Before 2026, Ryan Schiff could be called many things – standout hockey player, foreign exchange trader, husband, father, man of faith, and avid golfer, to name a few. Starting in January of this year, however, this Renaissance man added the title of author when he wrote his first book, a memoir titled “A Fool's Errand: A Neighbor, A Top 100 Chase, A Different Scorecard,” which was published in June.
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It is safe to say that Schiff was unprepared for what happened next, as the book quickly became a sensation, climbing near the top of Amazon’s top golf biographies list, behind the recent bestseller about Rory McIlroy.
“I could never have imagined anything like this. Every day I get the same kind of texts about the book, from people who I’ve met over the years, telling me how much they enjoyed and related to the book,” says Schiff, who called the Chicago area home for decades.
The premise of the book is straightforward; a golf memoir organized in 18 chapters that begins with twelve-year-old Schiff meeting his seventy-year-old neighbor who introduces him to the game and begins a lifelong passion that includes his chase to play every single course that has been rated as a Top 100 course in the world. (Spoiler alert: he has played 99 of them.)
While Schiff may have been surprised by the book’s meteoric rise upon its release, in many ways this was the culmination of his life with the game of golf, and, more importantly, his own personal journey.
A Long Island native, Schiff admits that for most of his adolescence, hockey was his primary focus in life, and he went far in the game, playing in college and in minor professional leagues before officially calling it a career. After hanging up his skates and moving to the Chicago area, he started foreign exchange trading, which he has now been doing for 37 years, including the last 27 with one team of trusted colleagues and friends. Along the way, he also found time to own the Glen Ellyn Brewing Company, a sports shampoo company, and the Lincoln Stars, a team in the US Hockey League, among his many “side hustles.”
Throughout all these ventures – and while raising his family – Schiff ensconced himself in the game of golf. Without spoiling the contents of the book, his journey has traversed the worlds of public and private golf, beginning with the aforementioned first round with his neighbor and continuing through his work as a caddie and ultimately as a player crisscrossing the globe to play the best courses in the world.
Naturally, Schiff’s journey to find the best golf in the world took him to Ireland. Much has been written about golf on the Emerald Isle, some on the pages of Irish American News as well as other seminal works like Tom Coyne’s A Course Called Ireland and the dozens, if not hundreds, of other books on the topic. With this book, Schiff adds his own contribution to the annals of Irish golf literature, but his introduction to golf on the island was anything but planned.
“This was in the early 1990s, when I was a young guy and happened to be in Dublin for a work conference on foreign exchange trading,” Schiff recalls. “I had a free afternoon and figured I’d go and play golf, so I took a cab to Royal Portmarnock and asked the guy in the pro shop if I could play. He said yes, gave me a set of rental cars, and I walked over to the first tee when I met an older gentleman who asked me if I wanted to join him on the links. I’ll never forget him telling me, ‘Play with me, lad!’” 
Schiff’s first round of golf in Ireland gave him a crash course into everything that makes Irish golf what it is: true links golf on a world-class course, 40 mile-per-hour winds, 45-degree temperatures, and, most of all, building a true, authentic, relationship with a fellow golfer throughout his four-hour round.
In subsequent years, Schiff would return to Ireland for work and pleasure, crossing off rounds at some of the most well-known courses that the island offers and ultimately joining Carne Golf Links in Belmullet on the coast of County Mayo as an overseas member.
Schiff’s experience golfing in Ireland forms the basis of several chapters in the book, so readers can glean their own insights from his printed words, but through his time on the island, Schiff clearly fell in love with the country’s golf culture.
“Golf in Ireland is what it’s meant to be. These are the greatest courses in the world, but the best part of golfing in Ireland is the people. It’s the people you meet, and the people you are with… something about Ireland just brings out the best in relationships with each other.”
Hearing Schiff share what makes Irish golf special – the weather, the accessibility of the game for everyone, the way in which caddies can be members at the very same club – naturally draws contrasts with golf culture in the United States. That is not lost on Schiff.
“You don’t need all this money to play golf in Ireland. It’s not elitist, the courses are unique, if not quirky, and you play in all weather! In the U.S., we only play in nice weather,” he reflects, noting that with the increased golf tourism from the States – what he calls the “Americanization” of golf in Ireland – many of these special attributes are in danger of being lost in the future.
For now, golf in Ireland – and specifically, making and strengthening relationships while golfing in Ireland - remains special for Schiff. Indeed, in many ways it is this theme of the importance of relationships that forms the essence of his book.
“What I realized through the process of writing and publishing the book is that maybe the whole point of this wasn’t about the chase to play the top 100 courses in the world. What it’s about is the chance to meet people who became close friends. Golf is a great game for making and building relationships, and these relationships have been the best part of this entire journey.”
A Fool's Errand: A Neighbor, A Top 100 Chase, A Different Scorecard, by Ryan Schiff, is available on Amazon and other online book retailers.
Ryan Schiff Releases Bestselling Memoir on Golf, Relationships, and… Ireland
