Book Review by Jeffrey Reed, Editor, London Ontario Golf
This Round’s On Me
Author: Lorne Rubenstein

Golf journalist Lorne Rubenstein and the modern game of golf in Canada are synonymous. They go together like Tiger and Stevie, Lefty and Bones, Weir and Brennan Little. Golf has been good to Rubenstein, and the game of golf in this country is better off thanks to Rubenstein’s thoughtful prose which stems from total dedication to the game. Quite simply, the man gives 100 per cent to the game and his craft. It’s why he was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2007.

I’ve only conversed face to face with Rube a few times during my sporadic coverage of the Canadian Open, but we touched base via e-mail now and again. As fellow members of the Golf Journalists Association of Canada, we share an unspoken bond which sees us feel a sense of responsibility to the great game of golf and how it is recounted here in Canada. Of course, a golf writer’s work extends beyond the Canadian border, and Rubenstein, 61, is one of the world’s best-known golf journalists, having dedicated his life to golf reporting.

So, when Rubenstein’s latest book, This Round’s On Me, landed on my desk, I couldn’t wait to dive into it. I’ve always appreciated the manner in which Rubenstein asks the tough questions without doing so for the sake of being different or stirring the pot. Rather, this man knows golf. The top players on the PGA Tour know it and respect him immensely, and I respect him as a colleague and an inspiration.

This Round’s On Me: Lorne Rubenstein On Golf takes us on a tour of Rubenstein’s best and favourite articles from 1993 to 2008, selected from thousands of newspaper, magazine and Internet pieces. Touring Prose, published in 1992, was Rubenstein’s last such collection. He has written 10 books in total. This time around, he chooses some of his best and favourite articles from over 2,500 written since then, and reflects on how the game has changed.

With 273 pages of selected golf articles, This Round’s On Me is a terrific trip down memory lane, and it really illustrates how the game of golf has changed in such a short time. You need not think past Mr. Woods to realize just how hip golf has become, despite the fact it remains a fringe sport in the eyes of so many sports fans across North America. Yet for those of you like me who live the golf lifestyle day in and day out, you’ll treasure this book for its insight.

There are eight chapters in, This Round’s On Me. Speaking of Tiger, Rubenstein writes in Chapter 8 about Woods’s rise to fame. In an article from The Globe and Mail, April 16, 1997, Rubenstein writes of Jack Nicklaus’s comments on Woods conquering Augusta National GC.

“Tiger has the ability to do that (overpower the course),” Nicklaus said at Augusta. “That’s why this young man is so special. He makes the golf course into nothing.”

“Mastermind of the game that he is, it was no surprise to see Tiger Woods develop a nuanced strategy during last week’s British Open that effectively took Royal Liverpool Golf Club’s 94 bunkers out of play. The surprise is that so few players, professional and amateur, really get it when it comes to playing links golf.”

Photo courtesy C. Schel Photography

“Ben Hogan was involved in that horrible automobile accident which almost took his life in 1949. I don’t believe he really thought about how he had to go about becoming the world’s greatest golfer. I think it was after the accident, when his life was spared, that he came to the proper realization (of what the game was all about).”

“It’s an unbelievable progression that I’ve gotten here,” Weir said, looking dapper in the green jacket that Woods, who had won the past two Masters, helped him don. But, he added, he always felt he would reach the highest levels of the game."