Tom Coyne - Encore
Tom Coyne joins Jeff Tracy on Grilling at the Green to share his unique journey from golf enthusiast to owner of a nine-hole golf course in the Catskills. The conversation dives into Coyne's unexpected foray into course management after receiving a message from a golf superintendent about a course on the brink of closure. With a passion for golf and storytelling, Coyne discusses the exciting developments at Sullivan County Golf Club, including plans for a driving range and putting course to enhance community access to the sport. The episode also touches on Coyne's writing projects, including his upcoming book, "A Course Called Home," and his work with The Golfers Journal, which focuses on long-form storytelling in the world of golf. Listeners are treated to insights on the evolving nature of golf merchandising and the importance of fostering a fun and engaging golfing experience, no matter the score.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Charles Schwab
- Painter Hills Natural Beef
- Oregon Crab Commission
- Westin
- Squares Golf
- Gorilla Grills
- Langdon Farms
- Birdie Ball
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Grilling at the Green.
Host Jeff Tracy:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores the golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it in the short grass.
Host Jeff Tracy:For the hackers, new sweepers and turf spankers.
Host Jeff Tracy:Here's Jeff.
Jeff Tracy:This is an encore.
Jeff Tracy:Hey, everybody.
Jeff Tracy:Welcome to Grilling at the Green.
Jeff Tracy:I'm Jeff Tracy, your host.
Jeff Tracy:We're proud to be part of the Golf NewsNet radio network there on iHeart, along with a number of stations here on the west coast and in the middle of the country.
Jeff Tracy:We'd like to thank the folks at Painter Hills Natural Beef Beef the way nature intended, and also the Oregon Crab Commission.
Jeff Tracy:From Sea to Plate is their moniker there.
Jeff Tracy:And if you've never had west coast, especially Oregon Dungeness crab, you're missing something, so try that next time you get out here.
Jeff Tracy:Our guest today, Tom Coyne.
Jeff Tracy:Tom's been on the show a few times before.
Jeff Tracy:Tom's an author, a journalist, an editor, a golf adventurer, and a credit card actor.
Jeff Tracy:That's all I can say there.
Jeff Tracy:How you doing, buddy?
Tom Coyne:I'm doing well, Jeff.
Tom Coyne:How are you doing?
Tom Coyne:It's good to be back.
Jeff Tracy:How'd you get roped into doing that TV commercial?
Tom Coyne:Well, you know, it's not a credit card.
Tom Coyne:The one for Charles Schwab.
Jeff Tracy:Yeah, that's what.
Jeff Tracy:I should have said that.
Jeff Tracy:Sorry.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, no, so it was really kind of them.
Tom Coyne:They.
Tom Coyne:They have a series called the Challenger Series that they do every year, and they feature, say, five people who are doing things, unusual things in golf or challenging the sort of status quo in golf.
Tom Coyne:And.
Tom Coyne:And they heard about what we were doing at Sullivan County Golf Club, which I'm sure we'll talk about today.
Tom Coyne:Oh, yeah, they were, they were kind enough to.
Tom Coyne:To do a commercial about the adventure there.
Tom Coyne:So there's a, you know, the 32nd spot has been running on, you know, during tour events and stuff, which is incredibly cool.
Tom Coyne:And it's been really good for the club.
Tom Coyne:And then if you go to their website, schwab.com, you get there's a sort of a five minute short film about everything we're doing in Sullivan County.
Tom Coyne:So it was a lot of fun.
Tom Coyne:It was very, very kind of them to give us some publicity.
Jeff Tracy:Well, the first time I saw it, I don't remember what tournament I was watching sometime this year.
Jeff Tracy:And I went, yeah, I know that guy.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, I was doing some work the other day watching.
Tom Coyne:I had the golf on in the background and I heard someone on the TV say, my name's Tom Coyne.
Tom Coyne:And I just.
Tom Coyne:Oh, I looked up hey look, it's me.
Jeff Tracy:It's funny.
Jeff Tracy:Isn't that kind of weird when that happens?
Tom Coyne:It's pretty, it is very weird in fact.
Jeff Tracy:So let's talk about the golf course.
Jeff Tracy:I mean you, you've been a travel writer, I've read your books.
Jeff Tracy:Like I said, you've been on the show before.
Jeff Tracy:I've read your pieces like in Sports Illustrated, etc.
Jeff Tracy:How did you wind up actually taking charge of a golf course?
Tom Coyne:Yeah, so it was not something I intended to do.
