A Golf Odyssey with The Real McCoy
A Golf Odyssey with The Real McCoy
By: Bob McCoy
A Golf Odyssey with The Real McCoy is much more than Bob McCoy’s chronology of his unrivaled feat of playing the World Top 100Courses in 100 consecutive days in 1997 (the 100/100). He also explains in detail how he developed a battle plan and managed the logistics for the 100/100 and what it was like to be a member of five of those clubs.
Title information
A Golf Odyssey with The Real McCoy also contains dozens of vignettes about the people and places Bob encountered on his epic trip as well as his insights into many of those great courses.
Along the way, Bob shares his extensive knowledge about the brilliant architects and entrepreneurs who designed or developed Top 100 courses like Pebble Beach and Sand Hills. Additionally, A Golf Odyssey with The Real McCoy includes stories from one correspondent on how anyone can play Augusta National and from another who played the Old Course at St. Andrew’s in reverse.
A Golf Odyssey with The Real McCoy includes a homage to Jack Nicklaus and his relationship with Baltusrol Golf Club, one of the Top 100 courses Bob belonged to and where the G.O.A.T. won two U.S. Opens.
Bob McCoy was born in Buffalo in 1939 and didn’t start playing golf seriously until he was 24 years old. Instead, he grew up playing ice hockey and was a defenseman on Melrose (MA) High School’s New England Championship team, an undefeated Hebron Academy (Maine) team, and Harvard College’s Ivy League Championship team. Bob’s professional life as an equity analyst brought him to Wall Street, where he discovered that his business travels allowed him to play the best courses in the world, which led him to concentrate on playing courses on the U.S. and World Top 100 lists. He eventually became the third person to play Golf Digest’s U.S. Top 100 courses (1984), the second person to play GOLF Magazine’s World Top 100 courses (1988), and the first person to have played both the U.S. and World Top 100 courses. But after all this, he did one more thing no one else had, or has since, done: In 1997, he played the World Top 100 courses in 100 consecutive days.
Bob is a former member of Oakmont, Baltusrol, Pine Valley, Royal St. George’s, and The R&A, and has been successfully rating courses since 1984 for leading golf magazines. He splits his time now between Pinehurst, NC and Boothbay, ME.
For all [his] entertaining accounts of the clubs and courses [he’s visited] each year, I find myself musing: This guy is not only a fountain of golf knowledge, he is one of the great travelers of all time. Planes may be cancelled, his precise meetings with old and new friends may need adjustment, and the courses he has arranged to play may be in terrible shape because of freakish weather, but this guy can adjust to any and all conditions. He is one of the great travelers of all time, like the hero of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.”
Herbert Warren Wind, writer and coiner of the phrase “Amen Corner”
“Bob McCoy sure knows how to do it right, and I always enjoy his comments on courses I haven’t played.”
Ben Crenshaw, golf course architect and 2-time Masters Champion
“When I received the 1990 ‘Odyssey,’ I dropped all of my business work and read it through immediately. It’s in the same class - if admittedly on a different subject - as Warren Buffet’s annual shareholder’s letter.”
Letter from an annual “Odyssey” reader
“Bob McCoy is by far the most thorough and completely detail-oriented rater I have ever hosted. He asked great questions, took notes and photos of every hole, and honestly was more interested in the architecture of Maidstone than in his round of golf. He came prepared and had done his research on the recent Coore & Crenshaw restoration.”
Mike Kazickas, Maidstone member and multiple-time club champion