16 The ModGolf Podcast Hello and welcome to the ModGolf podcast. We speak with the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the disruptors, and the influencers who are shaping the future of golf. I'm your host, Colin Weston. And folks, today I am genuinely excited about our guest. 00:20.78 The ModGolf Podcast He is a writer who has made an entire generation of golfers feel seen, understood, and perhaps a little less crazy for their obsession. I know I can certainly relate to that. He is a New York Times bestselling author of five incredible books, including Paper Tiger, a Course Called Ireland, 00:36.80 The ModGolf Podcast Scotland and America. And he's a storyteller who walks the walk quite literally thousands of miles, in fact, in Ireland. And he's also an entrepreneur and golf course owner, bringing his unique vision to life with Coyne Golf and incredible golf event experiences. 00:53.90 The ModGolf Podcast So yeah, Tom wears, I think all four of those hats of what I talked about at the top of the show. So with that, let's welcome to the ModGolf podcast, the one and only Tom Coyne. 01:04.61 The ModGolf Podcast Tom, thank you for joining me today. 01:06.28 Tom Coyne Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to do. Thank you for the generous introduction there. Very excited to jump in here. 01:10.90 The ModGolf Podcast That is my pleasure. Well, hey, we aim for generosity here is what we do. So Tom, your books, for our listeners who might not know, aren't just about golf. They're about epic journeys through golf. 01:24.74 The ModGolf Podcast And they are travelogues and human interest stories and deep dives in the obsession all wrapped up into one. And okay, I have to admit here, full disclosure, I didn't even know who you were until five months ago. 01:35.12 The ModGolf Podcast I feel kind of bad about that. 01:36.57 Tom Coyne Outrageous. 01:36.77 The ModGolf Podcast I know it is considering you know what I do for a living now, but all that changed in Vancouver, where I am up here in British Columbia, Canada. 01:46.16 The ModGolf Podcast So I play in what's called the weekend men's group here at the university golf club and I've doing that for about five years. And so this is back in early May. So I was just about to go on my first ever Ireland golf trip. I was speaking at a golf conference in Belfast. So was like, let's get a little bit of golf in me with my 16 handicap. Let's see what we can do over there. So I'm talking to one of the guys in the first tee and these two other guys, I didn't know, they're part of the group but I hadn't played with them. 02:15.25 The ModGolf Podcast The guy over hears my conversation and he pulls out of his golf bag maybe the most dog eared copy of A Course Called Ireland. 02:20.17 Tom Coyne Whoa. 02:29.25 The ModGolf Podcast So he didn't know me from Adam. Gives me the copy and says, "you have to read this before you go". So the timing was impeccable. I had a week and a half before I was getting on the plane to Dublin to then make my way up to Belfast and read this. So that was my introduction to Mr. Tom Coyne. Completely random, just the way the circuitous route kind of works and the planets aligned and now here we are having a conversation, which I love. 02:56.34 Tom Coyne That is pretty wild. He had it in his bag. 02:59.15 The ModGolf Podcast He had it in his bag. 02:59.22 Tom Coyne that's um Wow. That's amazing. 03:01.15 The ModGolf Podcast I think he may have bought this in, when did you release this? 2009, 2010? 03:09.73 Tom Coyne Yeah. 03:10.43 The ModGolf Podcast This may be copy number one here. Let me see if this is signed inside. 03:14.40 Tom Coyne Well, it is paperback, so that's good. 03:16.16 Tom Coyne I wouldn't want him carrying around the hardback, but yeah. 03:18.41 The ModGolf Podcast No, no. And like I said, it's about twice the thickness. This has so much moisture on it. 03:22.34 Tom Coyne Yeah, it's swollen. 03:22.77 The ModGolf Podcast He probably played every round in Ireland with this in his bag. 03:27.36 Tom Coyne Mm-hmm. 03:28.19 The ModGolf Podcast So let's get started here. Tom, I always ask this ice baker question. I know a little bit about you and your connection with your father in golf. That's through reading your book with A Course Called Ireland. 03:39.24 The ModGolf Podcast But I'd like to hear your first golf experience ever. Who was that person that invited you to pick up the game and have that first swing? So how old are you and what was that experience like? Can you remember? 03:51.53 Tom Coyne Yeah, as you said, it was it was definitely my dad. i grew up in a golf family. My dad, avid golfer and my older brother, three brothers. So the I'm the youngest. My middle brother, Matt, was a was a good player as well. 04:08.50 Tom Coyne I was like resistant to golf for my very early years, because it was something my brother was already good at. 04:21.42 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 04:22.20 Tom Coyne And I didn't want to do what was his thing. I wanted to do my things. The idea of getting into golf didn't really wasn't so obvious or interesting to me, but I was nine years old when I agreed to go to the junior clinic at so they would have a two o'clock Sunday junior clinic at my dad's club, Rolling Green, outside of Philadelphia. 04:47.61 Tom Coyne And I went to the clinic and learned how to grip the golf club. And probably that would have to be where I hit my first golf ball. 04:59.56 Tom Coyne I don't know if it was immediate love it at first miss, but it pretty quickly got into my veins. 05:12.44 Tom Coyne So by 10, I was playing on the junior golf team and the nine hole team and then the 18 hole team. And so on the young side, I mean, kids today start when they're fresh out of the womb, but back then so we're talking, this is like pre tiger woods. 05:29.44 Tom Coyne So you kind of only played golf if either you caddied or your mom or dad played, right. 05:36.48 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 05:36.71 Tom Coyne Like it wasn't a game that kids discovered on their own. They didn't see it on YouTube and want to go try it. So I found it through my dad, but then after that clinic a couple years later i'd started caddying as well and that's really when golf becomes sort of like a full just full-time endeavour for me because i'm caddying in the morning and playing every afternoon and and just uh my whole summer just becomes but becomes golf um until football season rolls around so golf became the the sport on which i was the most focused on. 06:14.96 Tom Coyne Yeah, so it's because of my dad. And he only has golf because he picked it up in the Navy. He grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, coal cracking region where you played football or basketball and baseball, very all American kind of stuff. 