Undoubtedly the oldest member of the Jordan Spieth fan club has died. Alice Titus-Buckley, 101, of East Moline, passed away on Monday, April 18, and her funeral was held on April 23.

Alice was born in Muscatine, Iowa, on March 13, 1921, and she was not only an intense follower of Spieth’s but also a family member. She described herself as a third cousin.

Alice had a remarkable life, outliving five husbands and among her jobs was working for the John Deere Company, the implement giant in Moline. She was quite talented in the arts; she played organ in church, excelled at many needle-and thread skills, such as quilting, knitting, crocheting and tatting, and painted. Her family legacy at the time she died included four daughters, a son, 20 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren and four great great grandchildren. She herself was part of 16 siblings, evenly split with eight brothers and sisters.

I had met Alice in 2017 when I traveled to the Quad Cities to visit my wife, Mary’s, parents. In July 2018 I wrote a short article on her for the News and Views section on my website. It is reprinted here:

Help from the Heartland: Alice Buckley having faith in Jordan Spieth

Like most astute golf observers, Alice Buckley is also concerned about defending Open champion Jordan Spieth’s dormant performance on the golf course. The 97-year-old third cousin to Spieth, Mrs. Buckley has never met her famous relative, but hopes to or at least speak by phone. She makes it clear she doesn’t want to interfere with his life.

I met Alice during a visit last year—after Spieth’s Open victory—with my in-laws Bill and Mary Ellen Hynd in East Moline, Ill. The Hynds are in the same retirement facility, Park Vista, with Mrs. Buckley. Alice’s mother, Maude, was a sister in Muscatine, Iowa, to Spieth’s great-grandmother, Hazel, who would marry a Spieth. Jordan’s grandfather, Don, who lives in Bethlehem, Pa., is from Muscatine and played golf as a youth, including for Muscatine High School.

In a visit with my wife, Mary, and me last week during the John Deere Classic, Mrs. Buckley spoke with concern about the state of Spieth’s game, and her motherly instinct kicked in when she said she thought he looked thinner. She’s hoping a return to the championship he won will give him a spark.

Seeing Alice is always a delight. To observe someone her age so engaged in life is remarkable. Born Alice Brei on March 13, 1921, in Muscatine, which is 40 miles west of the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River, she was the oldest of 16 children. Her life today consists of a focus on reading (she’s engulfed in the Winston Graham “Poldark” books now) and creating incredible needlepoint works of art. She makes greeting cards using needlepoint and thread in calligraphy style. The designs on the cover are exquisite, and Mary Ellen would often send them to us as encouragement after a job loss. Alice plays the organ and will regale residents on Fridays during happy hour with her skill at the keyboard. She first realized she was related to Jordan Spieth when he made his debut in the John Deere in 2013.

She said she'll be watching the Open from her room, likely encouraging Spieth while working on her crafts. She has a wonderfully resilient, confident outlook on life. When I asked her what her favorite season of the year was, she said, “Whatever season of the year it happens to be.”

This tribute to Golf Digest editorial legend Nick Seitz, who passed away last week in Maine at age 83, actually precedes my first meeting with him by 10 to 12 years and begins with the course of my youth, Highland Park Golf Course in Bloomington, Illinois.

When I started playing golf in middle school, having had my interest raised by seeing my older brother, Jeff, hitting balls around our yard, Highland became my first home. Not old enough to drive a car, I would put my clubs over my shoulders and ride my sting-ray bike the two miles to the course, the last mile riding one of the busiest roads in town, which then was old Route 66. How I avoided getting wiped out by a car during these many treks remains one of my greatest daring feats.

In the HPGC shop, on the check-in counter, I saw my destiny. Of the many brilliant marketing ideas the Golf Digest founders instituted, they embedded the Golf Digest brand in as many golf shops as they could. That included having a magazine rack at the counter with the latest edition for purchase. I fell in love with GD and dreamt, with sports-writing aspirations percolating, that it would be my dream job to work at the magazine. Among the editors I would read each month with a new issue was Nick Seitz, who by then was named chief editor.

Nick Seitz’ preface to the Watson book, Getting Back to Basics. He called Tom the best caddie he ever had for his strategy tips during rounds.

Fast forward to spring 1984 and I’m nearing the end of my third year as a sports writer with the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph, the same breeding ground for sports writers Ron Coffman and Dave Kindred. I had applied for a job with Golf Shop Operations, the now defunct trade magazine for Golf Digest, and was coming out for an interview with its chief editor, another Nick, Nick Romano. No suspense buildup, I got the job, but Nick Romano would kid me he pulled me out of the cornfields of Illinois to come East to Connecticut and that’s not far from the truth. I was almost 25 and had never been on a plane before, but my wife of eight months, Mary, and I drove up to O’Hare and flew out for a whirlwind one-day flight to and from Connecticut for an interview. When we arrived at night in a snowstorm, we nearly wiped out driving the 2 and a half hours to Bloomington, but that’s another story.

