Shownotes
I begin with the principal point: Tom Coyne took charge of a nearly one‑hundred‑year‑old nine‑hole course in Sullivan County and now co‑owns and operates the club. I speak with him about running daily operations, from mowing the fairways to managing payroll and the tiny pro shop. We describe how a new logo and merchandise became a vital revenue stream for the club. Tom outlines plans to add a driving range and a putting course to increase local access to golf and to revive the community. I also cover his editorial work with the Golfers Journal and his forthcoming book, Of Course Called Home. We invite listeners to learn more, buy a nonresident membership, or support the club through the website.
Links referenced in this episode:
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Transcripts
It's time for Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores the golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it.
Speaker A:In the short grass.
Speaker B:For the hackers, new sweepers and turf spankers.
Speaker A:Here's Jeff.
Speaker C:Tomorrow's gonna be better than today.
Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:I'm Jeff Tracy, your host.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:We'd like to thank the folks at Painter Hills Natural Beef Beef the way nature intended, and also the Oregon Crab Commission.
Speaker A:From Sea to Plate is their moniker there.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:Our guest today, Tom Coyne.
Speaker A:Tom's been on the show a few times before.
Speaker A:Tom's an author, a journalist, an editor, a golf adventurer, and a credit card actor.
Speaker A:That's all I can say there.
Speaker A:How you doing, buddy?
Speaker C:I'm doing well, Jeff.
Speaker C:How are you doing?
Speaker C:It's good to be back.
Speaker A:How'd you get roped into doing that TV commercial?
Speaker C:Well, you know, it's not a credit card.
Speaker C:The one for Charles Schwab.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what.
Speaker A:I should have said that.
Speaker D:Sorry.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, so it was really kind of them.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And they heard about what we were doing at Sullivan County Golf Club, which I'm sure we'll talk about today.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, they were.
Speaker C:They were kind enough to.
Speaker C:To do a commercial about the adventure there.
Speaker C:So there's a.
Speaker C:You know, the 32nd spot has been running on, you know, during tour events and stuff, which is incredibly cool.
Speaker C:And it's been really good for the club.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:So it was a lot of fun.
Speaker C:It was very, very kind of them to give us some publicity.
Speaker A:Well, the first time I saw it, I don't remember what tournament I was watching sometime this year, and I went, yeah, I know that guy.
Speaker C:Yeah, I was doing some work the other day, the golf on in the background, and I heard someone on the TV say, my name's Tom Coyne and I Just, oh, I looked up, hey look, it's me.
Speaker C:It's funny.
Speaker A:Isn't that kind of weird when that happens?
Speaker C:It's pretty, it is very weird in fact.
Speaker A:So let's talk about the golf course.
Speaker A:I mean you've, you've been a travel writer, I've read your books.
Speaker A:Like I said, you've been on the show before.
Speaker A:I've read your pieces like in Sports Illustrated, etc.
Speaker A:How did you wind up actually taking charge of a golf course?
Speaker C:Yeah, so it was not something I intended to do.
Speaker C:It was a sort of a happy accident.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:It's going, it's almost 100 years old and that's going to close.
Speaker C:And do you know anyone at that point?
Speaker C: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?
Speaker C:Because it was like I said it was, it was basically going to go on the market.
Speaker C:And at the time I, I had a book deal with no subject, just a book deal for golf book.
Speaker C:And, and we've been kicking around different ideas and I thought, what about, what if I ran a golf course?
Speaker C:What if I actually went and got on the other side of golf?
Speaker C:I've been a golf consumer since I was a little kid, right.
Speaker C:I said what if I became a golf provider?
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:But the superintendent, Sean Smith, his passion and dedication and interest in the whole thing, I thought, you know, this could be maybe, that maybe there's something here.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:So, and, and, and we had actually had a successful year so we thought, all right, well let's, let's give it a go.
Speaker C:So I put together a group to, to buy the course and, and so now I'm, I'm one of the owners.
Speaker A:Did you.
Speaker A: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?
Speaker C:Not in it.
Speaker C:Not in a million years.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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, and people like it or they don't like it.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:So that was, like, immediately, I mean, stressful, but, but fun.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Do you ever have to go out and jump on a mower because somebody's sick?
Speaker C:Oh, no, not because someone's sick.
Speaker C:I, I mowed last season.
Speaker C:I mowed almost every day.
