The Sweet Spot - Golf Podcast A 15 Handicap Tries to Go Pro w/ Tom Coyne
9 snips
Dec 1, 2025 Renowned author Tom Coyne, known for his insightful golf literature, joins in to share his journey from a 15 handicap to a potential pro. He reveals the challenges of his year-long experiment detailed in Paper Tiger, including intense training, mental struggles during qualifiers, and insights into talent versus hard work. Coyne also discusses his latest work, Quiet, Please, reflecting on the beauty of golf through essays and photography, and emphasizes the importance of tangible books in our digital age.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Year-Long Golf Transformation
- Tom Coyne moved to Florida, hired top coaches, and played 542 days in a row to test how good he could get.
- He transformed physically and got down to about a +1 handicap at his peak during that year-long experiment.
Practice Lowers Handicap, Mindset Limits Tournament Play
- Frequent practice and conditioning quickly reduced Tom's handicap into the low single digits by removing random errors.
- But tournament inconsistency and the outsider mindset prevented steady performance under pressure.
Train The One-Shot Mindset
- Use a mental-game coach to build a one-shot, in-the-moment mindset for competition.
- Practice summoning that focused state so it transfers into tournament rounds when pressure rises.
