FACING BURNOUT, David Baum left his demanding position at Goldman Sachs and decided to make a living as the publisher of a golf newsletter.

After nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs, essentially his entire career, Baum realized he needed a change. He also reflected on the events of 9/11, during which Baum was working in Lower Manhattan. "I was there on 9/11 and knew a number of people who were not so fortunate on [that day]," he says. "I had a wonderful career there that could have gone on for many more years, but I had basically been doing the same thing for 17 years."

Baum, now 42, left the investment bank in May 2003, knowing only that he wanted to work in a "radically different" environment, but one where he could be as passionate as he once was about the M&A sector. He also sought a career that would allow him more control over his schedule. "I had 17 years in the client-services business. The phone would ring at 7 pm, and I was on the first plane the next morning. I really didn’t want to do that."

He spent the next six months "vegging," spending time with his wife, Andrea, and their three young children, until an opportunity literally landed in his mailbox. Baum, who lives in suburban New Jersey, had been a subscriber to a small golf travel newsletter, Golf Odyssey, published in Virginia. The publication offers reviews of golf resorts and courses around the world. One day he received an issue and showed it to his wife. "I said half-jokingly, ‘This would be a good business for me.’" An avid golfer, Baum had taken trips based on the newsletter’s recommendations—and had been impressed by the publication’s accuracy.

With a few pen strokes, baum went from a power-player in one of America’s most lucrative sectors to an unknown publisher in a rather mundane market.

Even with his well-honed acquisition skills, it took Baum months to gently cajole the owner, a beer distributor in Charlottesville, Va., to sell. Finally, in April 2005, Baum wrote a check (he refuses to reveal his purchase price) and became the owner of Golf Odyssey. With a few pen strokes, he went from a power-player in one of America’s most lucrative businesses to an unknown publisher in a rather mundane market. Golf Odyssey had roughly 800 subscribers and no marketing plans when he acquired it, Baum says.

The optimist in Baum saw a chance for a quick fix that would turn the publication into a relatively stress-free moneymaker. But the reality, as many first-time publishers bemoan, has been vastly different. "Here I was thinking I was getting this very simple, monthly newsletter that couldn’t be that hard to produce," he says. "We had a small subscriber base, but we needed to figure out how to ramp up some marketing and make it work."

Six months later, Baum sought an instant circulation injection. He acquired a competitor, Golf Insider, a newsletter published in San Francisco, and added its 400 subscribers to his database. Since then, despite his stated desires to lighten his load, he seems to have transferred the aggressive nature of the Wall Street banker to his small niche of the publishing industry. He has worked intensely for the past two years to shore up his print product (which currently has 1,800 subscribers), and to expand his company into new media and create additional revenue streams. "I didn’t necessarily think I was going to fly around the world and play golf," he admits. "But my vision when I bought this has evolved so far from what I thought I was getting into."

Baum’s first project involved redesigning the look and feel of the newsletter to make it more attractive to the high-end clients he targets. He currently offers two 12-month subscriptions, one at $97 and the other at $147 (which includes the previous 12 issues). He also markets the newsletter as a corporate gift, and has priced a subscription at just below the $100 maximum that the National Association of Securities Dealers places on such perks.

Baum’s newsletter currently has no advertising. He refuses to accept ads from golf resorts or any entity that Golf Odyssey might review. He and his staff (three full-time employees, two of whom are editors) travel to golf destinations using company funds and do not identify themselves as reviewers when they play, in order to maintain their objectivity. Baum also refuses to hire freelance writers. "It’s hard for us to rely on them because we travel anonymously and pay our own expenses," he says. "Most of the freelancers won’t pay their own way."

While playing at a course in Ireland last year, Baum noted 16 golf writers who had been invited to play against each other at the club with their expenses paid. "Each had his own uniform, each had his own caddie. They wined them and dined them," Baum says. "Sure enough, you see a lot of positive stories about the club. And I’m there on my own nickel watching all this." He admitted he is open to considering advertising from the much more lucrative sector of golf equipment manufacturers, particularly in his digital media products.

As with many print publishers, Baum is also playing catch-up to migrate his content onto digital platforms. For the past year, he immersed himself in what he calls a massive project to move his company’s archive of travel reviews dating back to 2000 to the Web. Now some of that content resides on a new website, golfvacationinsider.com, which represents a new brand strategy for Baum’s company. The site offers free content and an email newsletter. His strategy, of course, is to upsell visitors to his paid subscriptions. His new Web technology also enables him to perform business operations, such as subscriber management and fulfillment, digitally.

Baum admits he spent much more time and money developing his Web tools than he originally planned, describing his investment only in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. "It’s too embarrassing," he says. "It’s insane." He has also launched a series of travel books, available in both hard copy and digital formats, that feature detailed destination reviews, and he is working on a partnership with a travel company to offer vacations. He’s engaged debt financing to build the company—"Hey, I’m from Wall Street. I have to use leverage," he says—but retains full ownership of the business and has no plans to seek a partner.

"We have so much stuff going on, it makes my head spin," he says. "This year will be the interesting year. We are in a position to turn up the marketing, because now it’s a fixed-cost business. The question is, can we drive the business to where we can get over the nut."

Matt Purdue is the executive editor of Worth.