Tom Coyne:It was a sort of a happy accident.
Tom Coyne:I got a, a DM on, on Twitter, I believe, from a superintendent who said, hey, there's this nine hole golf course up in the Catskills.
Tom Coyne:It's going, it's almost 100 years old and it's going to close.
Tom Coyne:And do you know anyone at that point?
Tom Coyne:He saw, I think he saw that I was getting involved in sort of the course design business a little bit and said, you know, would you be interested in checking out the property or do you know anyone etc who would be interested in helping the place out?
Tom Coyne:Because it was like I said it was, it was basically going to go on the market.
Tom Coyne:And at the time I, I had a book deal with no subject, just a book deal for golf book.
Tom Coyne:And, and we've been kicking around different ideas and I thought, well, what about, what if I ran a golf course?
Tom Coyne:What if I actually went and got on the other side of golf?
Tom Coyne:I've been a golf consumer since I was a little kid, right.
Tom Coyne:I said, what if I became a golf provider?
Tom Coyne:So I went up and visited and I went up in like March, which, you know, there's not a lot to see except for snow.
Tom Coyne:But the superintendent, Sean Smith, his passion and dedication and interest in the whole thing, I thought, you know, this could be maybe, maybe there's something here.
Tom Coyne:So we worked out a deal where I had a year, I had a season basically to become the operator, so the sort of the, the owner for all intents and purposes, but I could give it back at the end of the year if I, if I didn't want to, to buy it.
Tom Coyne:So for that year I ran it last summer, you know, did all the payroll and the taxes and the merch and everything that you do at a golf club.
Tom Coyne:So, and, and, and we had actually had a successful year.
Tom Coyne:So we thought, all right, well let's, let's give it a go.
Tom Coyne:So I put together a group to, to buy the course and, and so now I'm, I'm one of the owners.
Jeff Tracy:Did you, if I'D ask you this question 18 months ago, would you have said, yeah, I'm looking to get into the actual golf business?
Tom Coyne:Not in it.
Tom Coyne:Not in a million years, No.
Tom Coyne:I think I was pretty happy with my life of traveling to different golf courses and enjoying the work that everyone else had done to make golf possible and, and beautiful and, but it's been such a great education.
Tom Coyne:And, you know, as a writer, you spend, you generally spend a lot of time alone, and the work is all yours and you work for yourself, and what you put out is your name on it.
Tom Coyne:And people like it or they don't like it.
Tom Coyne:And so this was a whole different opportunity to sort of be on a team, to be managing people, to be in it together and trying to make something.
Tom Coyne:So that was, like, immediately, I mean, stressful, but, but fun.
Tom Coyne:And I really enjoyed that part of it, that, that sense of, like, you know, the guys who work for me in the pro shop and my very small maintenance staff are really invested in making the place work.
Tom Coyne:And it's like, well, when you have people like that, it became clear pretty quickly that it wasn't something I was going to walk away from, you know, that there was a sense of, know you do feel a responsibility to do the very best you can with the property.
Jeff Tracy:Yeah.
Jeff Tracy:Do you ever have to go out and jump on a mower because somebody's sick?
Tom Coyne:Oh, no, not because someone's sick.
Tom Coyne:I, I mowed last season.
Tom Coyne:I mowed almost every day.
Tom Coyne:So I, I cut the fairways, Sean did the greens, and our, our guy Chris did the rough.
Tom Coyne:So, no, I was on a fairway mower, know, four or five times a week, and, and absolutely loved it.
Tom Coyne:I mean, there's, there's nothing like being on, you know, out there early in the morning in the summertime, being on a big machine, cutting a fairway and then, you know, finishing that and having that sense of satisfaction is.
Tom Coyne:I, I, I loved it.
Tom Coyne:So, yeah, no, I can cut cups now.
Tom Coyne:I can mo fairways.
Tom Coyne:I can.
Tom Coyne:I think tomorrow I'll be going around and fixing up the greens for our.
Tom Coyne:We have a little club championship on Saturday, so we'll tidy things up for everybody and, and off we go.
Jeff Tracy:I think that's great.
Jeff Tracy:Can you, how are you making the lines now in the fairway?
Tom Coyne:You know, I tell you, some days, you know, some days we just sort of do Zamboni style.
Tom Coyne:Some days I'll, I'll do a half, a nice half and half.
Tom Coyne:Some days we'll go back and forth across, try to switch up the cuts to, to get the best results from the grass.
Tom Coyne:So no, we.
