LITERARY PODCAST FOCUSES ON DORNOCH AND GOLF IN THE HIGHLANDS
CANADIAN golf writer Lorne Rubenstein’s celebrated book “A Season in Dornoch” is being reissued in a fresh guise to celebrate a milestone 25th anniversary early next year.
With that in mind, fellow authors and acclaimed golf historians Stephen Proctor and Jim Hartsell invited the Royal Dornoch life member to take a trip down memory lane for “The Duffer’s Literary Companion.”
The popular podcast, supported by @NoLayingUp, celebrates golf’s rich literary tradition and books which slip comfortably into the classic bracket.
Lorne and his wife Nell immersed themselves in the life of the Highland town in the summer of 2000, renting a flat above the Dornoch Bookshop which was also handily placed for whiling away the hours in the town library.
It was golf and the near mystical lure of the Championship Course which first tempted Lorne to make for Dornoch as a youthful traveller in 1977 but, on his return, “A Season in Dornoch” strayed from the links to paint a picture of the ancient town, a turbulent history shaped by the Clearances and the wealth of characters he met that summer.
In the podcast, Lorne recalls reading Herbert Warren Wind’s inspirational 1964 New Yorker essay “North to the Links of Dornoch” as a teenager, admitting “something about it really got to me.”
His first foray north, in an era when three of the Firths between Inverness and Dornoch had yet to be bridged, demanded an exhausting seven-hour rail and bus journey from the Central Belt.
“I meant to spend one or two days there but I was so captivated by the place I spent 10 days in Dornoch,” recalled Lorne. “There was something about it that stayed with me all those years.”
On his return, he again found himself enthralled by the people, the culture and, of course, the famous links within a short stroll of his rented quarters that magical summer.
Podcast pair Stephen and Jim, who have also been seduced by the charm of the Scottish Highlands and the array of memorable courses woven into the fabric of towns like Brora, Golspie, Tain and others, tease out fascinating recollections from Lorne, including the back story to Sean Connery’s foreword to “A Season in Dornoch.”
And moving up to date, Lorne touches upon the changes made to the Championship Course in recent times, with holes 7 and 8 undergoing successful makeovers.
“Shifting the 7th green over to the right gives it a better view of the water. I think it is a pretty good move,” he said.
“They have done a nice job on it. Tom Mackenzie helped with the design but their own people did it.
“Whenever you can stand on a green and have a view of the ocean and feel right on top of it, I think that is wonderful.”
Stephen has penned an essay which will form part of the 25th anniversary edition of “A Season in Dornoch” and copies can be ordered in advance at back9press.com/Dornoch
You can listen to the full episode on the following link at Apple Podcasts – The “Duffer’s Literary Companion”.