Our Par 5 series is back and with a vengeance! I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Lorne Rubenstein. For the few of you who don’t know who he is, Lorne is an acclaimed golf columnist who has contributed work to every major golf publication you can think of. He has also written numerous books and was recently inducted into the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame.
GL: You have a new book which just came out. What is it about and what inspired it?
LR: The book is called A Disorderly Compendium of Golf. I wrote it with Jeff Neuman, who was an editor at Simon & Schuster in New York. He edited my book A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands. Jeff’s now writing as well as editing on a freelance basis. Readers might be interested to learn that Jeff edited the very successful Harvey Penick books, such as the Little Red Book. Jeff and I were returning from playing golf one day when we started talking about all the quirky bits and pieces that the game generates. We started wondering about famous penalties, underrated golf destinations, comparing Tiger Woods to Jack Nicklaus. Collapses in Majors, stories about the great courses and players, things every golfer should do before he dies. We didn’t stop for the two-hour drive home. Jeff remembered that a friend of his who is a literary agent had mentioned that a golf book full of the sort of items we’d come up with would be a good idea. The book was borne, and now it’s coming out. Workman is publishing in the U.S. and McClelland & Stewart in Canada.
GL: You are the former editor of Scoregolf Magazine. What were the early days like and why did you choose to move on?
LR: We had a small staff and not much in the way of financial resources. But we were fired with the idea of a national golf magazine, and the few of us at Score worked hard to come up with a publication that spoke of the game across the country. George Knudson, Sandra Post and Marlene Streit were kind enough to write columns. We asked Tom Watson if I could come down to Kansas City to interview him for the cover story for the first issue, and he agreed. I remember interviewing him for three hours in the locker room at the Kansas City Country Club the day before Christmas. At one point he opened a door and started hitting balls out to a frozen field, to demonstrate some aspects of the swing. For another article on golf in western Canada we used old postcards as graphic elements because we didn’t have money to send a photographer; our production and creative genius Ron Bala put together a terrific layout that we’re still proud of. Ron’s gone on to be one of the top graphic designers in the business, and we continue to work together on a variety of projects.At the time I had two part-time jobs: editor of Score and curator of the Royal Canadian Golf Association’s Museum and Library. I’d also started writing columns for The Globe and Mail. After much deliberation, I decided to turn to full-time freelancing and to leave my jobs at Score and the RCGA. The editors who followed me at Score were Lisa Leighton, John Gordon and now, Bob Weeks. They’ve all done a first-class job. Score’s respected not only in Canada but around the golf world. I continue to write a back-page column in every issue of ScoreGolf, and a biweekly column for www.scoregolf.com.
GL: I am often interested in hearing which courses people like playing in Canada. Can you rank your top 5 Canadian Course?
LR: Devil’s Paintbrush; Redtail; Highlands Links; National; Beacon Hall
GL: Congratulations on being inducted into the 2006 Ontario Golf Hall of Fame earlier this year. You have won numerous awards for your writing, where does this honour rank with your professional achievements?
LR: I felt good about the induction because it meant that those who voted me in recognized that writing is an important part of the game. To me, golf has always interesting writing that examines all parts of the game. Its literature is sophisticated and compares favourably with that found in baseball, to cite one sport. Canada’s had and has many excellent writers who care deeply about the game. Nobody ever sets out with a goal of getting into a Hall of Fame. You work, and you hope people read you. Somebody once said golf translates oddly well into words. It’s rewarding to know that readers feel the same way.
GL: You used to Caddy on the PGA Tour. It must have been a hard living, especially with prize money not nearly as large as it was today. Had you had enough with that life or was writing always your calling?
LR: I was an avid reader as a youngster of all the classic writers in the game:Bernard Darwin, Henry Longhurst, Pat Ward-Thomas, Peter Dobereiner, etc. In high school a teacher asked what I wanted to do, and I said I’d like to write. I didn’t know then that I’d write about golf. At the time I was playing amateur tournaments and while I did okay here and there, I was too introspective too often. That wasn’t good for my golf, but it did help my writing. Caddying also helped. I caddied as a kid at the York Downs club in Toronto and later caddied on the PGA Tour a few tournaments a year while I was in college. I met tour golfers, and at the same time I started writing for the Globe. My column with the Globe actually started when I caddied for Jim Nelford in the 1980 Canadian Open at the Royal Montreal Golf Club. I’d proposed articles from a caddy’s point of view to the Globe, and a terrific editor named Cec Jennings agree to take the pieces. Jim shot 68-70 the first two rounds and was with Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino in the third round, so this was a good week to start a golf column. He didn’t play well on the weekend, so that led to other questions I could deal with in a column format. I continued to caddy for a few years, and left when I decided to concentrate on writing. That was about the same time I stopped working for Score and the RCGA. However, I did return to caddying for one tournament, the 2004 Canadian Open at Glen Abbey, for Dick Zokol. That was fun, and it was good to be in the middle of the action again. I did some writing from a caddy’s point of view again, which was fun. But it was a one-time thing. Caddying was a terrific way into the pro game, but I guess writing was more my calling. I’ve never stopped enjoying it, that’s for sure.
GL: Thanks Lorne