Tom Coyne:No, lining a fairway is, is awesome.
Tom Coyne:And you realize why, you know, it's best to cut in the early morning because when you have dew lines, it makes it much easier.
Tom Coyne:As soon as, as soon as the dew dries, you're.
Tom Coyne:You're out there guessing what you've cut already and what you haven't.
Jeff Tracy:Did it take a little while to get used to it?
Tom Coyne:Oh, yeah, it was.
Jeff Tracy:It.
Tom Coyne:It was.
Tom Coyne:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:You're very timid at first, and then now it's just second nature.
Tom Coyne:You jump on and you go do it and, and it's fun.
Tom Coyne:I mean, the fairways always get a little wider when I'm mowing because rather than hit that, it's hard to hit that rough line perfectly sometimes.
Tom Coyne:So sometimes I trim a little bit extra.
Jeff Tracy:Okay, well, we're going to take a break.
Jeff Tracy:We're going to be back with Tom Coyne.
Jeff Tracy:Talk more about his adventures of running a golf course, among other things, and some of his writing work when we come back here on Grilling at the Green.
Jeff Tracy:Please stay with us.
Jeff Tracy:Hey, everybody.
J.T.:J.T.
J.T.:here.
J.T.:You know, every week on Grilling at the Green, we bring you a travel tip.
J.T.:And that is brought to you by the Westin dealerships.
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Jeff Tracy:This is an encore.
Jeff Tracy:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Jeff Tracy:I'm jt.
Jeff Tracy:We've got Tom Coyne with us today.
Jeff Tracy:Tom, this is right up your alley.
Jeff Tracy:We put in a new little segment in the show.
Jeff Tracy:This is called your golf trip travel tip.
Jeff Tracy:Now, you can't say that very many times really quickly, but you get, you get the idea.
Jeff Tracy:And you know, people have said stuff like a lot of them talk about packing your clubs and how to pack those or maybe put an air tracker in them like that.
Jeff Tracy:One gentleman said, never take the last flight out at night because you've got no choices then if something goes wrong with the flight.
Jeff Tracy:And I know you're very well traveled around though the world, cross the pond, so to speak.
Jeff Tracy:What would your travel tip be?
Tom Coyne:Yeah, I mean, there are so many sort of things you learn.
Tom Coyne:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:Not taking the last flight is, is good advice if you can.
Tom Coyne:If you have the luxury of choosing.
Tom Coyne:I definitely use the air tag.
Tom Coyne:I think, I think people generally, you know, so I've been.
Tom Coyne:I've done three Ireland trips this summer, and I'm in Scotland next week.
Tom Coyne:And so on those trips, I do it.
Tom Coyne:I still do it myself.
Tom Coyne:I find that people generally overpack where you end up kind of wearing the same stuff, because the weather, you know, it's going to be like 55 to 65, chance of rain, chance of sun.
Tom Coyne:So you kind of end up wearing the same stuff most days anyway, and you're shopping while you're there.
Tom Coyne:So I think when it comes to your packing, less is more.
Tom Coyne:But I think that the, the most important thing to take on any golf trip is an open mind, because I think sometimes it's always a bummer when you go to, you know, say you're in Ireland and you see a group of Americans and they're sort of complaining about how tough the wind was and how.
Tom Coyne:Or looking at their scorecards and shedding a tear and that kind of thing.
Tom Coyne:Like, you travel for different experiences and to see golf played in different ways, and you don't know exactly what that's going to be until you get there.
Tom Coyne:So, you know, accept the fact that you're probably not going to play to your handicap if you're on a new course or you're playing in, like, you know, Scottish or Irish conditions.
Jeff Tracy:Sure.
Tom Coyne:And don't worry about that.
Tom Coyne:Enjoy yourself.
Tom Coyne:Have a good match with a friend and, and forget about your scorecard and, and have fun and look around and appreciate where you are and that it is different.
Tom Coyne:I think the mistake people make is, is playing the comparison game sometimes, like, oh, this reminds me of this course, or, oh, at my course, we do it this way.
Tom Coyne:That's not why you're visiting.
Tom Coyne:You're visiting to see how they do it.
Tom Coyne:And whether you like it or not, it should be at least something you can appreciate.
Jeff Tracy:Well, I would think that unless you've got a, a PGA or an LPGA Tour card, you're probably not going to bring those courses to their knees, so to speak.
Tom Coyne:Not.
Tom Coyne:No, no, there will be.
Tom Coyne:You know, the golf over there is, it's.