06:23.25 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 06:33.53 Tom Coyne kids from Scranton didn't necessarily play golf. ah And so he picked it up when he was stationed in San Diego in the Navy. The Navy had a lot of good golf courses and I'm glad that he did. 06:48.72 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. And we're not going to reveal too much right out of the gate here with A Course Called Ireland. But i remember right at the beginning of the book, you talked about that it was kind of a pilgrimage to go back there because I believe as a teenager, you played with your dad. He took you to Ireland. So he's gone to Ireland quite a few times before you did. Is that correct? 07:08.76 Tom Coyne Yeah, our first trip to Ireland, I think I was maybe 14, 13 or 14. And it wasn't it wasn't a golf trip. 07:15.51 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 07:19.34 Tom Coyne It was we were with some family friends and we were looking for gravestones and looking for family roots and going to see the church where my great grandfather was baptized, all that stuff. 07:29.18 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 07:30.07 Tom Coyne see castles in the rain and sleep in moldy castles and do the very touristy trip. We didn't kiss the Blarney Stone, but we kind of did everything but that. But there were two afternoons where my dad's like, "enough of this, like let's go play golf". 07:45.97 Tom Coyne So that was my first introduction to links golf. We played the Caching Course at Ballybunyan and we played a course called Enniskrone up in Sligo. Tom Coyne And at the point, no one had ever heard Enniskrone. The ModGolf Podcast Right, right. Tom Coyne We were told by a local B&B where we were staying that, "oh, there's this course down by the water, you should check it out". um And we were the only Americans there. There was no caddies. Tom Coyne We went out and played. But I do remember falling in love with links Golf at that point. Just something being revealed where it was like, "man, this is so different than what we do". Tom Coyne I didn't know you could play golf in settings like this. Just the massive the mass of the dunes in Western Ireland, and playing in the elements. It was just a whole new kind of golf thing. It felt like a different sport, and I loved it because it what it just felt more like this sort of athletic battle. Links is a hard place to sort of think about mechanics and strokes gained and things like that. It's like you're out there against the wind, sometimes the rain, and you're playing in these landscapes that you're just trying to navigate a path through them. Tom Coyne You're just following your ball through this outrageous dunescape and that's kind of irresistible and so then a couple of years later we took a big golf trip that was just golf. Me and my dad and we did that a few times so i was very lucky. Dad's still around he's 91 still playing. The ModGolf Podcast Nice. 08:34.60 Tom Coyne We had some really good times on golf trips in Ireland. And so when it came time to think about another project, another book adventure after Paper Tiger, golf in Ireland, that was a real passion and it certainly made sense. 08:57.28 The ModGolf Podcast So what I love about this is you bring your two passions together for writing and golf and merging those. Obviously you did that with starting with a gentleman's game. 09:10.82 The ModGolf Podcast I understand you went to Notre Dame for creative writing. So that's your undergrad in that. So I'm curious, I have to ask this. So which came first, the love of writing or the love of golf? 09:21.18 Tom Coyne Oh, I'd have to say writing because i can pinpoint that to first grade of elementary school where I wrote a Christmas story in first grade that was cribbed entirely from we had this dictionary of Christmas terms. Tom Coyne And I thought, let me try and use all of them. The ModGolf Podcast All right. Tom Coyne Right. So I wrote a story that that went from one word to the next. I don't know if I even knew what all the words meant because they had pictures. And so I wrote this story, showed it to my first grade teacher. Tom Coyne And of course she's blown away by my Christmas vocabulary, which I've fully pulled from this dictionary on my desk. The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 10:12.44 Tom Coyne And she's so impressed. She marches me down to the fourth grade to read this story that I had that I had written. And I remember at that point feeling, having very good associations with writing something with, with liking the note, the idea of audience of approval of all this, like it scratched a lot of itches. 10:34.90 Tom Coyne And my parents were big readers. We just lived in a bookish kind of house and I love books. And so that was definitely before golf. Now, the idea of actually doing it for a living or making a life out of writing that probably doesn't kick in until many years later when we signed the deal for A Gentleman's Game and it's not exactly a field that you go into and say, "I'm going to take this and write this thing". 11:02.40 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 11:11.52 Tom Coyne And by 25, I'll book publish a book. And that the path isn't so straightforward. So it took some time and believing and wondering if I could get there. After graduate school I wrote A Gentleman's Game, which was a novel about caddies and it was my master's thesis and I said, "I'm going to give myself some time to figure out if this is something I can do". 11:42.38 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 11:42.49 Tom Coyne Professionally speaking, whether it was just going to remain something that I'd love to do. And we had some good fortune there, got an agent, got the book published and made into a film. And they got to become both in that case. 12:01.21 The ModGolf Podcast That's amazing. 25? 12:03.90 Tom Coyne Yeah, it was crazy, right? 12:04.82 The ModGolf Podcast Exceeding your own expectations at that time, I'm sure. 12:06.63 Tom Coyne Well, it was wild. And yeah, it sets you up with very weird expectations after that because you're like, "oh, I love this. Next year we'll publish the next book and that'll be made into a movie and this'll be great". Not realizing this is all like a once-in-a-lifetime experience for any any writer to watch something they've written become a movie before the book was even out. 13:30.46 The ModGolf Podcast Really? All right. 12:31.12 Tom Coyne Yeah, the producer bought the rights to it off the manuscript that we were selling in New York at the time and to publishing houses. 12:42.64 Tom Coyne And so I was editing the final drafts of the book as the movies being filmed around me, which is really weird way to do it and quite unusual. 12:56.43 Tom Coyne Because as I'm thinking about these characters in the novel, now I have actors faces attached to them and they're doing things and they become real in a weird way. So it was pretty wild. 13:10.03 Tom Coyne Yeah. And that hasn't happened again. So I was quite spoiled and at an early age in that regard. 13:12.95 The ModGolf Podcast Right. right 13:17.01 The ModGolf Podcast I knew nothing about the writing process, but it seems to me just the sequencing, and it's almost like you're writing a screenplay at the same time that you're writing a novel. 13:24.06 Tom Coyne I wrote the screenplay for the movie, for the film version with the director. 