Magazines: golfdigest.com

Jenkins, who turned 82 on Dec. 2, earned his ninth first-place award from the Golf Writers Association of America in 2011.

Honoring A Prose Pro

Legendary journalist Dan Jenkins, 82, becomes the first living golf writer selected for induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame

By Bill Fields

December 14, 2011

Hogan to Woods, persimmon to titanium, Western Union to Twitter. However Dan Jenkins wants to frame his writing career, it has been a long arc. Still in the game at 82, Jenkins has spent six decades making distinctive observations about golf -- tart critiques that can make his readers smile and his subjects wince -- from the Fort Worth Press to Sports Illustrated to Golf Digest. "That's a pretty long trek," he said, "and I've seen an awful lot of great stuff."

What the marquee players have been to the competition, Jenkins has been to the coverage, writing more than his share of great stuff in a trailblazing humor-first style that changed sportswriting. In what many believe is an overdue honor given his contribution to his craft and the sport, the World Golf Hall of Fame announced Dec. 14 that Jenkins has been selected for induction in the Lifetime Achievement category.

The first living golf writer to be chosen for the Hall of Fame, Jenkins -- the author of 20 books and winner of nine first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America -- will be the shrine's sixth media member. With Golf Digest since 1985, he will join Frank Chirkinian, Bernard Darwin, Herb Graffis, Bob Harlow and Herbert Warren Wind when he is inducted next May with Phil Mickelson, Hollis Stacy and two honorees to be announced later this month. A member of the Texas sports and golf halls of fame, Jenkins was the recipient of the 2005 William D. Richardson Award, 1995 PGA Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award and 1994 Memorial Tournament Journalism Award.

"I'm flattered and honored and all that stuff you might imagine," said Jenkins, for whom the 2011 PGA Championship was the 210th major he has attended. "There aren't many writers in there. It's a small group, and I'm pleased to be a part of it. I'd follow Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson anywhere. Being a native Fort Worther, that's really something I'm proud of -- that Hogan, Nelson and me are the only three guys in there so far."

It was in his native Texas that Jenkins acquired his love of golf and words. He was skilled enough to play for TCU and not embarrass himself if Hogan invited him for a friendly round at Colonial. His experiences on the course have informed his attitude at the keyboard. "What playing had to do with how I wrote is that we never took it seriously," Jenkins said. "It was never a religion with us. It was competitive, but there was an awful lot of humor involved. I couldn't write about golf any other way. I just did what came natural to me."

Jenkins' approach can sting when the poking goes too deep, but he has seldom veered from it. "I've been accused of drawing blood on occasion, and I'm sure I have, but, on the other hand, maybe they deserved it," he told Golf Digest in 2001. "All I've ever done is try to get at the truth of the matter."

He plans to be at Augusta National in April for major No. 211. "I think I'll keep doing it until I topple over," Jenkins said. "That's how I want to go, just be at a major and topple over."

Editor's Note: Below we offer Jenkins at his best, with excerpts from just a few of the 209 majors he's covered in his years at the Fort Worth Press, Dallas Times Herald, Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest:

1951 U.S. Open | Oakland Hills

Ben Hogan shot the greatest round of his life -- maybe of anyone's life -- a stunning three-under 67 in the final round of the U.S. Open to win it yet again, this time on the torturous layout of Oakland Hills, but mostly what he wanted to talk about afterward was why people watch golf in the first place. Goodness, don't they have something better to do?

1955 Masters

It's entirely possible that Dr. Cary Middlecoff gave up dentistry because people couldn't hold their mouths open that long.

1955 U.S. Open | Olympic

When a sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Press named Bob Drum called his wife from the U.S. Open pressroom, the con-versation went like this:
"I gotta stay over another day," Bob said.
"Why?" asked Marian Jane Drum.
"To cover the playoff."
"There's no playoff. Ben Hogan won the Open. They said so on TV. What a liar you are! You just want to stay in San Francisco and get drunk another day."
"I can get drunk in Pittsburgh."
"So come home."
"I'm telling you, I've gotta cover the playoff tomorrow between Hogan and Jack Fleck."
"Who?"
"Jack Fleck. He tied Hogan after TV went off."
"Jack Fleck? That's the dumbest name you've ever made up."

1959 U.S. Open | Winged Foot

All the people who watched Billy Casper win the U.S. Open will no doubt start eating between meals and throw away 13 of the clubs in their bag. They'll keep the putter.

It's doubtful any golfer ever played more poorly from tee to green and still managed to win a major championship.

1960 Masters

It's beginning to look like Ken Venturi can't win the Masters and Arnold Palmer can't lose it.

1960 U.S. Open | Cherry Hills

So it had come down to this, to the moment when one immortal would give the U.S. Open to another, from Ben Hogan to Arnold Palmer, with best wishes -- grudgingly.

It came down to the 71st hole of a gasping three days, down to a sad portrait of Ben Hogan with a pants leg rolled up, standing in a dark pond, holding a wedge in his hands, an instrument that had betrayed him.

1961 Masters

Gary Player of South Africa is the Masters champion because Arnold Palmer was in too big a hurry to win it again.

There's no other way to say it. The 18th hole at Augusta National might as well have been a slab of meat, the way Palmer butchered it.

1964 U.S. Open | Congressional

What an improbable thing it was that Ken Venturi won the U.S. Open, and with the second-lowest score in the history of the championship. But on a course not far from the nation's capital, they opened the coffin, and out he crawled.

1966 U.S. Open | Olympic

Nobody knows how to cook buffalo, bear and elk meat, so they probably think Billy Casper eats it raw. What they do know is that he had Arnold Palmer for dessert.

1968 U.S. Open | Oak Hill

Super Mex is what he called himself. And there he was in the middle of all that U.S. Open dignity with his spread-out caddie-hustler stance and his short, choppy public-course swing, a stumpy little guy, wearing those red socks. And here were all of these yells coming from the trees and knolls, coming from all of the Lee Trevinos of the world. "Whip the gringo," hollered Lee's Fleas, some of them $30-a-week guys like Trevino was a little more than a year ago.