Tom Coyne:It's more natural you're going to get.
Tom Coyne:And it's, it's more played along the ground, so you're going to get funky bounces.
Tom Coyne:The ball's not going to do all the things you demand of it, and you can hit a good shot and get a bad break.
Tom Coyne:And to me, that's actually more like what golf is.
Tom Coyne:We sort of tend to play, you know, driving range golf, you know, where, okay, we want perfect Conditions so I can go out and shoot the round of my life and.
Tom Coyne:And it's sort of like being at the driving range and when you're traveling or like, in my case, I'm always playing Lynx golf, you know, it's nothing like that.
Tom Coyne:Every shot you're standing over, you have to sort of think about 10 different things and maybe hit a shot you've never thought about before.
Tom Coyne:You know, can I hit a low, punchy, hooky six iron that's gonna, you know, run around?
Tom Coyne:You know, so that, to me is like, really imaginative and fun, but it doesn't necessarily lend itself to, you know, it's a great, great scoring, though.
Tom Coyne:When you do get a calm down, a links, it's defenseless, and you really probably should score well.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, they're few and far between, though.
Jeff Tracy:I will tell you that.
Jeff Tracy:Probably since the last time you and I have talked, I've.
Jeff Tracy:I just pretty much put the scorecards away.
Jeff Tracy:I just go to have fun now.
Jeff Tracy:I play in a lot of scrambles, and those lend themselves just to having fun, as you know, but I just go to enjoy it.
Jeff Tracy:I'm not.
Jeff Tracy:I'm not going to be a scratch golfer at this stage of my life, and I'm not going to worry about it.
Jeff Tracy:I'm just going to go have fun.
Jeff Tracy:And.
Jeff Tracy:And I look at it that way.
Jeff Tracy:And like you said, we've got, like, here in the Northwest, as you know, we've.
Jeff Tracy:You've been out here a number of times.
Jeff Tracy:We've got some great courses, got a great amount of fun.
Jeff Tracy:I've been very blessed to play on several different continents in a lot of different states, and anymore, I don't give a crap about what the score is.
Jeff Tracy:I just go on to enjoy it.
Jeff Tracy:That's kind of.
Jeff Tracy:That's one of the reasons I do this show, is because I enjoy it.
Tom Coyne:You know, so that's a great way to play, Jeff.
Tom Coyne:I think, you know, the more we're out there to have fun, and even if you're grinding or you're, you know, trying to.
Tom Coyne:Trying to get your handicap down or.
Tom Coyne:Or trying to certain number, if you're not having fun, you're really reducing your chances of.
Tom Coyne:Of doing that.
Tom Coyne:You know, it's.
Tom Coyne:Even if you've hit a bad shot, which we have to like, which is certainly going to happen, and we.
Tom Coyne:We accept every golf shot's fun if you look at it the right way.
Tom Coyne:So, you know.
Jeff Tracy:Absolutely, absolutely.
Jeff Tracy:We're going to take another break.
Jeff Tracy:We're going to be back with Tom Coyne and talk more about his golf course adventure this year and also about his what he's got coming up there.
Jeff Tracy:So stay with us.
Jeff Tracy:But first we're going to get our golf tip of the week from Mr.
Jeff Tracy:Bruce Fuhrman.
Bruce Fuhrman:Hi, this is Bruce Fuhrman.
Bruce Fuhrman:I'm the director of instruction out at Langdon Farms, and I'm going to talk to you.
Bruce Fuhrman:A little tip about a pre shot routine in golf.
Bruce Fuhrman:The ball is still.
Bruce Fuhrman:No one's hitting it at you or throwing it at you, so you got to develop a routine.
Bruce Fuhrman:Golf's a little bit like serving a tennis ball or shooting a free throw.
Bruce Fuhrman:You have to have a routine.
Bruce Fuhrman:So first thing you do is get behind your ball, visualize your shot, take into account the lie, the wind, and so forth.
Bruce Fuhrman:And then that's the time to get a little whatever swing thoughts you're going to use.
Bruce Fuhrman:And then you, you take a little practice swing, feel that swing.
Bruce Fuhrman:And then you go ahead and step into the batter's box, or in this case, the golfer's box.
Bruce Fuhrman:Come in with your right foot, set your club down.
Bruce Fuhrman:Once your club down is, is down behind the ball and a, and aim the face.
Bruce Fuhrman:Then you step into it.
Bruce Fuhrman:And then you jostle your feet or jockey your feet back and forth and waggle your club.
