A Course Called America
Tom Coyne’s A Course Called America is the third in his “A Course Called…” series, following A Course Called Scotland and A Course Called Ireland. It follows his journey of playing golf in all 50 states and finding the Great American Golf Course. If there’s anyone I would want to write about this trip, it would be Coyne. He weaves together golf, history, current events, and personal struggles in a seamless way. Golfers will love this book - it has inside jokes (iron covers), and course recommendations - and some non-golfers probably will too. The target audience is definitely those on the links, though.
Tom Coyne is a golfer’s golfer, and a good writer, too. Each chapter is filled with roughly two to three stories about the courses he played in the area, as well as potential history, local oddities, or, best of all, the people he played with. The people in this book shine as much as the golf, which makes sense. Courses and how you play are really only half the reason to play. The people are the other half. There are some recurring characters, but for the most part Coyne used social media to find courses to play and people to play with. And it worked out pretty well. It seems like a majority of the places and people played with left Coyne with a good experience or memory.
He’s also a pretty good golfer, usually shooting around 80 on all of these courses. This allows for a next level of course analysis and routing, as someone with less skill would probably not recognize these things. All holes would be challenging to them, so Coyne having some game helps the layman understand what the course architect was trying to achieve.
Speaking of course architects and designers, if you aren’t interested in golf and its history, this book probably isn’t for you. Sure, there are other parts to the book - a veteran’s golf association, a rival that can’t be beat, a travelogue - but a lot of the book is devoted to the courses, how they play, and who made them. For me, it was interesting to learn about Donald Ross, A.W. Tillinghast, and Coore & Crenshaw, but it can be very dry for a lot of people. There is definitely a target audience here. Though I think it works with the commentary Coyne adds, which is authentic, informative, and emotionally resonate. He comments on golf in modern times in such smart and knowledgable way that I think it’s worth your time to read it anyway, despite the fact that golf can be a slog.