Minnesota Golfer - Fall 2013 - 42

(backspin
)
Time for Backspin 2.0
A half-century of golf writing comes to a close
as the old scribe moves on to his next assignment.
By Jon Roe
I
n the newspaper parlance at the time, the assignment was to
write something called " overheads. " Short and straight-forward
items of two or three paragraphs-50, 100, maybe 200
words-about a local golfer's results to be sent by the Associated
Press to that golfer's hometown newspaper. The item was inserted
between the headline and the main story-an " overhead. "
In the summer of 1964, the U.S. Amateur Public Links was
played at Francis A. Gross Golf Club in northeast Minneapolis,
and a 25-year-old budding reporter in the middle of his 10-year
attempt to gain a college degree was assigned to write " overheads "
about 20 golfers taking part in the national championship.
The reporter had received a few previous assignments for the
wire service-mostly calling in line scores and basketball box
scores-but this was a first real attempt at writing something
that somebody might actually think about reading.
The 20 or so golfers came from Omaha, Hawaii, Ohio and all
points in between, and
each had to be found
each day and asked to
comment about his
round.
Then came
we have-or a day will come when we have-hit a 5-iron and
known the exhilarating thrill of a shot well hit.
Six years after the Publinks, and three years into employment
at the Minneapolis Tribune, the assignment was to assist Dwayne
Netland, a golf writer known nationally as well as in Minnesota,
at the U.S. Open at Hazeltine National. An even greater sense
of challenge and potential satisfaction was learned in observing
national and international writers cover Nicklaus, Palmer and
Jacklin.
Seven years later, the assignment was to be the " golf writer "
for the Tribune, and eventually, the Star Tribune. There were 23
consecutive trips to the Masters, and 21 to the U.S. Open as well
as the LPGA and U.S. Women's Opens and, even one venture to
the British Open, the year after Tom Lehman won his Claret Jug.
But just as rewarding was watching George Shortridge manuthe
writing of each report
to be sent to the
hometown paper. After
two days of qualifying, most of the golfers were
headed home, but among the remaining players
was a postal carrier from Omaha, who eventually
reached the finals before losing.
It was an enlightening introduction to sports
writing. Golf, it was discovered, was a challenging
and rewarding sport to put into words.
Michael Jordan couldn't explain why he
switched hands to shoot that layup we've
all seen a million times. Adrian Peterson
swerves right or cuts left and doesn't
really know why. They just did it. But
a golfer-almost any golfer-can
tell you what he or she was thinking
about and attempting to do before
and after almost any shot. In addition,
very, very few of us will ever
know what it's like to pull off a Jordan
layup or a Peterson move. But
40
MINNESOTAGOLFER Fall 2013
" Golf, it was discovered,
was a challenging and rewarding
sport to put into words. "
facture a 7-iron shot out of a bunker, Don Berry dominate the
state pro golf scene,
and Bev Vanstrum
and Joan Garvin and
Leigh Klasse win
women's state titles by
the bunches. Or seeing
Tim Herron plop
a shot out the woods
on the 18th at Interlachen so John Harris could
knock in a putt to rescue a victory by the Minnesota
guys in the 1993 Walker Cup matches against
Great Britain-Ireland.
It all adds up to 50 years of writing about the game.
A dozen or so years before it all began, a father
took his son to Greater Minneapolis-a store at
the corner of First Avenue North and 5th
Street that sold just about everything-
and bought two woods (with real
wood heads) at $7.50 each and 3-57-9
irons at $4.44 each. A few days
later the son played his first round
at Theodore Wirth.
A lot has changed since then,
yet much about golf remains the
same. Now it's time for someone
else to put together the words to
tell you about this great game.
www.mngolf.org
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Fall 2013

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