By Carson Ellis
Murray McCourt has come a long way since growing up in Stettler.
The executive golf pro and general manager of The Ranch Golf & Country Club first went to San Diego after graduating from Stettler’s William E. Hay Secondary Campus.
He attended the San Diego Golf Academy and spent some time on the Golden State tour. McCourt soon returned to Canada where he did his Professional Golf Association (PGA) apprenticeship at the Wolf Creek Golf Resort. At 23 years old, he landed the job of head Golf Professional at Nanton Golf Club, a short distance south of Calgary, where he would spend the next 12 years.
For the last 17 years, he has been the executive golf professional and part owner at The Ranch Golf and Country Club. McCourt also hosts the VIP Golf Show on TSN 1260.
In April of this year, Streamline Publishing released McCourt’s new book Outside the Tee Box-My Personal Journey and Secrets of Success in the Golf Business. A release party was held at the Ranch Golf & Country Club and the book spent a couple of days on the best seller’s list on Amazon in its category.
McCourt says the book is about his strategies and philosophies on business that have helped him be successful in the golf industry; he furthers that the first half is about his journeys and his thoughts on golf while the second half is mostly about business.
Murray admits he never planned to write a book, but a conversation with friend and mentor, Kraig Kann, gave him great encouragement. Kraig is a former Golf Chanel host and marketing director for the LPGA Tour. McCourt explains that it was out of his comfort zone to put himself out there in a book, but he was grateful for Kann’s support.
McCourt wrote the bulk of the book a couple of years ago. As the book neared completion, he started to consider publishing options. He says people were pushing him to self-publish, but that was a direction he didn’t feel was suitable for him.
His book was pushed to the side for a short while, then this spring he received a phone call from his friend and mentor that would move things along. Krann was at a US football game where he had struck up a conversation with two of the owners of Streamline Publishing. Krann told them about McCourt’s book and they expressed interest in meeting with him.
In a couple of short days, McCourt found himself in a Zoom meeting with the Streamline people, and a couple of months later he found himself a published author.
McCourt says he has been getting great feedback on his book. People who aren’t in the golf industry have reached out to him and told him that the things he talks about resonate with them in their business. He had hoped his book would help elevate people in their careers or businesses and several have made him feel it has done just that both in and outside of golf.
McCourt is happy to add a published author to his list of accomplishments and has started working with a publicist to help get the book out to more people.
The book is available through Amazon, but he also says his parents have been helping to sell the book locally.