13:34.87 Tom Coyne There was dialogue that was written in the movie, in the screenplay, that it's like, "wow, that that would be a good line in the book". So the book had been finished, but there were was time to add more. 13:48.64 Tom Coyne Yeah, it was the cart leading the horse. It was the caboose was in front or however you want to say it was, it was pretty wild. But man, it was great because it put me in this place where I was able to, at that point, like I'm an accidental golf writer. 14:04.15 Tom Coyne I didn't go to journalism school. I wasn't doing sports journalism. I don't think of myself as a sports journalist. 14:10.10 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 14:13.30 Tom Coyne But I had a golf book. So I had a book on the shelf in the bookstore that said golf. And now I had the chance because of that, I got to start to write for some golf magazines. And suddenly I'm a golf writer and I'm in that in that world. And what a happy accident, because it does, as you said, it sort of brings together really the only two things I knew anything about, which were golf and writing. 14:33.88 The ModGolf Podcast Here we go. Play to your strengths. Play to your strengths. So after you come out the other side of the success with A Gentleman's Game. So next up was Paper Tiger. And I have not had the pleasure of reading that book yet. 14:45.82 The ModGolf Podcast But my understanding that really was your journey through golf. Tell us a little bit about that before we get into your ridiculous adventures of walking and driving around three different countries here. 14:58.87 Tom Coyne Yeah. Paper Tiger, in getting to A Course Called Ireland was important because I went to graduate school in fiction writing. wanted to write the great American novel, all that stuff. I was a fiction writer first and Paper Tiger is nonfiction. So it was this transition and I spent a couple of years after A Gentleman's Game trying to write my next novel, a follow-up or whatever, 15:24.73 Tom Coyne they're really about anything trying to not write a golf novel, trying to do something else and then realized that everything i knew about the world was in i was 25, 26 at that time so everything i knew about life was in the book i didn't know a hell of a lot about anything. Everything i did was in A Gentleman's Game so I thought I should go out and live some life and report on that, like a George Plimpton or go experience something that's worth writing about. 15:57.25 The ModGolf Podcast yes 15:57.85 Tom Coyne And for me, that experience would be like trying to play pro golf, like that dream and that three-card Monty that golf pulls on us where it can make us believe we're better than we are. 16:09.08 Tom Coyne But at the end of the day, golf does give us the opportunity. We all hit a shot when we're out there, maybe only one and maybe not every day, but that's as good as we need to hit a golf ball. Tom Coyne So the idea of what if I could just do that more often if I didn't have anything else to do or worry about or no other commitments, a job, if I had nothing, I wasn't married at the time. How good could I get? Could I do this? Tom Coyne Everybody who takes the game seriously is certainly daydreamed about it or wondered about it. So i said, "I'll out and do it". And with Paper Tiger, I played 542 days in a row with a coach, shrink, trainer, equipment sponsor. I got all, it was basically the idea. moved to Florida to play down there with with great players and the idea being all of no excuses, let's just see what it's actually like to chase that obsession and that dream so i don't want to spoil the ending for anyone listening they might notice that i'm not on the PGA Tour. You're not interviewing me about my run in the Fedex Cup playoffs. But it introduced me to nonfiction and a voice where readers responded to it was like, okay, I can actually be a character in the story, which was great and important for me. Tom Coyne But it also sort of introduced to me the kind of things that I wanted to write about in that capacity, which was like, obsession, right? The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. Tom Coyne Getting to do unreasonable things. I don't think people generally want to read books about going out and doing very safe and normal things. Tom Coyne So unless you're a far, far better writer than I am, can you pull that off? So, this idea of doing unreasonable things certainly led me into the way I approached Ireland. 17:04.35 The ModGolf Podcast And would it be fair to say that you've never had writer's block? It almost seems like you you've engineered this to hack a non-block situation, if that's even a term, by writing about your experiences, creating the experiences first and got almost like chronicling what you do there. So they kind of write themselves in a way. So have you ever had writer's block or felt that pressure maybe after your first success of wanting to be the Steinbeck of golf or something along that line? 17:32.59 Tom Coyne I've had good writer's block. I taught creative writing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia here for a long time between book projects and then full time for a while. 17:44.30 Tom Coyne And I always thought writer's block as a concept was just sort of like an emotional or intellectual kind of exhaustion or weariness, just being kind of tired of it. 17:55.98 Tom Coyne Because at the end of the day, writing is like any other job. You show up and you do something. Now, some days it's a bad paragraph or a bad page and something you're just going to throw away. And so I've certainly experienced times where I don't want to write, but it's not because of some metaphysical block. 18:14.03 Tom Coyne It's just because I don't want to work that day. Right. And I think we all have those days. 18:18.48 The ModGolf Podcast Absolutely. 18:20.87 Tom Coyne And as a writer working for yourself with a couch right over there in your office, sometimes taking those days off can be easier than in other professions. So I've certainly experienced the lack of joy around writing that you might call writer's block. 18:35.71 Tom Coyne But gosh any writer has so many bad first starts or novels that didn't get past page three or screenplays that went nowhere. I was taught in my writing program about you know to look at writing as if you're serious about it it's work i mean you're not digging ditches and it's not mining coal but it is a job where you physically show up every day It can be physically exhausting. 19:08.70 Tom Coyne sitting in a chair and banging on a keyboard for 12 hours, it it'll wear you down. 19:15.62 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 19:15.70 Tom Coyne And so to approach it as a job and make sure that you are showing up every day, the way an athlete would train the way. You've got to shoot, you've got to practice your free throws. 19:28.55 Tom Coyne And for the times when you actually get on a roll with something and when they actually matter. 