Bruce Fuhrman:You want it, waggle it in a clockwise attitude.
Bruce Fuhrman:And as you're waggling and jockeying your feet, you want to look at the target.
Bruce Fuhrman:So it's better to stare at the target and glance at the ball rather than stare at the ball.
Bruce Fuhrman:So once you've stepped into it with your feet, the ball should be gone within four seconds.
Bruce Fuhrman:You don't want to stand there over the ball.
Bruce Fuhrman:If you've got too many swing thoughts, you're going to struggle.
Bruce Fuhrman:So step into it.
Bruce Fuhrman:Waggle.
Bruce Fuhrman:Look at the target and pull the trigger.
Bruce Fuhrman:If you do that, you're going to be a lot more consistent.
J.T.:Thank you, Bruce.
Jeff Tracy:We appreciate that.
Jeff Tracy:You can find out more about Bruce's program down at Langdon Farms.
Jeff Tracy:Just go to langdonfarms.com check on the instruction, scroll down, you'll see him there and he can help you out.
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Jeff Tracy:You won't regret it.
Jeff Tracy:This is an encore.
Jeff Tracy:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Jeff Tracy:I'm jt.
Jeff Tracy:We'd like to thank, of course, the people at Painter Hills Natural Beef who've been with us for a long, long time.
Jeff Tracy:And we have a new sponsor, Squares Golf shoes.
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Jeff Tracy:Go to grillagrills.com As I said, we're talking with Tom Coyne today.
Jeff Tracy:I got it.
Jeff Tracy:I want to ask you something, Tom.
Jeff Tracy:The fact that I've been aware of something for the past few years, and I know you certainly have too, the pro shops have been, for the most part, kind of downsizing a bit.
Jeff Tracy:They're not carrying the ones around here.
Jeff Tracy:That's what I can really speak to.
Jeff Tracy:But the ones around here, they're not carrying.
Jeff Tracy:You don't go in and see a whole wall of full sets of clubs anymore.
Jeff Tracy:You might see a barrel full of wedges and a bunch of putters and maybe some fairway woods or something, but it's not the whole sets.
Jeff Tracy:And also with the clothing, was it a kind of an eye opener to you when you, you said at the top of the show you're dealing with the merch?
Jeff Tracy:That's a different world.
Jeff Tracy:My family came from a, a retail business.
Jeff Tracy:I, I'm aware of how that works.
Jeff Tracy:And I'm just curious of your take on that.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, no, well, merch for us was a really big deal because, you know, as a little rural nine holer in the Catskill Mountains, you know, the club didn't have a logo.
Tom Coyne:It didn't have merch.
Tom Coyne:So I got a good friend of mine, Lee Wybransky, and sort of noted, a very noted golf artist to design a cool logo for us and which I'm wearing now, which is a St.
Tom Coyne:Andrew's Cross of a propeller and a golf club.
Tom Coyne: Because at our club in: Tom Coyne:So that cool history.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, it went into the logo, and people love the logo, and we put it on some merch and it started selling like crazy.
Tom Coyne:So that for us was huge and became a revenue stream that didn't exist at the club before.
Tom Coyne:So this year we've, we've loaded up so our Pro shop is pretty, it's tiny as it should be, but it's pretty loaded up with, you know, hats and sweatshirts and golf shirts and vests and T shirts and.
Tom Coyne:And all that kind of stuff because people do love the logo and it's done, it's done really well.
Tom Coyne:But yeah, it's challenging.
Tom Coyne:Like, I mean, I, obviously, I definitely realized, like, I couldn't imagine carrying golf clubs like the, the cost of inventory, especially for a little place like us.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, like, we're only carrying as much as.
Tom Coyne:As we need and, you know, we'll have that inventory, you know, for.
Tom Coyne:We had to buy a lot of stuff this year and hopefully it'll.
Tom Coyne:Well, hopefully it sells out quickly.
Tom Coyne:But at the same time, it's, it's huge to, to take on, you know, to stock your shop is very expensive.
Tom Coyne:So I think it's no surprise to me that, you know, you kind of have the necessities and you have the things that sell well.
Tom Coyne:But yeah, I wouldn't walk into a pro shop and buy.
Tom Coyne:I don't know if people do that as much anymore and buy a driver.
Tom Coyne:I think much more now the emphasis on in, in club purchasing is getting fit.
