by Tom Coyne
First published 2024
Tom Coyne travels to Dornoch, a small Scottish town positioned at the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska. This remote Highland community hosts Royal Dornoch, a golf course that Herbert Warren Wind famously declared in The New Yorker as "the most natural course in the world." Coyne immerses himself in both the ancient game and the local culture, meeting residents who share their stories and perspectives over drinks. Through golf matches and deepening friendships, he discovers how the sport reflects the values and history of the Scottish people who created it. The book combines travel writing with personal portraits and golf narratives, taking readers into a landscape both beautiful and moody. This 25th anniversary edition includes updates on Dornoch's changes over two decades, color photographs, and Wind's influential 1964 essay that first brought worldwide attention to the course.
Genres: adventure, sports, biography-memoir
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water
Setting: Dornoch, Juneau, Royal Dornoch, Scotland
Period: 1964, 2020s
288 pages · Hardcover · Back Nine Press