Nick Seitz was part of the interview agenda, and as I write that I still remember what it was like to come into his office and sit down for a chat. I hate that I can’t recall one thing we talked about or how I might have impressed him. I had been dazzled by my American Airlines flight, trying to glimpse the New York City landmarks upon landing, not realizing my Connecticut Limousine ride really wasn’t in a limo, then finally dumbfounded how rudimentary the GD offices were in a one-story, strip-mall type building on the Post Road in Norwalk across from a Lum’s restaurant, the editors’ lunch watering hole. But there I was, with Nick Seitz, at the fabled GD headquarters, and all the rest of the magazine’s legends in the same confines. When I was later moved over to the GD staff as Assistant Managing Editor in late 1985, my relationship with Nick went into full bloom in my dream job. As I did with all the columnists, I handled his monthly column all the way to completion. Nick, however, was my trickiest to handle because he never understood what the word “final” meant. Here was the normal process: the columnist sent in his copy, it went through an initial reading and editing, went out in galleys to all the editors, their remarks and factchecking were compiled in one master revision, the copy was put into the layout with the artwork, the proof went out to a select group for last reading, and then the page went out the door with the rest of the editorial pages.

However, telling Nick he was looking at a “final” read did no good. He kept wanting to read a new version of the “final” right up until the end of the production cycle. I think he really would have liked to have gone into readers’ homes and mark up his column once more. Nick did not do this to be mean-spirited. I just took it as a sign of how precise he liked to be as a writer and he was in a position to go that route. Overall, he had a philosophy that you can never stop tweaking an issue until right up to the last second before a press run. I now claim “guilty” if I from time to time conveniently “forgot” he wanted another look, but thankfully Nick never came a’calling.

I’ll always be grateful that Nick was approachable and never pulled rank on me. He was a good listener, no bullshitter, and some would say he annoyingly looked at the magazine too logically. His constant complaint about graphic changes and redesigns was that he couldn’t read the small type, so how could the readers do any better. After several years of that criticism, his “I can’t read the small type” became his mantra.

Having grown up as a paper carrier and starting my career as a newspaper sportswriter, I loved that Nick’s office looked like he was having a perennial paper drive. He subscribed to numerous major papers and they would be stacked up around his office, just waiting to be dumped when it was obvious he did not have the time to scan them. When he found out I was a maniac recycler, I was the go-to guy to haul away his old papers.

I think Kansan man Nick likely thought it was a neat thing that I was a fellow Middle American. The magazine started with three boys from Illinois in 1950 so I fit GD’s heritage. And after my youthful allegiance to Arnie had switched in the late 1970s to new golf king Tom Watson, the fact that Nick served as GD’s primary editorial contact and ghostwriter with Watson made him a target of my constant inquiries into all things Watson. I think our little conversations about the first great TW was somewhat welcome because it helped him sort through his own thinking on a Watson event. Nick was more of a hockey man initially, but like so many devoted golfers, he became passionate about improving and always, always tried to pick an expert’s mind about a swing tip that would get him a stroke better. That’s where Watson was invaluable. Nick called him the best caddie he ever had because when he played a round with him he saved many shots through Tom’s club selection and strategy.

Nick was a man of my own heart when it came to living in controlled chaos. I base that not only on how his multitude of paper stacks and such were neatly arrayed around his office, but on the time I briefly shared space with him at a rental house at the Masters. Nick was “floorganized” like I get; he had piles of papers, files and neatly arranged clothing around the room with yellow paper notes on the top describing what they were and what was to be done with them. I use the same system, although I’m vowing to make 2022 the year of the purge.

Nick had a deep voice that was effective in meetings and didn’t require him to raise the volume except in 20-foot boardrooms, and he had a chuckling-type laugh he used often, mainly about the nonsensical people or issues in the game.

Even though I was fortunate enough to know the GD founders Bill, Howard, and Jack, when I reflect on the 17 or so years I actively worked with Nick Seitz, I’ll always appreciate him for the bridge and connection he provided to those guys and to the old days of the Golf Digest I grew up loving.

For more reading on Nick Seitz’ golf-writing legacy, see Jerry Tarde’s remembrance at https://www.golfdigest.com/story/nick-setiz-obituary

This spring’s past Champions Dinner will be less one of the old-timers with the passing of 1968 winner Bob Goalby on January 19 at age 92. Some would take umbrage at using “winner” for Goalby, but the man who put on the green jacket because of a scorekeeping error by Roberto De Vicenzo didn’t ask to be in such a horrible position. He and Roberto should have been tied at the end of regulation, with a playoff to decide the outcome, but when De Vicenzo had signed for a wrong, higher score, Goalby was the winner by default.