Speaker C:So I, I cut the fairways, Sean did the greens, and our, our guy Chris did the rough.
Speaker C:So, no, I was on a fairway mower, you know, four or five times a week, and, and absolutely loved it.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:I, I, I loved it.
Speaker C:So, yeah, no, I can cut cups now.
Speaker C:I can mow fairways.
Speaker C:I can.
Speaker C:I think tomorrow I'll be going around and fixing up the greens for our.
Speaker C:We have a little club championship on Saturday, so we'll tidy things up for everybody and, and off we go.
Speaker A:I think that's great.
Speaker A:Can you, how are you making the lines now in the fairway?
Speaker C:You know, some days, you know, some days we just sort of do Zamboni style.
Speaker C:Some days I'll, I'll do a half, a nice half and half.
Speaker C:Some days we'll go back and forth across, try to switch up the cuts to, to get the best results from the grass.
Speaker C:So no, we, no lining a fairway is, is awesome.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:As soon as, as soon as the dew dries, you're, you're out there guessing what you've cut already and what you haven't.
Speaker A:Did it take a little while to get used to it?
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, it was.
Speaker C:It was.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:You're very timid at first and then now it's just second nature.
Speaker C:You jump on and you go do it and, and it's fun.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:So sometime, sometimes I trim a little bit extra.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Well, we're going to take a break.
Speaker A:We're going to be back with Tom Coyne.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:Please stay with us.
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Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to grilling.
Speaker A:It's green.
Speaker A:I'm J.T.
Speaker A:We've got Tom Coyne with us today.
Speaker A:Tom, this is right up your alley.
Speaker A:We put in a new little segment in the show.
Speaker A:This is called your golf trip travel tip.
Speaker A:Now you can't say that very many times really quickly, but you get, you get the idea.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A: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 and I know you're very well traveled around though the world, cross the pond, so to speak.
Speaker A:What would your travel tip be?
Speaker C:Yeah, I Mean, there are so many sort of things you learn.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Not taking the last flight is, is good advice if you can.
Speaker C:If you have the luxury of choosing.
Speaker C:I definitely use the air tag.
Speaker C:I think.
Speaker C:I think people generally, you know, so I've been.
Speaker C:I've done three Ireland trips this summer, and I'm in Scotland next week.
Speaker C:And so on those trips, I do it.
Speaker C:I still do it myself.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:So you kind of end up wearing the same stuff most days anyway, and you're shopping while you're there.
Speaker C:So I think when it comes to your packing, less is more.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:Or looking at their scorecards and shedding a tear and that kind of thing.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker C:And don't worry about that.
Speaker C:Enjoy yourself.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:That's not why you're visiting.
Speaker C:You're visiting to see how they do it.
Speaker C:And whether you like it or not, it should be at least something you can appreciate.
Speaker A:Well, I would think that unless you've got a.
Speaker A:A PGA or an LPGA Tour card, you're probably not going to bring those courses to their knees, so to speak.
Speaker C:Not.
Speaker C:No, no, there will be.
Speaker C:You know, the golf over there is, it's.
Speaker C:It's more natural you're going to get.
Speaker C:And it's, it's more played along the ground, so you're going to get funky bounces.
Speaker C:The ball's not going to do all the things, you know, demand of it, and you can hit a good shot and get a bad break.
Speaker C:And to me, that's actually more like what golf is.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:You know, can I hit a low, punchy, hooky six iron that's gonna, you know, run around?
Speaker C: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 when you do get a calm down the links, it's defenseless, and you really probably should score well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:They're few and far between, though, I.
Speaker A:Will tell you that.
Speaker A:Probably since the last time you and I have talked, I've.
Speaker A:I just pretty much put the scorecards away.
Speaker A:I just go to have fun.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:I'm not going to be a scratch golfer at this stage of my life, and I'm not going to worry about it.
Speaker A:I'm just going to go have fun.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I look at it that way.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And like you said, we've got, like, here in the Northwest, as you know, we've.
Speaker A:You've been out here a number of times.
Speaker A:We've got some great courses, got a great amount of fun.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:I just go on to enjoy it.
Speaker A:That's kind of.
Speaker A:That's one of the reasons I do this show, is because I enjoy it,.
Speaker C:You know, so that's a great way to play, Jeff.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:Trying to get your handicap down or trying to certain number, if you're not having fun, you're really reducing your chances of.
