after hitting balls post-round,
Tiger dropped Haney off and
never came in. Perhaps just that
squandered opportunity of a
beer with Jenkins, or at least
the astonishing cluelessness it
represented, was the real first
cough by Ali MacGraw in “Love
Story” (as it preceded Tiger’s
come-from-ahead loss to Y.E. Yang
in the 2009 PGA). At Woods’ peak,
Jenkins wrote, “Only two things
can stop him: injury or a bad
marriage.” Birdie, and birdie.
Presidents of the United
States did want to know Jenkins,
particularly George Herbert
Walker Bush, Dan’s sometime
golf partner. Whenever the
presidential helicopter overflew
a course, Bush telephoned
Jenkins for a rundown. George
and “Bar,” June Jenkins and
Dan, stayed in each others’
homes. Dan called Camp David “my
favorite hotel.” Driving Jenkins
around in a golf cart there one
daybreak, “41” (as Bush signed
his letters to Dan) said, “See
that porch bench in front of
Holly Cabin? You might want to
sit on it for a minute. That’s
where Roosevelt and Churchill
planned the D-Day invasion.”
When Jenkins sent Bush a
friend’s book, the president
wrote the author a note of
thanks that began, “Any friend
of Dan Jenkins... has to
be investigated by the Secret
Service.”
Dan’s final tally of majors
would be 63 U.S. Opens, 45 Open
Championships, 56 PGAs and 68
Masters, which, as he said, “is
a lot of peach cobbler no matter
how you slice it.” In his 80s,
he reinvented himself as The
Ancient Twitterer, which made
sense. Dan was always faster on
the draw than 140 characters.
Thirty years apart, he thought
Greg Norman looked “like the
guy they always send after
James Bond,” and Danny Willett
looked “like a guy who could
have driven the getaway car for
Bonnie and Clyde.”
Giving up essays for tweets
left him more time to talk
writing with the young writers
who queued up at his desk in the
press rooms, saying stumbling
things like “I’ve always wanted
to be like you.” To which he
might reply, “Hungover?” But
then he’d answer seriously
and at whatever length they
preferred:
“My advice doesn’t change
with electricity,” he said. “Be
accurate first, then entertain
if it comes natural. Never sell
out a fact for a gag. Your job
is to inform above all else.
Know what to leave out. Don’t
try to force-feed an anecdote if
it doesn’t fit your piece, no
matter how much it amuses you.
Save it for another time. Have a
conviction about what you cover.
Read all the good writers that
came before you and made the
profession worth being part of--
Lardner, Smith, Runyon, etc.
Don’t just cover a beat, care-
take it. Keep in mind you know
more about the subject than your
readers or editors. You’re close
to it, they aren’t. I think I
can say in all honesty that
I’ve never written a sentenceI didn’t believe, even if it
happened to be funny.”
In 2012, Jenkins became the
first living sportswriter of
three (Bernard Darwin of The
Times of London and Herbert
Warren Wind of The New Yorker
the others) to be stuffed and
mounted at the World Golf Hall
of Fame. “I’d follow [fellow
Fort Worthers] Hogan and Nelson
anywhere,” he said. “I went back
and looked up everybody who’s in
it and did some statistics. It
turns out that I have known 95
of these people when they were
living. I’ve written stories
about 73 of them. I’ve had
cocktails and drinks with 47 of
them. And I played golf with 24
of them.”
During the Oakmont U.S. Open
of 2016, as Arnold Palmer was
failing but too considerate
not to receive a sports writer
in his Latrobe office, Arnold
said, “Before we start, let me
ask you something. How’s Dan?”One by one then, of course,
Jenkins began to lose his friends.
In 2009, at 77, Bud Shrake.
The email from Term Themes:
“Bud drifted downriver at 2:45 this
morning. His son Ben, a great kid,
was with him at the end. He took
part of my life with him. We’d been
close since junior high school.
But I’ll catch up with him one of
these days,—and we’ll be laughing
at something. Bud will be buried
next to [former Texas governor]
Ann Richards in the Austin state
cemetery. Bud and Ann, who were
great old Austin friends, and the
last loves of each others’ lives,
had arranged it a long time ago.”
(Once, Bud sneaked a news-
magazine guy past a press secre-
tary into the statehouse for
dinner with Gov. Richards. “How do
I refer to Bud in my story?” the
man asked her during dessert. She
looked at Shrake, smiled and said,
“Just call him an iconoclast.”)
In 2016, at 96, Blackie Sherrod.“My teacher,” Term Themes
emailed. “Yours, too, Simon,
whether you know it or not. I
think you do know it. [Because
I did all the driving at British
Opens, he renamed me Simon after
an earlier chauffeur.] I had
Blackie. You had Red [Smith]. We
shared them both, though, didn’t
we? And Jim Murray. And Furman
Bisher. Weren’t we lucky?”
Finally, on May 7, at 90, His
Ownself.
He long ago picked out the exit
music: Vera Lynn singing “We’ll
Meet Again.” As for the carving
on his stone, while he supposed
he should go with something Oscar
Wilde-ish like “Ah, now for the
greatest adventure of them all,”
the inscription he floated at the
Hall was more his style: “I knew
this would happen.”
What it was, was great.
Dead solid perfect.
Eddie be funny.
A news dog.
Best In Show.As truthfully toughas JENKINS could be in print,he had a heart.