Tom Coyne walked 1,400 miles around the entire circumference of Ireland, playing every seaside links. It took him fourmonths and lots of chits with his wife Allyson. Enjoy. It’s here. Slante, Tom, and welcome to the Honor Roll. Pull up a chair next to Kevin Cook.
From the article:
JF: Why do this in the first place? [Walk around all of Ireland]
TC: A few reasons. I’ve wanted to do a book about Ireland for a long time – not just about Ireland, but something that gets to the heart of why so many Americans who have never seen the place feel so attached to it. And with the way Ireland is changing in the speedy, new European world, I wanted to get a picture of it, grab on to some of that old and new and see which side was winning out.
But I write about golf, and I love golf in Ireland, so golf was going to be a part of the story. So many Irish golf books have been done, and many of them quite good, so I knew I needed a different angle, a new way to take the island on.
In planning my trip, I literally put a map on my wall, put a pin in every golf course. And the island ringed with one pin after another suggested the idea to me – play it all. And in Ireland, when you play golf, you walk, so how could I play Ireland as one great big golf course and not do it on foot? It had also never been attempted before, which was certainly part of the temptation – not by car, bus, or helicopter, nobody had ever tried to take on this many Irish links in this space of time.”
