Author and former CGCS Steven Tingle discusses his new book and a haunting tale from his past

Editor-in-Chief Seth Jones engages in a compelling discussion with Steven Tingle, a former Certified Golf Course Superintendent (CGCS) and author, about his latest novel. Tingle also shares a horror story from his tenure on the course.

Transcript

Seth Jones: Hey everybody. It’s Seth Jones, editor-in-chief of Golfdom Magazine. Today I’m being joined by former Golfdom writer, now full time author, Stephen tingle, author of Graveyard Fields and soon to be released, the new book Buried Lies. This one definitely has a background in the golf course. Talk to me about it. Sounds like maybe superintendent might even be involved.

Steven Tingle: Yeah, this actually, this is a kind of detective fiction/comedy mystery and it actually takes place in Springdale, the golf course that my dad built, which my family sold in 2018. It’s going gangbusters right now. It’s one of the hottest things in Western North Carolina. Yeah, it’s about a real estate attorney who’s playing golf and he gets hit in the head with a golf ball and dies in a bunker. It’s written off as an accident, but there’s a few people who think it might be murder, which sounds ridiculous, because how do you murder somebody with a golf ball? And a kind of a bumbling private detective who’s a little lazy and would rather just sit on his deck and look at the mountains and drink beer, gets involved in it. And, of course, one thing leads to another and the superintendent of the course is helpful in the beginning, but actually becomes a suspect later on.

SJ: Good, good. And that book will be out in October. It’s called Buried Lies. October is a great time to release something where it’s, you know, everyone’s kind of in that spooky murder mystery mood anyway, but our October issue has a theme of true horror stories that only a superintendent would believe. Do you got any for me? You got anything from back in your dark days?

ST: I mean, I was probably in high school, or maybe home from college. When I came home from college, I would always work on the grounds crew and we had a guy who had worked there, probably since he was in high school and he was probably in his 50s at this time. His name was Cooter and Cooter mowed the roughs. And at that time, we had a big tractor with gang mowers attached to the to the rear. And that’s all cooter did all day long, was mow the roughs on the course. And he parked the mower by the restrooms on what used to be No. 15. The new owners had switched the sides, but he parked the mower next to the to the restrooms at 15, went inside for a few minutes, and when he came back out, the whole thing was gone. Tractor gang, mowers all gone. He thought, ‘Oh, somebody’s playing a joke on me. You know, they’ve rolled it down the hill and taken it away or whatever.’ And then he saw the pond that was about 20 yards away, and bubbles coming up. So the whole contraption had just shifted out of gear. He forgot to set the break and everything went.

SJ: Oh man, that’s rough. That’s a bad day.

ST: But Cooter worked there for another 10 or 15 years, but never, never a day went by where he didn’t live that one down.

SJ: Good, good. I understand that. Well, cool. Well, hey, Steven, I appreciate you taking the time to catch up with me. I’m looking forward to the book coming out in October.

ST: Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate your time, Seth.

SJ: For sure. Everybody, one more time: This is Steven tingle. He is the author of Graveyard Fields as well as Buried Lies. Check out both books. I’m Seth Jones, thanks for watching us here on Golfdom TV.