Foto dell'autore

Sull'Autore

The hilarious and bestselling author ofA Course Called Irelandputs down the golf clubs , laces up his running shoes, and trains for his first marathon. An estimated half a million people run in marathons each year, and untold millions more sacrifice their knees, dollars, and free time aspiring to mostra altro join this elite club. Tom Coyne has a simple question for them: Why? With the same do-or-die attitude that he brought toPaper Tiger, Coyne conquered a lifelong disdain for exercise to train for and run in the 2010 Marathon de Paris. And he didn’t do it alone. He bribed a group of fitness misfits with an all-expenses-paid trip to the race. His team’s qualifications? No distance runners and no one currently training or even in very good shape. Coyne chronicles the evolution of a beer-sculpted limey, a breast cancer survivor, a two-pack-a-day waitress, and himself-a gangly golfer with a love for tailgating-into endurance runners. En route, he examines how high-tech energy supplements, running shoes, and GPS devices have turned the sport into a complex and profitable industry. Written in Coyne’s breezy trademark style, and full of insights on the science of training and runner psychology,Bury Me at the Finish Lineis an entertaining, enlightening, and inspirational addition to a booming category. mostra meno

Opere di Tom Coyne

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Sesso
male
Nazionalità
USA

Utenti

Recensioni

I read the author’s A Trip Called Ireland many years ago, enjoyed it and was therefore happy to purchase this companion piece on Scotland. Whereas in the Ireland adventure, Coyne set out to play every links course in Ireland, traveling by foot, the hook in this book is the author’s attempt to qualify for The Open Championship, by honing his game and spending a couple of months playing first, Open venue courses in England, then a collection of Scottish links in preparation.

Much has changed since the Ireland Tour. The author is married and sober. Previously, he was quite the drinker, as some of his Irish adventures attest. He also travels by BMW station wagon as opposed to by foot. Along the way, he is joined by a variety of friends, acquaintances and even internet strangers.

Having played many of the courses highlighted by the author, it was fun to relive those rounds through the author’s eyes, though he certainly played many courses that would at best be described as obscure.

The author is certainly not a golf course critic. He lauds virtually every course he plays, and the more primitive the setting, the more he likes it. You get the impression that if a Scot went into his back pasture and buried 12 coffee cans, Coyne would declare it the purest form of golf imaginable. It gets a little ridiculous at times.

When I say that he lauds “virtually every course” there are two exceptions. He doesn’t care much for Trump International Aberdeen or Trump International Turnberry. Having played both, I can assure you that they are top notch, certainly well-groomed which isn’t important to Coyne, but hard to differentiate from other courses (like Kingsbarns and Skibo Castle) which he finds no fault with. In fact, Turnberry is pretty unanimously regarded as one of the best links courses in the world.

By no stretch am I a Trump fan, but you can’t fault his golf courses. Except Coyne can.

Over the course of roughly 120 rounds, it gets a little old to hear how every B&B is the greatest place in the world, every nine-hole goat ranch is the epitome of golf purity, and every travel companion is a saint. All in all, I think I preferred the Ireland trip.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
santhony | Mar 18, 2024 |
Globe-trotting golfer Tom Coyne has finally come home. And he's ready to play all of it.

After playing hundreds of courses overseas in the birthplace of golf, ​Coyne, the New York Times bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland and A Course Called Scotland, returns to his own birthplace and delivers a rollicking love letter to golf in the United States.
In the span of one unforgettable year, Coyne crisscrosses the country in search of its greatest golf experience, playing every course to ever host a US Open, along with more than two hundred hidden gems and heavyweights, visiting all fifty states to find a better understanding of his home country and countrymen.

Coyne's journey begins where the US Open and US Amateur got their start, historic Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. As he travels from the oldest and most elite of links to the newest and most democratic, Coyne finagles his way onto coveted first tees...
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
paswell | Sep 3, 2022 |
Fast read that captures the fact that golf is hard. Even if you dedicate everything to it, golf is hard.
 
Segnalato
SydneySpaniel | 2 altre recensioni | Mar 19, 2017 |
In 2006, I was fortunate enough to experience a golf trip to Southwest Ireland, playing a few of the courses visited by Coyne. That trip added immeasurably to my enjoyment of this book, and in the event of a return trip, I will certainly reread this book and follow some of the author's suggestions.

Tom Coyne, a golf writer and PGA Tour wannabe, plans the ultimate Irish golf trip, planning to play every links course in Ireland, via a counterclockwise circuit of the island, BY FOOT. This latter condition, though perhaps adding somewhat to the book's allure, was really somewhat silly, and likely added nothing to his enjoyment or understanding of the island or its people, other than to add a month and a half of walking time.

Doubtless, Coyne's itinerary provided him a far deeper understanding of Irish culture than that enjoyed by most week long golf trips, housed in upper scale resorts catering to Americans, however, walking between the towns added little. It was the days and weeks spent in modest bed and breakfasts and neighborhood pubs that added spice to the trips. More such time could have been spent were it not for the hundreds of hours spent by Coyne slogging along Irish highways and beaches. But, of course, it was the walking tour that added the cache to the journey and doubtless provided the media exposure that he required to finance the trip and publicize the book.

Overall, this was a very entertaining travelogue, however I was at times put off by Coyne's repeated references to "rich Americans" and "luxury tour busses" in an almost sneering, holier than though tone. It was rich foreigners and money spending tourists that allowed construction and maintenance of many of the courses that Coyne played, professed love for and rarely had to pay a penny to play (trading upon his notoriety to access such courses as Old Head and Royal County Down).

Also offputting were Coyne's moments of amateur psychological analysis. Sure, by virtue of the months he spent among the Irish people, he achieved an understanding and insight few of us would have an opportunity to garner. However, he trades on this experience to make some truly astonishing assumptions.

(SPOILER ALERT) Most troubling was a situation in which Coyne and two of his traveling companions of the moment (he cycled through a variety of friends and relatives throughout the trip) became so inebriated that they actually crapped on the floor of their bedroom. While acknowledging the horror of the offense, Coyne spends the next several pages assassinating the character of the bed and breakfast owner who had the effrontery to track down the offenders, who had attempted to run away without taking responsibility for their actions. Coyne attributes this to an overly familiar culture and whines that he will always be identified in the region for the offense, of which he was certainly guilty.

In all his bemoaning of "ugly Americans" and luxury tour bus inhabitants, I doubt any have generated the bad will toward golfing tourists that Coyne and his companions did by crapping on the floor of a bed and breakfast and then running away.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
santhony | Mar 15, 2009 |

Liste

Premi e riconoscimenti

Potrebbero anche piacerti

Autori correlati

Jacques Roy Narrator

Statistiche

Opere
6
Utenti
281
Popolarità
#82,782
Voto
½ 3.7
Recensioni
6
ISBN
27
Lingue
1

Grafici & Tabelle