If your inbox is as crowded as mine with Cyber Monday discounts and miraculously extended Black Friday sales (One more day? Extraordinary! Such magical benevolence!), you will be relieved to ignore them all for a gift with some actual meaning, charisma, and character. Your sports-loving friends will open their gifts and surprise you with genuine smiles, looking up with that curious grin of someone who is thinking, Wow, I actually want this. 
The golfer in your life doesn’t want you to try to select a club for them (Regular shaft? That’s what you think of me?), and buying them a gross of golf balls can be read as commentary on his or her propensity for losing them. So forget the sporting goods for your sportsman or sportswoman and check out the incredible artwork of Ballpark Blueprints. Code BLACKFRIDAY will get you a fat discount through the end of the day Monday. I am partial to their rendering of A Course Called the Kingdom, but they have blueprints of dozens of stadiums from around the world–if you know someone who has a team, here’s their perfect gift. 
If this feels like a shameless hard sell, it is, because BpBp is a small company doing great big work that deserves our appreciation. Two friends came up with a unique idea for a business, and in bringing their dream to life, added some beauty to the sporting landscape. Their co-owner and designer was also a playing compatriot in Scotland this past year, and his ACCK print was gifted to over a hundred clubs in the UK as I signed and left a print for each club I visited.
Signed copies of the print are available from BpBp if you would like a piece of the upcoming story. And if you can’t decide on one print–and I bet you can’t!–the 2016 calendar for $20 is a bargain. My favorite month is April with a blueprint of Augusta National. And the calendar doesn’t just note holidays, but is marked for major sporting events as well. Save your pal from scheduling his wedding during the US Open. Get him this calendar today. Like, now. 
Willy Loman, eat your heart out.
Tom Young is just a Great American — plus he laughed at just about all my jokes in Scotland. What more can you say about a guy? Buy a Blueprint!
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Tom, awaiting A Course Called Ireland print to match A Course Called the Kingdom print which I have hanging in my office. Do you know if/when one be forthcoming? And of course awaiting the ACCK book as well!
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Thanks, John. I believe Ballpark Blueprints has one in the works, perhaps as a very limited edition — if you come on the Coyne Cup you may get one (surprise gift, now a poorly kept surprise). Thanks for supporting the books — just taking a break from working on ACCK right now. Best,
Tom
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Tom, unfortunately as much as I’d like to, I won’t be able to make it to the inaugural Coyne Cup, but maybe this one will be the first of several…
Looking forward to ACCK. If it’s anywhere near as good as ACCI, it will be terrific.
John
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