19:37.85 The ModGolf Podcast Okay, so now I'm going to switch over to the book that I am intimately familiar with, having read it not once but twice, cover to cover here. 19:46.15 Tom Coyne Hmm. 19:46.88 The ModGolf Podcast So i have to ask you this, as an entrepreneur, as a writer, as a human being, What was that aha moment? What came together to think, hey, this is a really great idea. The ModGolf Podcast I'm going to walk, circumnavigate an entire country. Well, I guess two countries because you're in Northern Ireland or the UK also. And I'm going to do this and i'm going to have to get my wife's permission. Or maybe you didn't even ask. you just asked for forgiveness. The ModGolf Podcast So where did you even think that this was a a good idea before you even launched to try to figure out how you're going to logistically organize this? Because this is pre Airbnb and just the logistics of this must've been bonkers on that. So tell us about why you came up with this or how you came up with the idea and then actually thought, yeah, I'm going to do this. Tom Coyne Yeah, it was pretty wild. So the idea came from I was planning a golf trip for somebody's I don't know, it was time in our life where everyone was getting married and having kids and stuff. And it's like, all right, I'd been on these golf trips, as I mentioned to Ireland and sort of knew the lay of the land. Tom Coyne pretty well, some of the obvious places to go. So I'd printed out a golf map of Ireland, and it was on my desk, and i was just trying to decide like okay should we go to the southwest where there's so much great golf down there a lot of trips go that way should we do Northern Ireland? What about the northwest or the west? so i was trying to like fit in a week's itinerary or five days of golf for guys who only had five days and struggling to find like 20:24.97 Tom Coyne Yeah, we can do that, but I want to go up here and do this. And so this idea of like, well, what if there's a trip where you just did it all? Because this map that was just a flag planted around for every links of Ireland. 20:39.46 Tom Coyne playing it around this around the country. So it started to look like almost a roadmap, like from one flag to the next. 20:43.98 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 20:45.78 Tom Coyne And I thought, well what if I just did play it all? You know, that would be fun. And that would be a wild adventure. And I think at the time I was also reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods and just loved how he made the act of of walking itself interesting and dramatic and making the trail a character in the story. And I was fully committed to golf writing at that point. 21:21.19 Tom Coyne I wanted to do something about golf in Ireland, but didn't know what. And so all those pieces kind of came together and I thought, all right, so I'll just play Ireland, like one giant golf course. That's pretty wild. But if I do, you know that you don't take golf carts when you play in Ireland, they have more now than they used to. But at that time, we're talking 2007. 21:41.83 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 21:42.98 Tom Coyne it's a walking game over there. Very, very much so. So I said, "all right, so if I'm playing this as one giant golf course, sometimes the next tee is going to be three days walk away, sometimes it's from here to the door is the next tee and sometimes it's 60 miles away. And that's what I'm going to do". I'll do it all on foot. And so I could say I played Ireland as a golf course, playing only the links courses, nothing on the interior of the Parkland golf courses, but going all the way around and doing it on foot. 22:17.19 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. Tom Coyne So yeah, the planning of that, and it was a bit of a gag, to be honest, to pitch it from the entrepreneurial standpoint, in pitching this idea to a publisher. And what I really liked about writing nonfiction as opposed to fiction, when you're writing a novel, you generally write the whole book or most of it before you can sell it, and with nonfiction, you can write book proposals where you're like, "this is what the book's going to be about". Tom Coyne And I haven't written it yet and I haven't done it yet. Tom Coyne And so I really liked that about nonfiction. So I wrote this proposal and I said, and I thought I'm going to, walk you know, I put in there, I'm going to walk the whole way. And that was like interesting and weird and unexpected. And i think it made the book feel a little different and got a publisher to buy into it. Tom Coyne So initially there was a sales angle to doing it that way. But it ended up becoming the most important part of the story because in walking Ireland, I was forced to stop. I had a 25 mile leash, 20 miles usually every day. I could only do so many miles. The ModGolf Podcast Yes. Tom Coyne So that meant I had to stop in places where the tour buses don't stop or maybe where tourists don't go. It made me find bed and breakfasts in little sleepy towns where there weren't any, or maybe there was one woman up the road who had a room in the back or something like that. Tom Coyne So I got a really intimate look at Ireland, doing it on foot and doing it at that pace too. It took four months to walk the country. It was 1100 miles in total, that included the golf, or at least the route that I took. The ModGolf Podcast Yes. Tom Coyne And going around, taking it at that pace, I still have such vivid memories of like places and pubs and towns and shops that I stopped in because when you're not just when the world isn't just blowing past you or you're not looking at your phone, Tom Coyne And this was prior to, this was 2007, so I didn't have a smartphone with a map on it. So I had a paper map in my back pocket following that around. The ModGolf Podcast yes Tom Coyne And when you're doing things that way, I don't know, I think your senses generally are more in tune when you're traveling or elsewhere. Tom Coyne You're taking everything in as new. So it was a great way to experience Ireland because it became so vivid in my imagination because I was literally doing it step by step. The ModGolf Podcast Yes, you were. And I love in the book, so obviously you had to be lean and mean to decide what you were going to carry and what you're going to jettison. And I believe you jettisoned your golf shoes very quickly. The ModGolf Podcast And you had a pair of Keens that you wore the whole way. Tom Coyne Yep. The ModGolf Podcast And halfway through the book, it's like, why don't you just order another pair of Keens? Then I realized that would almost be like cheating. It's like, that's part of what you need for that completionist. So yeah. Tom Coyne Yeah. 23:20.17 The ModGolf Podcast Tell us about the Keen story. We don't want to spoil everything here. So, of course, we want to encourage our listeners to read the book because it is fantastic. But yes, tell us about your relationship with your shoes. 23:29.91 Tom Coyne Yeah, the relationship, it sort of became like my relationship with like Wilson and Castaway, like this inanimate object that becomes my travel mate because I'm out there most of the time alone. I had friends joining me from time to time to walk with me. My wife came over four times and would, you know, do a couple days here and there. 