Herbert Warren Wind

Back when I worked with Pinehurst (the site of the Open next week), the resort hosted a festival surrounding the arts and golf. Each year they honored one who had contributed much to the genre. Linda Hartough, for instance, was the recipient one year.

Anyway, on more than one occasion I recommended my own "golf art" hero, Herbert Warren Wind. It disappoints me that the powers of the festival never agreed with me. I wanted an opportunity to meet him. HWW passed away on May 30 at age 88.

Wind was a writer for the ages, perfectly mirroring the best of the game. His "Story of American Golf" is definitive and comprehensive, but I believe his best work came in his long pieces for The New Yorker. He would meander through a recap of The U.S. Open or The Open Championship as a walker in no hurry meanders through an 18-hole round, including references to historical champions, golf course architecture, and the drama of the event just played.

My favorite sports writers are those who can be called, perhaps, "writers" first, then "sports fans." There was Wind, of course, in golf (and to some degree championship tennis), and there remains, thankfully, Roger Angell for baseball. To a degree they, too, are my heroes in sport.

To read SI's story about Herbert Warren Wind's death, try this.

[And on a later date - July 24, 2005 - I found this Golf Digest piece by Charles McGrath. Great photo too.]

To my knowledge, The New Yorker has not made available online any of HWW's long pieces. I'll let you know if I find something later. Here's
The New Yorker's David Remick obit.