Tom Coyne:So if you're going to get Titleists set, whatever.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, you're going to schedule a fitting and go to where that's happening and, and, but that's how you're going to buy your golf clubs or maybe go to a retail, one of the big retail stores and do a fitting there.
Tom Coyne:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:Buying things off the rack is in a pro shop.
Tom Coyne:It's, it's funny, I mean, when growing up, that's where we all got our golf clubs was in the pro shop.
Jeff Tracy:Right.
Tom Coyne:That's completely changed.
Jeff Tracy:Yeah.
Jeff Tracy:And I think, I think with the, like I said, the, the putters, maybe some wedges, you know, maybe you, you, you break a club, something like that, you, at the turn, you run in and buy one those, you know, perhaps I see those things, but I don't see, like we said, I don't see a full set.
Jeff Tracy:I don't see a lot of six and $700 drivers sitting in the pro shops just waiting to be picked up, you know, at the turn type thing.
Jeff Tracy:It just, that that's.
Jeff Tracy:Things have changed a lot in that.
Tom Coyne:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:The investment too, in terms of the cost that if you're going to buy a 600 driver, you really should get fit.
Tom Coyne:You should be on, you should be on trackman.
Tom Coyne:You should know your numbers.
Tom Coyne:You should have, you should be really trying every shaft head combination.
Tom Coyne:So yeah.
Tom Coyne:Grabbing one out of the barrel and going forward is.
Bruce Fuhrman:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:It used to be like, okay, I need a stiff shaft and nine and a half degrees.
Tom Coyne:And that was.
Tom Coyne:That's all you needed.
Tom Coyne:That's all you knew and you wanted.
Tom Coyne:But, yeah, now there's myriad options.
Jeff Tracy:Absolutely.
Jeff Tracy:You sell a lot of golf balls.
Tom Coyne:That is something that we.
Tom Coyne:That is a golf.
Tom Coyne:That's golf equipment that we do stock and.
Tom Coyne:And we do very well on golf balls.
Tom Coyne:The golf course is on the side of a mountain, so if you're a little bit.
Tom Coyne:If you're not putting the ball in the right place, it can find its way off the mountain, in which case, you might have to buy some more golf.
Tom Coyne:Golf balls in our shop, in which we're very happy.
Tom Coyne:Happy to sell you.
Jeff Tracy:Few years ago, a friend of mine and I went.
Jeff Tracy:We're actually making a sales call when.
Jeff Tracy:Across the river up into the state of Washington to a little place called Skamania Lodge.
Jeff Tracy:It's a beautiful lodge.
Jeff Tracy:Overlooks the Columbia river, and they've got a golf course there.
Jeff Tracy:It's cut into the side of the mountain.
Jeff Tracy:Right.
Jeff Tracy:And again, like you just reiterated there, if you got off the fairways, which weren't very wide to begin with, you were in the pucker brush, as we call it out here.
Jeff Tracy:I think I went through, like a dozen golf balls that day.
Jeff Tracy:I.
Jeff Tracy:I swear I had never gone through that many in one round in my life.
Jeff Tracy:I didn't buy any at the pro shop because I'd been forewarned to fill up your golf bag with, but I.
Jeff Tracy:It was like every hole, either my buddy Al or myself, we lost the.
Jeff Tracy:We lost the ball on every hole, so that's.
Tom Coyne:That's not the most fun way to play.
Jeff Tracy:No.
Jeff Tracy:No.
Jeff Tracy:And, you know, we're not great golfers, but we're not bad.
Jeff Tracy:But if you overshot the green and it rolled into the brush behind there, good luck.
Jeff Tracy:And there might be some bears or something back there, too.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, you got to be careful.
Tom Coyne:Well, you'll have.
Tom Coyne:It's not so bad at Sullivan County.
Jeff Tracy:Okay.
Tom Coyne:I just.
Tom Coyne:You might just need a couple balls.
Jeff Tracy:What.
Jeff Tracy:How far is it from where you live?
Jeff Tracy:Can you zip up there pretty quickly, or is it a trip?
Tom Coyne:It's three hours from Philadelphia.
Tom Coyne:We bought a house up here because my wife.
Tom Coyne:Like a place for the summer.
Jeff Tracy:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:Because my wife just loves it up here.
Tom Coyne:It's.
Tom Coyne:It's.
Tom Coyne:It's stunningly beautiful.
Tom Coyne:It's.
Tom Coyne:You know, we're here in the top of a.
Tom Coyne:Not a mountain, but a very large hill.
Tom Coyne:With great views and, and, and, and we love it.