23:46.36 Tom Coyne But it was mostly me alone on the road. And I got rid of my golf shoes. It was too heavy to carry. i started with 11 clubs. I finished with seven. i sent home clothes. 23:58.57 Tom Coyne There were just things that did get jettisoned because it was just on long walking days. It's like, i don't need I don't need a six iron. I can open up a five iron or whatever. 24:07.78 The ModGolf Podcast Right, right. 24:07.94 Tom Coyne I'll throw that in this farmer's field. So there are golf clubs sprinkled around the roads of Ireland that I'm responsible for. Hopefully somebody found them and put them to good use. But, the shoes were like, yeah, they started to erode a little bit over time to make a great, he makes an amazing walking shoe, but I put them through 30 days straight of straight rain, Tom Coyne I put a lot of miles on those tires. So by the end, I was kind of holding them together with band-aids and and tape. And it was just like, I'm finishing the country in one pair of shoes. Tom Coyne And I became very protective of them. There was one course that wasn't going to let me play in my walking shoes. And this was again before golf shoes started looking like sneakers, golf shoes now look incredibly casual. The ModGolf Podcast Yes. Tom Coyne But at the time it was like, okay, you wear proper shoes to play golf. And those aren't proper shoes. And they weren't going to let me play their golf course. And so that became quite an episode in the book where it was like, you know, nobody puts baby in a corner. Like nobody talks bad about these shoes. They've walked, I've walked here, man, from the Shannon airport. They come or I go. So what was funny about that is that like a couple of years later, I got an email from the CEO of Keen and he was great. Tom Coyne And he was very appreciative of the shoes being a character in the story. And he asked me my shoe size and my wife's shoe size and my kid's shoe size. Tom Coyne And we have Keens for life at the Coyne household. The ModGolf Podcast nice Tom Coyne So we love them. And we had a good run together and they're still here in the house somewhere. They are not on display per Allison's request to not have a torn up a pair of shoes on our mantle, though I would be fine with them being there. The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, I did ask you before we started recording when I saw your backdrop there in your studio. It's like, come on, you got to find those Keens because we are, as I mentioned, going to do a video conversation for the ModGolf YouTube channel. The ModGolf Podcast And I would have loved to have seen those nasty pair of Keens that have probably aged very nicely. Are they fossilized yet? Tom Coyne yeah they're probably very firm in nature i don't think they'd be the most comfortable wear right now but it would be fun to see them again The ModGolf Podcast I'd love that. So if my memory serves correctly from the book, I believe that Port Stewart was the course that was going to shut you down for not having proper shoes. Is that right? Tom Coyne No, it was in that area. The ModGolf Podcast did I get that right? Tom Coyne It was um Castle Rock in Northern Ireland. 25:02.88 The ModGolf Podcast Ah, there we go. 25:03.25 Tom Coyne It was my first day in Northern Ireland. And the thing about it, it was a weird day because they were incredibly accommodating and welcoming in the pro shop. And the starter was the one who didn't feel great about my shoes and made it that clear to me in no uncertain terms. So then I went back inside and was like, well, I guess I'm not playing today. And It became a whole thing. And since then, Castle Rock has written to me. And I felt badly i didn't want to make a villain out of anyone and in the story, but there, it was a day when it was about, I'm going to play in these shoes because I've walked 600 miles so far to get to this golf course in these shoes. 25:52.87 Tom Coyne And I played every other golf course in Ireland in them. So, they've written since then and we have a great dialogue and I want to go back. I haven't gotten back since, and in all the golf trips I've done, it hasn't lined up with anything because Castle Rock is a fantastic golf course and it probably has the best short course in Ireland. It's the nine hole course the par three course there is absolutely unbelievable so a really great place and and everyone should go visit i just happened to visit on the wrong day in the in the wrong pair of shoes. 25:36.23 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, that book really inspired me. Like I said, the timing was ridiculously impeccable that it was only a week before I got on a plane for the first time to start in Dublin and then make my way up. 25:46.86 The ModGolf Podcast So I managed to play four of the courses that you played in Ireland. So I played Port Stewart and I managed to get on Royal Portrush, a good friend of mine who has a luxury golf tour business and is a member of Royal Portrush. 25:55.11 Tom Coyne Nice. 26:00.21 The ModGolf Podcast So I hung out with her and managed to get on there, which is amazing. It was half set up for the open already. And then after the conference, I was inspired by you. I was kind of kind of harnessing my inner Tom Coyne. I didn't walk. 26:13.06 The ModGolf Podcast I did take a bus with all my stuff. I did didn't have a car. And I went down and played Ardglass. And then I played Royal County Down. And I will say that I absolutely loved Ardglass. Ardglass, I think, is the favourite of my the four courses. I think it's the most magical day I've ever had. 26:29.47 The ModGolf Podcast So I'm curious with you. 26:29.52 Tom Coyne yeah 26:30.43 The ModGolf Podcast Off the top of my head, I don't know, 50, 60, 70. I can't remember how many courses you played there. But tell me about your experience at Ardglass. And this is really self-indulgent because I absolutely love that course. So tell me about your experience at Ardglass because I love that place. 26:47.19 Tom Coyne Yeah, I think a lot of people have that same reaction because they go to Northern Ireland to play The big names that they know, the County Downs and the Portrushes, which are rightly ranked among the top top golf courses in the world. 26:56.97 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 27:07.57 Tom Coyne Either of them are as good as links golf gets. But they're difficult. And sometimes you get, you know, and not that Ardglass is easy, but maybe get little beat up over there. Then you have all these expectations when you go to a county down or Portrush. And I think people don't bring a lot of expectations to Ardglass because they haven't heard of it. 28:32.41 Tom Coyne they're just hearing about it now or in recent years. And so when they when they show up, it's just pure delight because, and also i think a big factor, all the courses up there are very welcoming, but there's a there's just a very fun vibe at Ardglass. 