Speaker C:Of doing that.
Speaker C:You know, it's.
Speaker C:Even if you've hit a bad shot, which we have to like, which is certainly going to happen.
Speaker C:And we, we accept every golf shot's fun if you look at it the right way.
Speaker C:So, you know.
Speaker A:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker A:We're going to take another break.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:So stay with us.
Speaker A:But first, we're going to get our golf tip of the week from Mr. Bruce Fuhrman.
Speaker B:Hi, this is Bruce Fuhrman.
Speaker B:I'm the director of instruction out at Langdon Farms, and I'm going to talk to you A little tip about a pre shot routine in golf.
Speaker B:The ball is still no one's hitting it at you or throwing it at you.
Speaker B:So you got to develop a routine.
Speaker B:Golf's a little bit like serving a tennis ball or shooting a free throw.
Speaker B:You have to have a routine.
Speaker B:So first thing you do is get behind your ball, visualize your shot, take into account the lie, the wind, and so forth.
Speaker B:And then that's the time to get a little whatever swing thoughts you're going to use.
Speaker B:And then you take a little practice swing, feel that swing.
Speaker B:And then you go ahead and step into the batter's box, or in this case, the golfer's box.
Speaker B:Come in with your right foot, set your club down.
Speaker B:Once your club down is down behind the ball and aim the face.
Speaker B:Then you step into it.
Speaker B:And then you jostle your feet or jockey your feet back and forth and waggle your club.
Speaker B:You want to waggle it in a, in a clockwise attitude.
Speaker B:And as you're waggling and jockeying your feet, you want to look at the target.
Speaker B:So it's better to stare at the target and glance at the ball rather than stare at the ball.
Speaker B:So once you've stepped into it with your feet, the ball should be gone within four seconds.
Speaker B:You don't want to stand there over the ball.
Speaker B:If you've got too many swing thoughts, you're going to struggle.
Speaker B:So step into it, waggle, look at the target and pull the trigger.
Speaker B:If you do that, you're going to be a lot more consistent.
Speaker A:Thank you, Bruce.
Speaker A:We appreciate that.
Speaker A:You can find out more about Bruce's program down at Langdon Farms.
Speaker A:Just go to langdonfarms.com check on the instruction, scroll down.
Speaker A:You'll see him there and he can help you out.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's JT.
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Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:I'm jt.
Speaker A:We'd like to thank, of course, the people at Painter Hills Natural Beef who've been with us for a long, long time.
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Speaker A:Go to grillagrills.com As I said, we're talking with Tom Coyne today.
Speaker A:I got it.
Speaker A:I want to ask you something, Tom.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:They're not carrying the ones around here.
Speaker A:That's what I can really speak to.
Speaker A:But the ones around here, they're not carrying.
Speaker A:You don't go in and see a whole wall of full sets of clubs anymore.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:And also with the clothing, was it a kind of an eye opener to you when you said at the top of the show you're dealing with the merch?
Speaker A:That's a different world.
Speaker A:My family came from a retail business.
Speaker A:I'm aware of how that works.
Speaker A:And I'm just curious of your take on that.
Speaker C:Yeah, no.
Speaker C:Well, merch for us was a really big deal because as a little rural nine holer in the Catskill Mountains, you know, the club didn't have a logo.
Speaker C:It didn't have merch.
Speaker C: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 Saint Andrews cross of a propeller and a golf club.
Speaker C: Because at our club, in: Speaker C:So that cool history.
Speaker C:Yeah, it went into the logo, and people love the logo, and we put it on some merch.
Speaker C:And it started selling like crazy.
Speaker C:So that for us was huge and became a revenue stream that didn't exist at the club before.
Speaker C:So this year we've, we've loaded up.
Speaker C: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, and all that kind of stuff because people do love the logo and it's done, it's done really well.
Speaker C:But yeah, it's challenging.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:Yeah, like we're only carrying as much as.
Speaker C:As we need and, you know, we'll have that inventory, you know, for.
Speaker C:We had to buy a lot of stuff this year and hopefully it'll.
Speaker C:Well, hopefully it sells out quickly.
Speaker C:But at the same time, it's, it's huge to, to take on, you know, to stock your shop is very expensive.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:But yeah, I wouldn't walk into a pro shop and buy.