Tom Coyne:It's, it's, it's a real getaway and it's super quiet.
Tom Coyne:So we're three hours from Philly, it's two hours from New York City.
Tom Coyne:So that's, I mean it's basically dirty dancing country.
Tom Coyne:It's the call the Borsch belt.
Tom Coyne:So the resorts, the resort that Dirty Dancing was based upon would have been right around the corner from the golf course which is now closed.
Tom Coyne:The, the resorts are all closed.
Tom Coyne:The giant, those giant Jewish resorts from the 50s, 60s and 70s, they're all gone.
Tom Coyne:And that's why the area has struggled and one of my interests in getting involved because I, I think we can bring it back.
Tom Coyne:Not, you know, we were playing a very small part in that, but it's, it's too good a spot to be ignored.
Jeff Tracy:Are any of those buildings from the old resorts, are they still standing or they're all torn down?
Tom Coyne:No, they're torn down.
Tom Coyne:So Grossingers was one of the very big ones that all the buildings are gone.
Tom Coyne:They have it, they had a tillinghast golf course which still exists.
Tom Coyne:I think they just mow it to, you know, fairway height and everyone talks about someday someone getting it and fixing it up but I don't know if the economics of it are, are holding it back or whatever.
Tom Coyne:But the, all these resorts had their own golf courses but most of them, most of them are gone.
Tom Coyne:Almost too bad.
Tom Coyne:But, but we are, we're hanging in there.
Jeff Tracy:Well, maybe you'll be building the Tom Coyne golf course empire up there in the Borschtal.
Tom Coyne:You know, we'll see, we'll see nine holes at a time.
Tom Coyne:We'll see.
Tom Coyne:We'll get this one right and we'll see what happens.
Jeff Tracy:Yeah, well when we get done, I'll, I'll have to go.
Jeff Tracy:Do you have a website for the.
Tom Coyne:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:Sullivan County.
Tom Coyne:If you just Google Sullivan County Golf Club you can, you can check it out.
Tom Coyne:You can buy a non resident membership I think for $250 and be a member of the club and get your handicap index and your bag tag and come visit us and you can buy merch on the, on the website as well.
Tom Coyne:So that's been really fun to see people, you know, joining the club from Texas and California and Ireland just because they want to support accessible golf.
Tom Coyne:You know, I mean our fees are $20 and, and we're trying to, to make golf available to people and, and, and it's been fun to, to see people respond to that and support us whether they ever show up or not.
Jeff Tracy:All right, going to come back and wrap up the show with Tom Coyne and then he's going to stick around for after hours.
Jeff Tracy:Anyway, we'll be right back, everybody.
J.T.:J.T.
Jeff Tracy:Here.
J.T.:If you need something to practice with in the inclement weather, try birdie ball.
J.T.:Go to birdieball.com check out the actual birdie balls, their packages, their putting greens, which I happen to have a couple of those and they work great.
J.T.:Birdieball.com.
Jeff Tracy:This is an encore.
Jeff Tracy:Welcome back to grilling.
Jeff Tracy:It's Green and the Golf News Network on iHeart and stations in Portland, Seattle, Wyoming, Texas and what have you.
Jeff Tracy:We thank you all for listening.
Jeff Tracy:We're talking with Tom Coyne today.
Jeff Tracy:Tom has been on the show a few times before.
Jeff Tracy:Always interesting.
Jeff Tracy:This is a shorter segment.
Jeff Tracy:So let's talk about what you're writing now.
Jeff Tracy:You, you're doing some stuff about the Sullivan county course, but is that what, have you started that process?
Tom Coyne:Well, yeah.
Tom Coyne:So this is for, this project is for the next book, a course called Home.
Jeff Tracy:Right.
Tom Coyne:You know, which will be a follow up to a course called Ireland, a course called Scotland, of course called America.
Jeff Tracy:Right.
Tom Coyne:Not terribly original with titles, I guess.
Tom Coyne:So a course called Home.
Tom Coyne:I mean, that's, yeah, that's what I'm working on now.
Tom Coyne:And that's, that's the big project.
Tom Coyne:But I'm also the editor of the Golfers Journal, which is a quarterly golf publication.
Tom Coyne:And we write, we, we publish long form real golf storytelling in that book.
Tom Coyne:So I always have a story in that as well.
Tom Coyne:So working on, always working on something for, for the Journal and working on working on the new book.
Tom Coyne:So it's.
Tom Coyne:Yeah.