28:36.61 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 28:52.66 Tom Coyne Yeah. 28:52.75 The ModGolf Podcast Agreed. Mm-hmm. 28:53.96 Tom Coyne You know, it's about the craic there. The fun, as the Irish say. And, you know, the clubhouse is an old castle. The holes are set on rocky cliffs that hug the ocean. And the halfway house is an ancient thatched cottage. You have water on the backside of the course, water on the front side. I mean, it's just visually stunning. The pro there, Paul, has become a dear friend of mine over the years. Ardglass was the first place to reach out and say that the book was having 28:35.62 Tom Coyne and it's amazing thing when this happens. Because writing a book is like having a kid, you do your best and you send them out into the world and you hope they call once in a while and everything goes okay. And so to hear from the folks at Ardglass that the book was having an impact on their visitors or the people were showing up with the book because I wrote so much about it in the book, it was overwhelming to hear that. What a wonderful side effect of getting to have this indulgent great trip around Ireland. And they made me a life member there, some of them have become some of my very best friends. And so that's a place I never miss when I go to Ireland. 30:20.73 Tom Coyne If I'm anywhere near it, I go there. It's just one of those few in Ireland that and Carne on the West coast that just really feel like home. 30:31.83 Tom Coyne And so yeah, Ardglass, a little underdog, but yeah, you have to go play Portrush, County Down and Port Stewart. 39:43.22 Tom Coyne but something that's going to feel a little different and maybe a little more laid back in a good way is popping over to Ardglass. 30:53.49 The ModGolf Podcast I agree. And I'm hoping, sounds like this golf business technology conference is slated for a second year in May. So fingers crossed, I'll get invited to speak again there and make my way a little bit West and maybe even South to play some golf, but I definitely will play Ardglass again. And you mentioned Paul Vaughn, the general manager looking after the place. I showed up there and he heard that I was speaking at this golf conference and I am no Tom Coyne. I am a no one in the media space at the level that anyone would recognize. And he greeted me when I showed up there. I was by myself, got off the bus and walked the hundred yards to get to the course with all of my luggage and everything else and comped me the round and afterwards had me in for dinner and I'm looking for the server afterwards to pay for it. 31:33.94 Tom Coyne oh 31:39.39 The ModGolf Podcast And she's like, no, no, it's all sorted. It's taken care of. I had to get a taxi to make it to a Royal County Down for the next day. He organized all that with a good friend of his, wasn't even a taxi and just drove me there and had this great conversation. So that piece you're talking about, which resonates throughout the book. And I'm assuming your are other books too. It's not just about what happens on the golf course, but I could truly say in your book with a Course Called Ireland that I think the best stories, the most compelling ones are what happens off the golf course, not necessarily what happens on it. 32:11.43 Tom Coyne A hundred percent. I mean, that's awesome to hear about Paul and that's that hospitality. Like there's a theme running through the Ireland book, uncommon acts of Irish hospitality and where you're just like, they're giving me a ride like for free. 32:24.95 Tom Coyne And of course they are. Why wouldn't they? It's their way of looking at acts of generosity. They look at things as something someone should do, not where I look at from some freakish acts of generosity that I don't know how to respond to. 32:35.33 The ModGolf Podcast Right. 32:41.42 Tom Coyne And in fact, it's so kind, I'm uncomfortable. So yeah, I found that everywhere. And it's a wonderful, it's really one of the gifts of traveling Ireland and was great. 33:00.70 Tom Coyne And people look after each other and get you sorted. But with all the stories, like you asked, the golf is the backdrop, right? Like golf's a really good backdrop. And as a storyteller, it gives you a lot of things to play with, right? 33:14.08 Tom Coyne It gives you competition and conflict and difficulty and setting and characters and gives you all those things. 33:14.56 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah. 33:22.42 Tom Coyne But for me, golf gives me the trajectory for a story. But you don't know what the story is until you go out and find it. And it generally has nothing to do with you know where that five iron went or how that eight iron felt that you hit on the sixth hole. That kind of writing, golf writing to me, it can get tiresome quickly. No one even likes to hear that after golf, like from your friend, I hit this shot and then I hit that shot and then I hit this shot. 33:48.45 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. 33:54.97 Tom Coyne So, if that bores me, if it bores me reading it I'm not going to bore me writing it. But what doesn't bore me are people and why we do the things we do or the situations that we get ourselves into. So I've been lucky that that golf's been a really good way to find a lot of that. 34:11.67 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, nice. Yeah, i'm still stunned that my non-golf playing wife doesn't want to hear a shot by shot recap of every single round I play. 34:20.39 Tom Coyne Shocking, I know, right? 34:21.36 The ModGolf Podcast It's so compelling. How could you not enjoy that? 34:24.76 The ModGolf Podcast It's riveting stuff. Yikes. Yikes. Well, I can talk for the next three hours about Ireland, but I want to move on to Scotland and then back to America. 34:35.23 The ModGolf Podcast But I have one more question here. I have to ask you this. So this metaphor for Ireland as a golf course, I'm not going to spoil again what goes on at the end of the trajectory of the journey here. 34:47.10 The ModGolf Podcast But that metaphor, and then you tabulate through it, treating the entire Ireland as a golf course and how many over par. I forget what the par was it a par 72 golf course? Maybe you could remember. 35:03.72 Tom Coyne Yeah, it was par like 6,000 or something. 35:06.29 Tom Coyne I forget what the numbers are in the back of the book, but yeah, I finished it. I played it at like 512 over par or something, I don't know. I thought that was pretty good. 60 golf courses. 35:15.77 The ModGolf Podcast I love that. 35:17.46 The ModGolf Podcast So did you post-rationalize that? Did that come out afterwards? Or is that a thought you had before you even stepped on the plane to go to Ireland? 35:24.29 Tom Coyne No, I knew that like I wanted to keep close track of statistics, like you know my steps, my miles, my shots, my scorecards, all that stuff. 35:32.37 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, yeah. 35:34.61 Tom Coyne And I wasn't sure how I was going to use them in the book. But it became a nice kind of mile marker, how many steps, how many miles, how much weight. 35:46.42 Tom Coyne I did that in Paper Tiger, we're losing weight and all that stuff. So It's fun to help follow the progression and having little maps in the book too so you could have a sense of where I was. 35:57.00 Tom Coyne Yeah, It wasn't until after and it was really fun to think of the trip in those terms. Because then you get to think like, damn, like look what I did. 36:11.79 Tom Coyne like That's crazy. I played a lot of golf. When you're in it, you're not necessarily thinking like that. but to be able to step back and look at all the scorecards spread out on your desk. And you're like, Whoa, that was something. 