A Season In Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands - Softcover

Rubenstein, Lorn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1840187050 ISBN 13: 9781840187052

Publisher: Mainstream Publishing, 2003

Synopsis

In 1977, Lorne Rubenstein, an avid golfer, travelled to Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands. Young and adrift in life, he was profoundly affected by the experience. As he writes, 'My week in Dornoch introduced me to a place with which I felt a connection. A week wasn't living there, but it was enough for Dornoch to imprint itself on my mind.' Twenty-three years later, in 2000, now an established golf writer, Rubenstein returned to Dornoch to spend an entire summer. He rented a flat close to the Royal Dornoch Golf Club and set out to explore the area on many levels. Rubenstein writes about the melancholy history of the Highland Clearances, which have left the beautiful landscape sparsely populated to this day. He writes about the friendly and sometimes eccentric people who love their town, their golf and their single malt whisky, and who delight in sharing them with visitors. But most of all he writes about a summer lived in a community where golf is king and the golf course is part of the common lands where townspeople stroll of an evening. Rubenstein is able to return to thinking of golf as play, as opposed to a game of analysis and effort. A Season in Dornoch is an affectionate portrait of a place and the people who live there, a fascinating look at golf and the spirit and skills it calls forth, and a perceptive and ultimately moving memoir of one man's quest to experience again the pure love of sport that he knew in his youth.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In 1977, Lorne Rubenstein, an avid young golfer, first travelled to Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands. The experience had a profound effect on him, and 23 years later, now a respected journalist and established golf writer, Lorne Rubenstein returned to Dornoch to spend an entire summer. With his wife, he rented a flat in the very centre of town, mere steps from the golf course, and enthusiastically set out to explore. A Season in Dornoch is the account of that summer.

Rubenstein writes about the melancholy history of the Highland Clearances, and the friendly, sometimes eccentric, people who love their town, their golf, and their single-malt whisky, and delight in sharing them with visitors that they recognize as kindred spirits. But most of all he writes about a summer lived around
golf, in a community where golf is king ? and the golf course is part of the common lands where townspeople stroll of an evening.

The golf played here is links golf, and the course is shaped by weather as much as by man. The fairways curve amongst gorse and rough windblown grasses, and the bunkers are cut deep into the turf. Playing here, Rubenstein, like all links golfers, is less in control, and so, gradually, begins to relax, to return to golf as play, as opposed to a game of analysis and effort.

A Season in Dornoch is an affectionate portrait of a place and the people who live there, a fascinating look at links golf and the spirit and skills it calls forth, and a perceptive and ultimately moving memoir of one man?s quest to experience once again the pure love of sport that he knew in his youth.

About the Author

Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for Golf and Mail since 1980. He is the author of many books and has won the National Magazine Award in Canada and three first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1840187050
• ISBN 13: 9781840187052
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256