I ’m suspicious of travelogues, which often feature celebrities in contrived situations, serving up a sentimental postcard of a place that is tantamount to a lie. I also hate how famous people are inexorably drawn to golf: a boring game historically predicated on a rancid mix of social exclusivity and extensive land ownership. So it was perverse of me to watch a show in which author Tom Coyne drives around Ireland playing various courses with his friend, actor Bill Murray . It’s the perfect intersection of none of my interests.

I was, however, hooked by a strange promise in A Course Called Ireland’s introductory sequence. “This is not a show about golf,” it says. “It’s not even a show about Bill Murray.” This was immediately followed by a scene in which an Irish woman standing by the roadside misidentified the actor as Bill Cosby. OK, I thought. What are they teeing up here?

There’s a hole in at least one of those promises.…