36:23.17 The ModGolf Podcast Yeah, no doubt. Okay, before we fast forward almost a decade to then expand your adventures into Scotland, to finish up with Ireland here. 36:19.06 The ModGolf Podcast I understood at the end of it, because you didn't bring those golf clubs home. I'm not going to tell the story of what you did with your golf clubs, the Mizunos that you played with. 36:30.79 The ModGolf Podcast But I understand you didn't pick up a club for a year after that. Was it one of these things like champagne is great, but I don't want it three times a day with every single meal? that kind of blew me away that you just went cold turkey on golf. 36:40.98 Tom Coyne Yeah. Well, i think it was a matter of when I'm on a like a book project, especially then, now I do a better job of balancing my golf and writing. 36:54.65 Tom Coyne But at that time, i came home and i didn't belong to a golf club. So I didn't have all the options that I had in Ireland, which were all the courses are visitor friendly. 37:04.66 Tom Coyne You know, and Philadelphia is a great golf scene, but it's for almost all private. 37:04.86 The ModGolf Podcast Right. Right. 37:10.30 Tom Coyne Not necessarily have a place to play. And i had to write the book. So I think that's what I sat down to do. And it's tough. I'm an obsessive golfer. So if I'm not, I don't i wouldn't be one to just like go out for a walk and play golf. 37:28.14 Tom Coyne Just for the scenery or to say that I did, I'm like, "I'm always trying to get better". And if I know I'm going to stink and then not play for three more months, it's kind of like, what's the point I should go for? 37:40.89 The ModGolf Podcast right 37:41.21 Tom Coyne I'll go for a walk around the block. 37:43.38 The ModGolf Podcast There we go. Okay. So let's move forward then. Almost another eight years or so. Like I said, I haven't read A Course Called Scotland yet, but you did not walk that course. But this came back, I believe, when you were in college. You actually spent a term in London and then you had a St. Andrews experience. Was that the catalyst for then getting this off the ground then and then trying to qualify for the open of the journey? So we'll condense this down here because I want to be respectful of your time here, Tom. So so yeah, give us an overview of the high points of A Course Called Scotland and why you decided to do this whole thing over again one more time. 38:23.97 Tom Coyne yeah i don't think i wanted to do it for a long time because it seemed obvious. Okay A Course Called Ireland gonna do A Course Called Scotland and there was something that just seemed sort of telegraphed about that and so i had to figure out a different way to do it in a way that i was going to get really excited about and passionate about because these adventures take a lot of time and energy and investment. 38:30.92 The ModGolf Podcast Yep. Right. 38:46.77 Tom Coyne I really had to find an angle that got me fired up. I guess it was combining the last two books, which was Paper Tiger trying to play my best golf and then finding like the spirit and heart of a country through golf. 38:59.56 Tom Coyne And also the fact that, I'm if you're a lover of links golf and don't know golf in Scotland, which I really didn't before I did the book, and then that's a huge hole in your resume. 39:12.42 Tom Coyne Obviously, i had only gone on that trip to St. Andrews for a bank holiday weekend when I was in college studying in London and loved it. But that was the extent of my Scotland experience. So I said, all right, I'll go back but I'll have a different purpose. 39:30.85 Tom Coyne Like the Ireland book was just about, can I survive this? And the Scotland book was, I'm going to actually look for something specific. And that would be the secret to my best golf. 39:37.22 The ModGolf Podcast right 39:41.10 Tom Coyne And then to find it and put it to the test and trying to qualify for the greatest championship in sports, the Open. So it was a very different kind of trip. I didn't walk it. 39:51.36 Tom Coyne It was all done in like 57 days or something because I was a professor at the time, so I left at the end of my semester, and then the open qualifier was on X date, so that only left me so much time to try and play every links course in Scotland, which is like over 100 golf courses, which I played in days or something, and I wanted to play the Open Roto while I was going. So I played some golf in England. i popped into Wales. it was a ah mad dash. I mean, I was playing two and three courses a day. 40:33.38 Tom Coyne I was fit. I had to get down to scratch again, which I hadn't been since Paper Tiger. so that I could even get into the qualifier for The Open. 40:43.65 Tom Coyne So like the golf in the Scotland book actually matters. 40:43.81 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 40:47.25 Tom Coyne Which is a little different than the Ireland book. Like who cares what I shot. It was about something different, but Scotland in that way is a little more golfy and there's a little more obsession and personal quest to it. 40:59.53 Tom Coyne And that it ends with me like putting my game to the test. So yeah, it's a book. It's a very personal book. At that point I have children. They're joining me over there. 40:15.79 Tom Coyne I've gotten at that point I'd gotten sober and that it was a huge change. And like just being able to go to Scotland and live out these dreams and go after something unreasonable again when I didn't feel like I would get to do that anymore. And so I think Ireland is in some ways a sillier book in good ways. 40:39.94 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 40:40.27 Tom Coyne Scotland may be a little more thoughtful of a book and still full of goofy, silly stuff that happens all over the place when you're traveling like that. But that fits too, because that's the difference between an Irish and a Scottish golf trip, right? When people ask us, we have a travel company here as well. And should we go to Ireland or Scotland? I'm like, Alright, do you want to fun and just have the craic? 41:08.48 Tom Coyne Is it that kind of trip? You were just Ireland, you can't not have the fun. And you have fun in Scotland, too. But it's like, okay, are you into golf history? Do you take the game seriously? Are there places that you wanted to see, and play before you die? Like those are the golfers that are going to find that very readily in Scotland. 41:28.73 Tom Coyne So both countries obviously take the game very seriously. But in Scotland, it's the home of golf for a reason. 41:36.55 The ModGolf Podcast Yes. One thing I love about your writing, well, lots of things I love, but in A Course Called Ireland, you have no problem putting yourself out there and being vulnerable and that whole self-deprecating lens that you see things through is great. It's very relatable. 