Dan Jenkins, one of the finest American sportswriters in history, and arguably the finest ever to write about golf, died Thursday, March 7, 2019. He was 90 years old.
In the days following his death, better-known and more-accomplished writers than myself have written, and will be writing, about Jenkins and what his work and career meant to them. Among them there may be other besides me who can make this statement:
Dan Jenkins is the reason I became a golf writer.
I might have run across one or two of Danֹ’s golf columns in Playboy in the mid ’80s, thumbing through the pages of the magazine on the way to perusing the photos of the “shapely adorables” (as Dan would have called them), but I first fell in love with his work in 1987, when I read his golf novel Dead Solid Perfect. The father of the young lady I was dating at the time recommended the book to me, footnoting his recommendation with this piece of advice: “Don’t read it anyplace where laughing out loud will bother other people.” I picked up a copy, read it straight through over a weekend, and was hooked.
Though I was born and raised in Salinas, California, I flatter myself that I have a connection, at two removes, to the part of the world that shaped Dan—a native of Fort Worth, Texas—in early life. My paternal grandfather was born in nearby Krum, Texas, growing up there before moving to Oklahoma, where both of my parents were born. And while some of my attitudes and beliefs would probably have struck Dan as a little liberal and “PC”, as a “CIO” (California-Improved Okie), in many ways I can relate to the point of view of a native Texan like Dan.
Prior to reading Dead Solid Perfect my sole exposure to golf had been one round with some 8th-grade friends on the local nine-hole muni in Salinas, and a few P.E. classes in high school—from which I took away a decent understanding of the Vardon Grip and little else. Even after falling under the thrall of Jenkins’ words, reading and re-reading his fiction and non-fiction books, it was years before I picked up golf clubs again. I was knee-deep in an engineering career; had embarked upon what is, to date, a 29-years-and-counting marriage (to a different young lady…); bought a house; started a family—all the usual things.
Most important of all was the fact that I didn’t know anybody who played golf, so I hesitated to take it up with serious intent (and am still shy about inflicting my game on strangers.) So, my investment in the game stalled out at reading about it, and watching the occasional tournament on TV. For years then, while I probably had more golf trivia at my fingertips (from reading Jenkins’ work) than most people who actually played the game, I had no one to talk to about golf, to share my interest with. As an outlet for that interest, which all started with Dead Solid Perfect, I started this blog.
I have only been playing golf with any level of intent for about a year and a half, so I am relatively new to the game, but I have been reading about and following golf for nearly 25 years, having gotten that bug when the father of a friend of mine recommended that I read Dan Jenkins’ book Dead Solid Perfect. I quickly set about getting hold of as many of Mr. Jenkins’ books as I could track down (golf-related and otherwise), and have read everything new that he has come out with since then. Mr Jenkins’ writing, and viewpoint, set the tone for my own viewpoint on the game of golf, so expect to hear a lot about Dan and his golf writing, and Ben Hogan—the mid-20th century golf legend who Mr Jenkins was privileged to know, and whose career he covered from 1951 until Ben’s retirement from competitive golf in 1967.
Jenkins and Hogan have been with me ever since. After an initial two columns about the 2011 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (“Crosby Weather”, and “Cinderella Story”), I took it upon myself to pen a story about Ben Hogan and his record at Riviera Country Club (the event there followed the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at the time): “Hogan’s Alley — Riviera Country Club and Bantam Ben”. I continued to read, and review, every book by Dan Jenkins, or about Ben Hogan, that I could find.
In 2012 I responded to an ad on the Monster.com jobs web-page for an events website called Examiner.com, applying for a part-time, freelance position as a writer covering golf for the San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey Peninsula. I was accepted, and with the legitimacy conferred upon me by being affiliated with a recognized media outlet, in June of that year I found myself in possession of a media credential for the 112th United States Open golf tournament at the Olympic Club, in San Francisco.
I was 55 years old, with 30 years’ of experience as a mechanical engineer, but in the world of golf writing I was a wet-behind-the-ears newbie. I was a little star-struck as I walked into the huge media-center tent and looked around, spotting a double-handful of golf writers whose work I had been reading for years—and more so when I spotted Dan Jenkins himself, three rows up and half a dozen seats to the left of my work station in the cheap seats in the back row.
It never occurred to me to walk up and introduce myself to him—I was afraid of tripping over my tongue and looking like a fool in front of the man whose work I revered above all others in the field.
I did have a face-to-face encounter with Dan during the Open—accidentally. Walking up the steps to the fancy portable restrooms that had been installed next to the media center tent, Dan stepped out of the door just as I reached the landing. A quick recollection of the story of Ben Crenshaw’s first time meeting Jack Nicklaus—in the bathroom of the men’s locker room at Merion—flashed through my mind, so I just stepped back out of his way with a muttered “Excuse me”, clearing the way so he could walk down the steps.
****************************************************************
As melancholy as the news of Dan’s death made me, there was a glimmer of brightness in the column written by his daughter Sally Jenkins—a supremely talented sportswriter in her own right—about her father, in which she stated, “A new manuscript of a novel my father just finished is still open on his desk[…]. The novel, titled The Reunion At Herb’s Café, tells readers where his major fictional characters ended up.”
Dan’s words have made me think and have made me laugh as over the years I read and re-read my collection of his books, and delved into the Sports Illustrated “Vault” online archive—a wonderful resource—to read past articles of his that reside there.
His body of work—a treasure trove of sharply etched observations and finely tuned sentences, all delivered in take-no-prisoners style by a man who saw the humor, and the humanity, in sports and in life—has inspired me for years, and I expect it to continue to do so for many years to come.
