Friday, July 29, 2011

Links Golf

A Course Called Ireland by Tom Coyne

Bought for my father-in-law.

Tom Coyne couldn’t just write a book about playing a lot of golf in Ireland, with observations on Irish roots, pubs, and golf culture. Have to have a gimmick or no one will buy the book, so Coyne walked fully around Ireland playing 50, 60, 70 links courses (coastal, dunes-based). The two advantages of this structure are that it allows you to have your wacky friends and family over for a week or so at a time so you can write about them; and, you get to add writing about tiredness, discouragement, and Irish roadsides and hotels to the mix.

Except Tom’s friends and family aren’t all that wacky. If you like reading about a different sort of golf than you get here, or are enchanted by anything Irish, this will do well enough. The storytelling is good enough, but the writing is rather pedestrian.

I crack me up.

Two-and-a-half stars.

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