Speaker C:I don't know if people do that as much anymore and buy a driver.
Speaker C:I think much more now the emphasis on in, in club purchasing is getting fit.
Speaker C:So if you're going to get Titleists set, whatever.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Buying things off the rack is in a pro shop.
Speaker C:It's, it's funny, I mean, when growing up, that's where we all got our golf clubs was in the pro shop.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:That's completely changed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:It just, that, that's.
Speaker A:Things have changed a lot in that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:The investment too, in terms of the cost that if you're going to buy a 600 driver, you really should get fit.
Speaker C:You should be on.
Speaker C:You should be on track, man.
Speaker C:You should know your numbers.
Speaker C:You should have.
Speaker C:You should be really trying every shaft head combination.
Speaker C:So, yeah, grabbing one out of the barrel and going forward is.
Speaker C:Yeah, it used to be like, okay, I need a stiff shaft and nine and a half degrees.
Speaker C:And that was.
Speaker C:That's all you needed.
Speaker C:That's all you knew and you wanted.
Speaker C:But, yeah, now there's myriad options.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You sell a lot of golf balls.
Speaker C:That is something that we.
Speaker C:That is a golf.
Speaker C:That's golf equipment that we do stock and.
Speaker C:And we do very well on golf balls.
Speaker C:The golf course is on the side of a mountain, so if you're a little bit.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:Golf balls in our shop, in which we're very happy.
Speaker C:Happy to sell you.
Speaker A:A few years ago, a friend of mine and I went.
Speaker A:We're actually making a sales call.
Speaker A:Went across the river up into the state of Washington to a little place called Skamania Lodge.
Speaker A:It's a beautiful lodge, overlooks the Columbia river, and they've got a golf course there.
Speaker A:It's cut into the side of the mountain.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:I think I went through, like, a dozen golf balls that day.
Speaker A:I swear, I had never gone through that many in one round in my life.
Speaker A:I didn't buy any at the pro shop because I'd been forewarned to fill up your golf bag with, But I.
Speaker A:It was like every hole, either my buddy Al or myself, we lost the.
Speaker A:We lost the ball on every hole.
Speaker C:So that's.
Speaker C:That's not the most fun way to play.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker A:And, you know, we're not great golfers, but we're not bad.
Speaker A:But if you overshot the green and it rolled into the brush behind there, good luck.
Speaker A:And there might be some bears or something back there, too.
Speaker C:Yeah, you got to be careful.
Speaker C:Well, you'll have.
Speaker C:It's not so bad at Sullivan County.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:I just.
Speaker C:You might just need a couple balls.
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:How far is it from where you live?
Speaker A:Can you zip up there pretty quickly, or is it a trip?
Speaker C:It's three hours from Philadelphia.
Speaker C:We bought a house up here because my wife.
Speaker C:Like a place for the summer.
Speaker C:Yeah, because my wife Just loves it up here.
Speaker C:It's, it's, it's stunningly beautiful.
Speaker C:It's, you know, we're here in the top of a, not a mountain but a very large hill with great views and, and, and, and we love it.
Speaker C:It's, it's, it's a real getaway and it's super quiet.
Speaker C:So we're three hours from Philly, it's two hours from New York City.
Speaker C:So that's, I mean it's basically dirty dancing country.
Speaker C:It's the, called the Borsch Belt.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:The, the resorts are all closed.
Speaker C:The giant, those giant Jewish resorts from the 50s, 60s and 70s, they're all gone.
Speaker C:And that's why the area has struggled.
Speaker C:And one of my interest in getting involved because I, I think we can bring it back.
Speaker C:Not, you know, we're playing a very small part in that but it's, it's too good a spot to be ignored.
Speaker A:Are any of those buildings from the old resorts, are they still standing or they're all torn down?
Speaker C:No, they're torn down.
Speaker C:So Grossingers was one of the very big ones that all the buildings are gone.
Speaker C:They have it, they had a tillinghast golf which still exists.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:But the, all these resorts had their own golf courses but most of them, most of them are gone.
Speaker C:Almost too bad.
Speaker C:But, but we are, we're hanging in there.
Speaker A:Well, maybe you'll be building the Tom Coyne golf course empire up there in the Borsch Belt.
Speaker C:You know, we'll see, we'll see nine holes at a time.
Speaker C:We'll see.
Speaker C:We'll get this one right and we'll see what happens.
