Lorne Rubenstein

Lorne Rubenstein is the preeminent figure in the world of Canadian golf journalism and a member of the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. For over 35 years, Rubenstein has been writing and speaking about golf in magazines, newspapers, and on television and radio. His experience and passion for the game has made Rubenstein one of Canada's richest resources when it comes to the game and its lessons for life.

Rubenstein was the first editor of Score, Canada's national golf magazine, before starting his column in The Globe and Mail, where they have appeared since 1980. In 1985, he won a National Magazine Award and he has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America. In addition to his regular column in The Globe and Mail, Rubenstein writes for many publications around the world. He pens a back-page column for every issue of Score and continues to write for other publications. Rubenstein has been appearing on television and radio as a broadcaster, interviewer, and commentator since the 1990s. He was the writer and co-host for Acura World of Golf on TSN, where it ran for eleven years. He worked for TSN when it covered the PGA Tour's Air Canada Championship in Vancouver.

Rubenstein has worked with and written about many of golf's greatest players and personalities. He co-authored The Natural Golf Swing with the late Canadian legend George Knudson, and with the popular swing coach David Leadbetter, he co-authored a swing manual called The Fundamentals of Hogan; he also co-authored The Swing: Masters the Principles of the Game, with Nick Price. He is the author of A Season in Dornoch, Mike Weir: The Road to The Master, A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, This Round's On Me, and his latest, Moe & Me: Encounters with Moe Norman, Golf’s Mysterious Genius.

Rubenstein's love of the game began when he started to play at eleven years old. Soon after he learned to play, he started working as a caddy at a club in Toronto and continued as a caddy working part-time on the PGA Tour while earning a degree in psychology from York University. After completing his Master's degree at the University of Guelph, Rubenstein took a position with the Royal Canadian Golf Association, becoming the first curator of the library, museum, and Hall of Fame at Glen Abbey Golf Club.

An avid golfer and chronicler of the game, Rubenstein is the perfect speaker for any golf-related occasion. Golf enthusiasts of every age and skill level will find Rubenstein engaging and entertaining, and they will be reminded why they love the game so much.

• 1. What Moe Norman Can Teach Us, And Not Only About Golf

• 2. The Yips And The Shanks: Efforts To Cure Golf's Mysterious Maladies

• 3. How To Speak Golf: The Pittenweem Pinger, Licorice Sticks, Quackers, Grasshoppers and Maniac Hill

• 4. Search For The Perfect, Or At Least Better, Swing

• 5. Why Golf Is The Best Game To Be Bad At

• 6. On Writing Golf

• 7. Why Compassion Is Necessary: Golf's Famous Collapses

• 8. Ten Things To Do In Golf Before You Play Your Last Hole

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  April 2012

  Moe & Me: Encounters with Moe Norman, Golf's Mysterious Genius

  Spotlighting Moe Norman, a golfer admired by Tiger Woods himself, this memoir by a sportswriter who knew Moe Norman for 40 years details Moe's unique and controversial life. The record investigates how, despite winning almost every title in Canada and having his name celebrated in golf circles around the globe, Norman failed to make a mark in the wider world of golf yet still referred to himself as "the happiest guy on two feet." His uncommon swing, mannerisms, and lifestyle are explored, illustrating how he played very quickly, never took a practice swing, often repeated phrases when talking, and lived in motel rooms most of his life. Norman's crippling insecurity and introversion are revealed, documenting how these conditions kept him from publicly succeeding at the highest levels of play. Penned by a sports journalist who knew the subject for 40 years, this study examines Moe Norman's utterly exceptional technique, his character, how he lived his life well in spite of his significant handicaps, and what this most sensitive and peculiar man meant to those who knew him.

  
  
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  April 2009

  This Round's On Me: Lorne Rubenstein on Golf

  Lorne Rubenstein is the preeminent figure in the world of Canadian golf journalism and a member of the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. He has been reporting on golf for more than thirty years, and this is a collection of Rubenstein’s best and favourite pieces from 1993 to 2008, selected from thousands of newspaper, magazine, and Internet articles. In this book, readers will revel in the wide range of subjects, including course design; swing techniques (such as the stack and tilt); famous people, such as Moe Norman, Jack Nicklaus, Marlene Streit, Payne Stewart, and Ben Hogan; writers, such as Stephen Leacock; and reflections on the beauty and joy of the game.

  
  
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  October 2006

  A Disorderly Compendium of Golf: Wisdom, Folly, Rules, Truths, Trivia, and More

  The obsessive book about the obsessive game, and more fun to read than a green at Ballybunion. Written by two authors who have misspent their lives in thrall to the sport, A Disorderly Compendium of Golf digs into the odd, the fascinating, the historical, the random, the unexpected, and the curmudgeonly, and serves up hundreds of pages of lists, anecdotes, humour, surprises, and the sheer compelling minutiae of a game whose pleasure lies in the details.

  
  
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  October 2004

  Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters

  Lorne Rubenstein has been following Mike Weir’s career since the slim kid from Brights Grove, Ontario, near Sarnia, started winning amateur tournaments. Weir was a star on the Brigham Young University golf team before turning professional in 1992. It was clear to Lorne Rubenstein that the gentlemanly left-hander had what it takes to make it to golf’s pinnacle. After Mike began the 2003 season with two wins, Lorne decided to write a book about his quest to win a major. Mike agreed to cooperate, and so Lorne followed his every shot at the Augusta National Golf Club during the 2002 Masters.

  
  
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  September 2004

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

  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, 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 aroundgolf, in a community where golf is king – and the golf course is part of the common lands where townspeople stroll of an evening.

  
  
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  March 2004

  The Fundamentals of Hogan

  More than a half century after he began his professional career, Ben Hogan is still considered the purest striker of a golf ball in the history of the game. His was a swing honed to perfection, and teaching professionals agree that Hogan's technique is the perfect platform on which golfers of all skill levels can build a fundamental understanding of golf. Unfortunately, photographs of Hogan's full swing and detailed close-ups of his grip and positioning have never been available for analysis. Instructors from around the world have always begun with a serious handicap when explaining to their students how a man of average stature could generate exceptional power and control from tee to green. Now, thanks to the newly discovered critical photography featured in this book, the mysteries of Ben Hogan's form are revealed.

  
  
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  January 1988

  The Natural Golf Swing