Tom Coyne:And with all the other stuff going on, it keeps me busy for sure.
Jeff Tracy:I bet it does.
Jeff Tracy:I'm not trying to shill for you here, Tom, but I get the Golfers Journal.
Jeff Tracy:I always enjoy it.
Jeff Tracy:One of the things I like about it is, like you said, the long form stories.
Jeff Tracy:And it's actually a magazine, as I remember, magazines.
Jeff Tracy:I'm dating myself now, so forgive me because a lot of times you get the regular golf magazines in the mail and they're 46 pages long.
Jeff Tracy:Two thirds of it is ads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Jeff Tracy:I understand you have to sell advertising.
Jeff Tracy:I have to sell advertising to keep this show going in my other shows.
Jeff Tracy:But point being Golfers Journal and you get some cool stuff from the Broken Tea Society and all that.
Jeff Tracy:So yes, it's a lot of fun.
Tom Coyne:Yeah, it's, you know, it's very, we try to make it very different than that was the idea behind it to sort of zig where everyone else was zagging.
Tom Coyne:We have almost.
Tom Coyne:No, it's very commercially quiet.
Tom Coyne:There's almost no advertisements in the book.
Tom Coyne:And yeah, it's a magazine, but it feels more like a book.
Tom Coyne:It's something, you know, so it's great to see people collecting them and it's a substantial thing that you get and you put on your coffee table and, and it's.
Tom Coyne:We, we think about it as art.
Tom Coyne:So it's sort of where art is meeting golf and it's resonated with a lot of people.
Tom Coyne:It's been fun to watch the membership grow in the Broken Tea Society, which is what we call our members grow and get together for events around the country and sort of the community grow up around the magazine.
Tom Coyne:It's been awesome to watch.
Jeff Tracy:Well, I will tell you this.
Jeff Tracy:When people come over to the house, non golfing people and I have a couple of them on the coffee table in the living room.
Tom Coyne:Sure.
Jeff Tracy:I've also taken a couple of them up to the radio station in Portland where this show is based out of, so to speak, and put them in the reception area and, and I don't get up there very often, but when I do, you walk in, if there's somebody sitting there, they're usually reading that magazine versus People or you know, whatever.
Jeff Tracy:Same here at the house.
Jeff Tracy:People will come in and they look at it because it's a big magazine and it's thick and they start to thumb through and it's beautiful photography and they look at it and they, you know, they, they may not even ever have picked up a golf club in their life, but they'll look at that magazine.
Jeff Tracy:So something.
Tom Coyne:I appreciate that.
Tom Coyne:That's the best compliment you can get.
Jeff Tracy:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great.
Jeff Tracy:Anything you want to do with the Sullivan county course that you haven't done yet?
Jeff Tracy:I mean, I know there's probably a list of one I coulda shouldas, but what's the number one on your list?
Tom Coyne:Well, we did a lot of work this year, as I said.
Tom Coyne:We brought in some partners and some really great partners.
Tom Coyne:One of them is Bill Murray, the actor Mike Madden, who is a, a tremendous guy and owns Muhammad Ali's training camp Fighters Heaven, which is about an hour from here.
Tom Coyne:He's.
Tom Coyne:He lives in, in California but he comes out a couple times a year for that and he's been up to the course.
Tom Coyne:So.
Tom Coyne:So we put together a good group and we were able to actually put money into the golf course.
Tom Coyne:And.
Tom Coyne:And that's been.
Tom Coyne:That's been exciting.
Tom Coyne:So we're watching, I mean, literally right now.
Tom Coyne:I'll go over tonight to see, to check on the work.
Tom Coyne:We cleared a significant part of the course to build some new golf holes so that we can have a driving range and a putting course, which I think the community really, really needs.
Tom Coyne:There isn't a driving range anywhere up here.
Tom Coyne:And it's.
Tom Coyne:That's the first way to grow golf is to give people a place to learn how to play it.
Tom Coyne:I sure.
Jeff Tracy:Tom Coyne, as always, it's a pleasure to have you on the show again.
Jeff Tracy:We want to thank the Oregon Dungeons Crab Commission and Heritage Cookware, Hammer Stall Knives and all of our sponsors.
Jeff Tracy:We appreciate that.
Jeff Tracy:Tom's going to stick around for after hours.
Jeff Tracy:Till then, everybody go out, have a good week, play some golf, and most of all, be kind.
Jeff Tracy:Take care, everybody.
Host Jeff Tracy:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Host Jeff Tracy:All rights reserved.