Speaker A:Yeah, well when we get done I'll, I'll have to go.
Speaker A:Do you have a website for the.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Solomon County.
Speaker C:If you just Google Solomon County Golf Club you can, you can check it out.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C: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, you know, I mean, our fees are $20 and, and we're trying to, to make golf available to people and, and, and, and it's been fun to, to see people respond to that and support us whether they ever show up or not.
Speaker A:All right, gonna come back and wrap up the show with Tom Coyne and then he's gonna stick around for after hours.
Speaker A:Anyway, we'll be right back.
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Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Grilling End at the Green and the Golf News Network on iHeart and stations in Portland, Seattle, Wyoming, Texas and what have you.
Speaker A:We thank you all for listening.
Speaker A:We're talking with Tom Coyne today.
Speaker A:Tom's been on the show a few times before.
Speaker A:Always interesting.
Speaker A:This is a shorter segment, so let's talk about what you're writing now.
Speaker A:You, you're doing some stuff about the Sullivan county course, but is that what, have you started that process?
Speaker C:Well, yeah, so this is for this project is for the next book, a course called Home.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:You know, which will be a follow up to of course called Ireland, of course called Scotland, of course called America.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Not terribly original with titles, I guess.
Speaker C:So of course called Home.
Speaker C:I mean, that's, yeah, that's what I'm working on now.
Speaker C:And that's, that's the big project.
Speaker C:But I'm also the editor of the Golfers Journal, which is a quarterly golf publication.
Speaker C:And we write, we publish long form real golf storytelling in that book.
Speaker C:So I always have a story in that as well.
Speaker C:So always working on something for the Journal and working on the new book.
Speaker C:So it's.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And with all the other stuff going on, it keeps me busy for sure.
Speaker A:I bet it does.
Speaker A:I'm not trying to shill for you here, Tom, but I get the Golfers Journal.
Speaker A:I always enjoy it.
Speaker A:One of the things I like about it is, like you said, the long form stories.
Speaker A:And it's actually a magazine, as I remember.
Speaker A:Magazines 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.
Speaker A:Two thirds of it is ads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:I understand you have to sell advertising.
Speaker A:I have to sell advertising to keep this show going in my other shows.
Speaker A:But point being, Golfers Journal and you get some cool stuff from the Broken Tea Society and all that.
Speaker A:So, yes, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's, you know, it's very.
Speaker C:We try to make it very different than that was the idea behind it to sort of zig where everyone else was zagging.
Speaker C:We have almost.
Speaker C:No, it's very commercially quiet.
Speaker C:There's almost no advertisements in the book.
Speaker C:And yeah, it's a magazine, but it feels more like a book.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:We, we think about it as art.
Speaker C:So it's sort of where art is meeting golf.
Speaker C:And it's resonated with a lot of people.
Speaker C:It's been fun to watch the membership grow and 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.
Speaker C:It's been awesome to watch.
Speaker A:Well, I will tell you this.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:Same here at the house.
Speaker A: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.
Speaker A:So something.
Speaker C:I appreciate that.
Speaker C:That's the best compliment you can get.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker A:Anything you want to do with the Sullivan county course that you haven't done yet?
Speaker A:I mean, I know there's Probably a list of 11 I coulda shouldas, but what's the number one on your list?
Speaker C:Well, we did a lot of work this year, as I said.
Speaker C:We brought in some partners and some really great partners.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:He's, he lives in, in California, but he comes out a couple times a year for that and he's been up to the course.
Speaker C:So, so we put together a good group and we were able to actually put money into the golf course and, and that's been, that's been exciting.
Speaker C:So we're watching, I mean, literally right now.
Speaker C:I'll go over tonight to see, to check on the work.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:There isn't a driving range anywhere up here.
Speaker C:And it's.
Speaker C:That's the first way to grow golf is to give people a place to learn how to play it.
Speaker C:I sure.
Speaker A:Tom Coyne, as always, it's a pleasure to have you on the show again.
Speaker A:We want to thank the Oregon Dungeons Crab Commission and Heritage Cookware Hammer style knives and all of our sponsors.
Speaker A:We appreciate that Tom's going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker A:Till then, everybody go out, have a good week, play some golf and most of all, be kind.
Speaker A:Take care, everybody.
Speaker B:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker B:All rights reserve.