41:55.47 The ModGolf Podcast so I'm wondering in those other books, do you continue with that, not taking yourself too seriously, even though you're doing something that you are taking seriously? 43:03.39 Tom Coyne No, you have to, because I don't ever want to position myself as some sort of hero figure or "look at me, look at what I'm doing". Not only is it not interesting, it's not true. 43:19.75 Tom Coyne It's not relatable to the reader. The reader wants to know our faults and foibles. We read stories to learn about trouble and difficulties and how people got through them and past them. 43:30.76 Tom Coyne Whether it's just a long walk or something more significant. Also if I'm going to make fun of other, not make fun of, but like make light of the struggles that other people have on the golf course or traveling with me, I better be ready to do that with myself. 43:48.01 Tom Coyne Yeah, there are people that get the stick in both stories because they do silly things or find themselves in silly situations, but nobody gets it more than I do, which is deserved. 43:58.84 The ModGolf Podcast Well, it is deserved. Well, myself as a 16 handicapper, if we play together, you will have lots of material to make light of. And I don't bruise that easy. 44:10.20 The ModGolf Podcast I can i can take it. It's okay. 44:11.57 Tom Coyne I don't pick on higher handicappers. 44:13.34 The ModGolf Podcast I was not implying that. did that did I come across that way? If I did, I'm sorry. No, I didn't think you're going to be one of those guys that's going to be chirping at me the whole time. 44:21.05 Tom Coyne No, no, no. Just play fast. That's all that matters. i don't care what you shoot. 44:25.22 The ModGolf Podcast That's one thing I embraced too. When I started playing and joined this weekend men's group, it's not a private club. I was very intimidated. I never grew up playing golf. I never had a handicap. 44:34.40 Tom Coyne Yeah. 44:35.39 The ModGolf Podcast I was never breaking 90. I was always organizing everything for the couple of friends I had playing golf. So I needed better golf friends. It's like my golf friends suck. I have to find somewhere. I'm in the golf industry now. I want to get better. 44:45.99 The ModGolf Podcast And I was really intimidated at the beginning of playing with guys that were all scratch or low handicappers. I had realized very early on, unless you're playing a head-to-head death match with them, as long as a you're fun to play with, you keep pace, and you know the rules. 44:56.66 Tom Coyne Yep. 44:58.85 The ModGolf Podcast And that's it. 45:00.53 Tom Coyne That's it. 45:01.00 The ModGolf Podcast That's really it. Those are the three. 45:02.03 Tom Coyne Yep. 45:02.12 The ModGolf Podcast That's the holy grail right there. 45:03.82 Tom Coyne Yep. That's it. I'll even settle just for keep pace. 45:06.44 The ModGolf Podcast There we go. 45:06.52 Tom Coyne You can even be no fun. Just keep it moving. 45:10.69 The ModGolf Podcast There we go. 45:10.71 Tom Coyne That's all that matters. 45:12.46 The ModGolf Podcast Speaking about keeping it moving here, i do want to talk about your last book you've written. I'm sure there's more that I'd love to talk about as far as where you're going next with your writing career. 45:24.97 The ModGolf Podcast But I did want to mention here about Coyne Golf and that entrepreneurial side. 45:29.18 Tom Coyne Yeah. 45:29.87 The ModGolf Podcast So perhaps we just give an overview on this because I do want to encourage our listeners to become viewers over on the ModGolf YouTube channel because Tom and I are going to take a deeper dive into Coyne Golf over there with some visuals. 45:42.30 The ModGolf Podcast But why don't you let us know as far as with Coyne Golf, how did this all come together and converge that this made sense as a business model for you with everything that you've learned up to this point that you decided to put this together? 45:56.45 Tom Coyne Yeah, we've been really fortunate, that things have grown out of these books and experiences that have been more entrepreneurial that don't have a lot to do with writing, but have certainly grown out of the books. So that's been great. And Coyne Golf is right at the top of the list where for a long time, i get a lot of email from folks, I'm going to Scotland, I'm going to Ireland, where should I go? Or, "how do I plan a trip"? Or I want to go to some of the places you went, which is awesome to hear, get those messages. And I always took the time to be helpful and still do. 46:27.31 Tom Coyne But then I thought, "well we could do this like as a business". There's myriad tour operators out there building trips for folks in Scotland and Ireland. 46:35.05 The ModGolf Podcast Mm-hmm. 46:37.07 Tom Coyne So I've accumulated a load of Irish and Scottish golf knowledge at this point and in doing these books. So why don't we do that? So it's been great. My wife runs Coyne Golf and she's gotten as knowledgeable as I have about where folks want to go, where to put them up, how to get their transport sorted, getting them all set. So what we do is you come to us, you tell us, "I want to book a trip for me and my seven buddies, two foursomes, and we want to go to Scotland and this time of year". 46:10.77 Tom Coyne And all you have to do is show up. We build the trips for you. So with your consultation, we certainly know the courses people want to play, but also trying to sneak in a couple of my favorites, little hidden, hidden gems as they so are so often called, which are harder and harder to find anymore, they don't stay hidden for long, but that's been really fun because it's cool to hear. 45:41.66 Tom Coyne It's nice to know people are going out and having some of the same experiences and meeting the Paul Vaughans and the same people that have have been so great to me and that you want to share with other people. And then you get to do that. It's been very, very cool. 45:56.99 The ModGolf Podcast Nice okay so we could keep going here. tell you what i'm gonna do. something that's very unusual for me and that's actually show some restraint and some discipline here which i rarely do on the golf course which is probably why i'm a 16 handicap and we are going to jump over to the ModGolf Youtube channel where i want to talk more about A Course Called America and dig deeper into find out more about The Coyne Cup. so i can hold that because That's a thing and it sounds like it's pretty awesome. You've been doing that, I guess it's the ninth year. Have you already had Coyne Cup 9 or is that coming up in 2026? 46:31.08 Tom Coyne No, it's coming up. It's coming up in 2025. 46:32.49 The ModGolf Podcast There we go. There we go. Well, why don't we hold off on that? So we've covered a plethora of topics here, both golf and non-golf here with you, Tom. so yeah, why don't we wrap up the ModGolf Podcast here? And as I said, we're going to jump over to the our YouTube channel there to extend the conversation. So with that, Mr. Tom Coyne, thank you so much for joining us today on the ModGolf podcast! 46:58.32 The ModGolf Podcast This has been inspiring and a ton of fun. Thanks so much. 47:03.26 Tom Coyne Thanks for having me.