Book Review: “A Course Called America”, by Tom Coyne ⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2-⭐

Having Exhausted the British Isles, Tom Coyne Gets Exhausted in America

Tom Coyne has become a phenomenon in the world of golf. He has a minor golf-related novel to his credit, A Gentleman’s Game (2001), which was made into a movie; and he followed it up with a non-fiction book, Paper Tiger, documenting his 2004 attempt to make it to the PGA Tour. In 2008, married and a father-to-be, the college English professor then undertook to walk the perimeter of Ireland—yes, walk—and play all the links golf courses (and drink in all the pubs) that got in his way.

His Irish golf journey was documented in 2009’s A Course Called Ireland, a book that was very well received, and was followed in 2018 by A Course Called Scotland—in which he documents a run through the links courses of Scotland (with detours to the English courses of the Open rota, and a few other notables), an attempt to qualify for the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews, and his journey through the beginnings of sobriety.

How to top those Irish and Scottish journeys? What else but take on the wide-ranging variety of courses in his native land, the United States—thus was born A Course Called America.

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I’m late to the party reading and reviewing A Course Called America, I know. It’s not like I didn’t have an early start—I received a bound galley for early review, but I found my self stopping and starting my reading of the book, then diverting my reading time to other books in my to-be-read stack, and the next thing I knew nearly four months had flown by since the book hit the street.

Part of the reason for the procrastination and delay was that, well… I just wasn’t drawn in to the narrative of Coyne’s hop-scotch, criss-cross journey across the United States “in search of the Great American Golf Course” as I had been by his previous book, A Course Called Scotland.

Much is made of the planning and set up of his meanderings, organizing convenient travel to a large number and bewildering variety of golf courses, in all fifty states of the Union. From an all-dirt (no spikes allowed) nine-hole layout on an Indian reservation in Arizona to some of the most revered and prestigious golf courses in the country—including every course that has hosted a U.S. Open—Coyne teed up a golf ball on 295 courses (at least one in every state) for 301 rounds of golf, playing with everyone from local “muni Bobs” to captains of industry (how do you think he got on at places like Cypress Point, Riviera, and National Golf Links of America?)

The trouble, at least for me when I would pick up the book again, was that all the rushing around meant that Coyne was very limited in the amount of page space that he could devote to many of the courses, and while some prestigious and/or distinctive courses got a chapter, or most of one, to themselves, many were mentioned only in passing. All in all, the narrative is less cohesive than in his Ireland and Scotland books; that is what made it difficult for me to stick with the book.

I will admit to jumping ahead to the Northern California chapters—San Francisco, California and Pebble Beach, California—out of order, and then re-reading them when I got to them in reading order, and I feel that Coyne did justice to our little corner of the golf world. I mean, what’s not to like? With layouts like Cypress Point, the Cal Club, Pasatiempo, Pebble Beach, the Olympic Club, Sharp Park, Harding Park, and Pacific Grove Golf Links, we are blessed with an embarrassment of riches (even if most of us will never set foot on some of those hallowed fairways.)

All things considered, I was leaning heavily toward no better than a four-star rating as I approached the final chapters, but his write-ups of the time he spent in California (Northern and Southern) and Hawaii, and especially closing out the book as he had begun—writing about his dad, clinched the last half-star.

I’m still not sure that Coyne made a definitive choice for the “Great American Golf Course”; but frankly, I think that there is no such thing. The variety of golf courses in the United States is reflective of the wide variety of the terrain that is available to build on, and the great variety of the people that build those courses and play the game. And while Tom Coyne may not have nailed down a candidate for the Great American Golf Course, he has certainly introduced his readers to the rich variety of courses there are to play in the USA, and similarly to the wide range of American golfers who play them. In so doing, he has done our country, and all golf fans, a great service.

Stanford surges in final round, doubles up in Western Intercollegiate

The San José State Spartan men’s golf team, hosts of the Western Intercollegiate, took a one-stroke lead into the final round of the 73rd running of the event after leading for 36 holes, and Spartan junior Sean Yu came into the final round three strokes back of Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda in the race for the individual title. These numbers set up a final round that Spartan golf fans hoped would be reminiscent of the 1996 event, the last time that a Spartan player, (then-SJSU junior Arron Oberholser) took individual honors, even as Stanford took home the team trophy.

Wednesday’s final round, played under sunny skies that showcased the long views across Monterey Bay that are a feature of many of the holes at Pasatiempo Golf Club, saw cross-bay rivals Stanford and Cal surge past their South Bay hosts, posting team scores of 340 and 341, respectively, while San José State slipped back to third place with a 352 team total.

Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda blasts out of a bunker behind the 10th green at Pasatiempo Golf Club during the final round of the 2019 Western Intercollegiate golf tournament. Salinda went on to take individual honors after a five-hole payoff with San José State junior Sean Yu. (Photo by author)

In the individual competition, Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda went wire-to-wire for the win, completing the third Stanford sweep of team and individual honors in the last six years (2014, 2016, and 2019), and the fifth in tournament history—but San Jose State junior Sean Yu made him work for it, posting a 66 to Salinda’s even-par 70 as the pair came to the end of 54 holes tied at 202.

What followed was the longest playoff in the tournament’s 73-year history. The duo traded pars for four holes, playing the 18th hole twice, then 10, and 17, before returning to the 18th hole, a uniquely situated 169-yard par-three finishing hole. Salinda dropped a flag-seeking tee shot to seven feet below the flag on the fifth playoff hole, while Yu’s ball came to rest 12 to 15 feet above the flag. When Yu’s birdie putt slipped past the hole the door was left open for Salinda, who walked through it with a firm, center-cut birdie putt to cement the win.

Salinda is the ninth individual champion from Stanford in the tournament’s 73-year history, and the Cardinal’s team victory is the 11th since they won the inaugural event in 1947.

Pasatiempo will play host to a number of these players again on May 13th, when USGA local qualifying for the 2019 U.S. Open takes place at the Alister Mackenzie masterpiece in the hills above Santa Cruz.

This year’s event was sponsored by TopGolf entertainment centers, and televised, for the first time, on Golf Channel.

Spartans lead Western Intercollegiate after 36 holes

The Western Intercollegiate is one of the longest-running college golf tournaments in existence. Starting in 1947, the event has been played each year at Pasatiempo Golf Club, an Alister Mackenzie masterpiece which lies in the Coast Range hills above Santa Cruz, California. Hosted by San José State University, this year’s edition is sponsored by Top Golf entertainment centers and features, for the first time, television coverage by Golf Channel.

Pasatiempo Golf Club, Santa Cruz, is the site of the 73rd Western Intercollegiate golf tournament, hosted by the San José State University men’s golf team.

The 2019 lineup of collegiate golf teams in the event are:

·      University of Arizona

·      University of California 

·      University of California-Irvine

·      Colorado State University

·      University of Hawaii

·      University of Oregon

·      Pepperdine University 

·      San Diego State University

·      San Jose State University

·      University of Southern California 

·      Stanford University

·      University of Texas-El Paso

·      University of Washington

The combination of Pasatiempo Golf Club, the renowned Alister Mackenzie golf course in the hills above Santa Cruz, California, and a big collegiate invitational golf tournament is a win-win. Pasatiempo, a 1929 Mackenzie masterpiece that was restored by Tom Doak between the mid-1990s and 2007, is a stiff test even at a short-by-modern-standards 6,500 yards. Cost-related changes that were made over the years included filling in dozens of bunkers, and worst of all, the planting of hundreds of trees in the 1960s, a move that fundamentally altered the course’s structure. In the wake of the Doak restoration, which was based on a collection of photos of the original course which were discovered by former club historian Bob Beck, the course again plays as Dr. Mackenzie designed it,

The Western Intercollegiate has been played at Pasatiempo since 1947, through the changes and the restoration, producing a list of champions filled with familiar names: Ken Venturi was a two-time champion as a San José State golfer, in 1951 and 1953; Ken Miller won the event in 1968 while at BYU; other familiar names on the champions list include Peter Jacobsen (Oregon), Mark O’Meara (Long Beach State), Bobby Clampett (BYU), San José State’s Arron Oberholser, and Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers and Maverick McNealy.

Pasatiempo is the type of course that rewards course knowledge as well as great play, and the Spartans’ weekly practice rounds on the course showed their worth as the host team led the first two days of the tournament. Two SJSU players, Sean Yu and Kevin Velo, were among a group of four tied for second in the individual rankings after 36 holes, behind Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda.

Salinda, who leads at eight under par, had these comments about Tuesday’s second round: “I definitely thought it was a little tougher than yesterday. The pins, the wind was up. It was a little firmer too, even with the rain yesterday. I had to work for everything today, whereas yesterday everything came a little easier. I kind of made it hard on myself but hung in there on the back nine.” 

San José State’s Kevin Velo reinforced the importance of familiarity with the layout: “It really helps to know where to hit the golf ball off the tee. You have to play the golf holes from green to tee kind of. You have to look where the pin is to make sure you are in the right spots, and I think that really helped me out today. I was able to put it in the right side of the fairway and get my approach shots decently close and get a lot of looks.”

Final round coverage of the 2019 Western Intercollegiate will air Wednesday on Golf Channel from 4 to 7 PM.