Goodbye to NYT Sports
Its golf writing mattered—and often stood out
For someone who grew up reading a mid-sized North Carolina daily newspaper, The New York Times seemed like the biggest of leagues beyond the most unreachable of fences.
As a teenager, by that point enamored with the idea of being a journalist, it was a splurge to occasionally spend a couple of dollars on the Sunday Times at the convenience store, an edition that weighed more than the pot roast my mother was making for supper.
The New York Times published its last print sports section Monday, with plenty of people in the business lamenting the loss. The end of a very long era made me consider the capable, sometimes brilliant, golf coverage in the NYT over the decades by its staff reporters and columnists.
A sampling:
By William D. Richardson, Sept. 28, 1930
ARDMORE, Pa., Sept. 27.—When Gene Homans’s ball grazed the side of the cup on the twenty-ninth hole at the Merion Cricket Club today, Bobby Jones not only became the national amateur champion for 1930 but the holder of a record that probably will survive through the ages.
At 28, this rarely-gifted golfer from Atlanta, who defeated Homans 8 up and 7 to play in today’s final and who has come closer to mastering the intricacies of the game than anyone else, has performed a feat that no one hitherto had considered possible.
By Lincoln A. Werden, June 20, 1955
SAN FRANCISCO, June 19—A man who was practically unknown in the world of sports a few days ago became the United States open golf champion today.
In an eighteen-hole play-off for the game’s most important title, Jack Fleck of Davenport, Iowa, gave an astonishing performance to defeat Ben Hogan by three strokes at the Olympic Country Club course. The score: Fleck 69, Hogan 72.
Before a crowd of more than 10,000 that at times became so unruly that play had to be halted briefly, the slim, dark-haired 32-year-old “unknown” beat the most formidable golfer of his generation with a 1-under par round. The spectators were startled. So was Hogan.
By Dave Anderson, Nov. 28, 1983
Throughout the repartee on the 18th tee, Tom Watson never spoke. But about an hour later, after the press-tent interview, after the check-presentation ceremony, after the autographs, after virtually all of yesterday's 1,000 spectators had departed, Tom Watson confronted Gary Player on a dirt road not far from the 18th green, then they walked several feet off the road with Jack Nicklaus and Joe Dey. Until then, The Skins Game had added a new excitement to golf - the tension of somebody putting for as much as $150,000 and $100,000.
To most American golf followers, the wrong man, Gary Player, had won the most money. Arnold Palmer had been the people's choice, but they would have enjoyed Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson winning too.
And now the question will always be asked about what Gary Player did or did not do with that leaf off the 16th green.
By Jaime Diaz, Nov. 29, 1992
On a links course in the British Isles—and only a few true links exist anywhere else in the world—the golfer feels like a time traveler. By standing on the first tee, he has stepped back through centuries to what is literally common ground and common experience. On the gnarled, tumbling 14th hole at North Berwick, called Perfection, the game seems so old that imagining your playing partner to be a shepherd hitting a rock with a crook is effortless.
Physically, a links is an invigorating environment, made to walk. Because less has been done to them than any courses on earth, the rumpled links have a natural, unadorned beauty. The colors are rich but muted, an almost khaki green turf blending into a gunmetal grey sky. The sounds are the dull roar of the wind, broken by the crunch of spikes on hard packed turf. The smells are a clean mix of ocean air and cool, energizing menthol from the heather, gorse and sandy soil.
By Larry Dorman, June 19, 1995
SOUTHAMPTON, L.I., June 18—It was by far the biggest shot of the little man's life, 209 yards of carry over hill and heather and heartbreak to win the United States Open. Corey Pavin had come a very long way for this. For too many years now, he had endured the left-handed compliment— best player never to have won a major championship. Now, if he could hit the green, he could lose the label forever and take his place among the giants of the game.
With a Great White Shark in his wake and a distant 18th green in his sights, Pavin drew back his 4-wood today at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and hit one of the greatest pressure shots in the 100-year history of this championship. It landed just short of the slippery, sloping green and ran up toward the hole.
In the fairway, Pavin broke into a run. He sprinted a few yards ahead, and he heard the roars cascading down from around the green. "Corey! Corey! Corey!" came the chant. When he saw his ball stop, five feet away from the hole, he raised his arms in triumph.
By Damon Hack, June 18, 2007
OAKMONT, Pa., June 17 — He took deep drags from a stubby cigarette and footlong divots from Oakmont Country Club until, at last, Ángel Cabrera walked off the 18th green with the hopes of a nation and the burden of a lead in a major championship.
A former caddie from Cordoba, Argentina, who needed financial assistance to learn the game, Cabrera scaled a walkway above Oakmont and looked out over the expanse of the golf course. Somewhere, in the distance and out of his control, Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk were lurking.
Cabrera took a seat in the scorer’s area of the clubhouse, watching the end of the United States Open on television like so many others, and speaking in staccato Spanish with his caddie.
When Furyk missed a 45-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole and, minutes later, Woods followed with a 30-footer that was off line, Cabrera rose from his chair and into a new echelon in golf. He was the winner of the 107th United States Open.
By Karen Crouse, June 21, 2014
PINEHURST, N.C. — People flocked to Lucy Li like children to the neighborhood ice cream truck during the first two rounds of the United States Women’s Open. Michelle Wie, the 36-hole leader, was fine with that.
The attention paid to Li, an 11-year-old prodigy, played perfectly into Wie’s strategy to concentrate on the task at hand. It can be hard for Wie, a onetime wunderkind, to focus on the present, when her past precedes her into any interview.
A fixture on the United States Golf Association scene since qualifying for the Women’s Amateur at age 10, the 24-year-old Wie tends to be asked more about what she has done, or has failed to do, than where her game is headed.
Hailed as the L.P.G.A.’s answer to Tiger Woods since playing in the final group on the final day of a major as a giggly, gangly 13-year-old, a wiser, more worldly Wie is 18 holes from the major title that has eluded her in 37 starts.
By Bill Pennington, April 4, 2023
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods has many kinds of smiles.
Some are genuinely welcoming. Some are a cultivated response, a performance learned from decades in the spotlight. Some, when he is about to say something barbed, are meant to be caustic. And some are a form of defiance, a reflex when he feels he is being challenged.
At a news conference on the eve of last year’s Masters Tournament, reporters were treated to the last of those looks — a grinning but pugnacious Woods. When asked if he could win that week, roughly a year after a horrific car crash nearly cost him his right leg, Woods answered curtly: “I wouldn’t show up to an event unless I think I can win it.”
The smile turned to a smirk.
It is now a year later. Two days before his 25th Masters, Woods, 47, has learned a new kind of smile, that of the dignified aging champion who is all too aware of his limited physical capabilities and an ever narrowing window to win a 16th major championship. He still yearns for that victory and has lost no fight for the cause, but several times on Tuesday Woods sounded as if he was trying to gracefully acquiesce to a fate he may have never before contemplated.
It was a kick to be a very occasional contributor to the NYT’s golf coverage over the last quarter century, to have perhaps two dozen bylines in an archive holding so much history. I had the pleasure of working alongside Pennington, a pro’s pro, for a week at the 2014 PGA Championship in Kentucky. It was my 100th men’s major. The weather-delayed final round caused an unusual conclusion, as I wrote in the Aug. 10, 2014 edition:
Thanks, John and Peter!
Wonderful perspective Bill. Thank you.