Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

One of my favorite books – yes, a golf book – is a “Season in Dornoch:  Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands.”

It was written 25 years ago by a famous golf writer, Lorne Rubenstein, who, with his wife, went from his home in Toronto, Canada to live in the small town of Dornoch. 

There, over about four months, he and his wife lived in a flat above a bookstore, played a lot of golf on one of the greatest courses in the world, Royal Dornoch.  He and his wife wandered around meeting venerable Scottish citizens.

And that produced his book.

For my part, I have had the privilege of visiting Dornoch on several occasions and playing the course, a links-style test which earns its monicker, Royal.

It is one of my very favorite courses in the world, perhaps standing only second for me because I also love my favorite, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club where I live three houses from the first tee in Salem, Oregon.

Why do I write about this again?

Well, it always is fun to write about Royal Dornoch.

And I do this in connection with a note in Fore Magazine, which is produced by the Southern California Golf Association, of which I am member, along with the golf association in Oregon.  The note heralded the 25^th anniversary of a “Season in Dornoch.”

From Fore:

“Lorne Rubenstein had no distractions such as LIV when he spent a summer in Dornoch back in 2000, an experience he eloquently detailed in ‘A Season in Dornoch.’

“The 25th anniversary edition includes a new introduction and afterword, plus Herbert Warren Wind’s New Yorker piece on the course.

“What Tom Coyne writes in a new afterword:

“Scotland is the protagonist of these pages — its people and culture and history seep into every word of this odyssey.  A story that could easily have read as an indulgent boondoggle instead brims with a pedagogic generosity.

“We might have come to learn about a golf course, but we leave educated about a people, a country and ourselves.”

So, armed with a flag from Royal Dornoch given to me by a good friend in Salem, along with a book – “Personal Memories of Royal Dornoch, 1900-1925 by Donald Grant — I am setting out to read “A Season in Dornoch” again.

It will be about the 25^th time through the book for me, which is appropriate for the 25^th anniversary.  More good reads are in store.