Should Goalby have declined the first-place honor and refused to accept? There was nothing nefarious about the decision by officials, it’s what was dictated by the Rules of Golf. You can’t expect competitors to play by the rules but disregard them when one seems overly harsh. Goalby handled the troubling victory as well as anyone could have, at the time and for the decades later when he was asked about it and many interviewers thought he should have walked around for life apologizing for what happened. De Vicenzo himself always handled the cruel twist better than those who held it against Goalby. Like myself, Goalby was an Illinoisan, from good Midwest stock. He was from the Belleville area and that’s where he died. It’s located in southern Illinois a short ride east of St. Louis. His relatives include the Haas boys, Jay, Jerry and Bill among them, plus three sons of his own.

Goalby won 11 times on tour and three times on the senior circuit. He was an instrumental part of the senior tour in its infancy, and post tour life did TV work for NBC. Born six months before Arnold Palmer, he was a loyal soldier of the old guard, appreciative of where the tour had come from and supportive of the veterans, including Arnie. Peter McCleery, like myself now of Golf Digest’s old guard, always chuckled over course rover Goalby’s blatant shilling for his pal Arnie during a Skins Game. Palmer’s new line of Axiom clubs had been released, and after Palmer hit a particularly good shot, Goalby said enthusiastically on air, “Hey, Arnie, I’ve gotta get me a set of those Axioms.” Arnie was doubtless beaming from ear to ear.

Along with feeling kinship with this fellow golfer from Illinois, Bob Goalby, two recent media passings are particularly hard to accept of two people I worked with. Peter Andrews passed away on December 21 at age 90 and Tim Rosaforte January 11, age 66.

When Peter worked on the editorial staff at Golf Digest in Trumbull, Connecticut,I had the office next to him. He was one of the most well-read and well-versed writers I ever worked with. His knowledge on many subjects ran deep, which I appreciated because I, too, like to know a lot about a lot. He had a liking for Christmas-time traditions, like the spiked egg-nog recipe he shared. Like me, he thought the Alastair Sim Scrooge version was the best ever done, and he and his family sat down to watch it every Christmas, also like me, crying at the end.

Peter was limited after he suffered a stroke in the summer of 1994 just as he was about to travel to the Hamptons on Long Island to do research for the 1995 U.S. Open. That he lived so long afterward was testament to his determination and the devotion of his wife, Marge. I will think of him from better times when he would regale everyone with stories, including his time as an editor at Playboy. I will never forget the image of him in our offices; each office was roughly 8 or 10 feet by 8 or 10 feet, with desk credenza units way too big for the space. I still picture him in the office, eating entire containers of hard candy during meetings, or in his office, chewing his pencil as he read galleys. He destroyed his chair backing and arm rests by rubbing them against the wooden desk. It was all because of his office being, as he called it, a “pestilential hell hole.”

I did not spend as much time around Tim. He primarily worked for sister publication Golf World, but would ask for research help from me after I was put in charge of our Resource Center and Library. I always felt Tim had the life I could have seen being my career since I had started as a sports reporter and golf writer and being out in the field that way was what I loved the most. I always thought the Tim Rosaforte viewers got to see on TV was what we got as coworkers. He was a gatherer and seemed always occupied with trying to gather as much information as he could so he could just as quickly disseminate it. The awards that came in toward the end of his career attested to how well he did it, most notably as an honorary member of the PGA of America.

Marilynn Smith, one of the 13 LPGA founders in 1950 and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame has died. She passed away on Tuesday, April 9, just four days away from turning 90 years old. She had been seen in public for the final time on March 24 in Phoenix at the Bank of Hope Founders Cup, greeting players as they finished. Of the 13 founders, only Shirley Spork and Marlene Hagge are still living.

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan told LPGA.com: “Marilynn was my founder, my north star and most importantly my friend. In her life, she broke barriers, shattered stereotypes and made others believe. I’ll miss her weekly handwritten cards, her daily calls to my office and her love for every LPGA teacher, tour player, and staff member. Quite simply, Marilynn left this world better than she found it — and set a standard that will guide us forever.”

Smith’s first LPGA victory was in 1954 at the Fort Wayne Open at Orchard Ridge Country Club on July 25. She won by five shots at three under par and won $700. Her final of 21 LPGA wins was on August 13, 1972, in the Pabst Ladies Classic at Riviera Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, at six under par to win by six. Her biggest victories were the 1963 and 1964 Titleholders Tournament.

Away from the course, she did TV broadcasting in the 1970s and was LPGA president from 1958 to 1960.

Smith was born in Topeka, Kansas, and grew up in Wichita.

World Golf Hall of Fame member Dan Jenkins, one of just three writers in the hall, died on Thursday, March 7, at age 89. He would have reached 90 this December.

Being short of any milestone number was un-Jenkins-like, from the roughly 230 majors he attended to the majority of the WGHOF members he’d known. Born just a few months after Arnold Palmer and Peter Thomson, who also have passed away in recent years, he’s another WGHOF member who has died in the last several months, along with Gene Littler and George H.W. Bush.

Jenkins was a Texas-born writer who spanned golf from rudimentary tour days of vagabond pros trying to scratch out a living while also holding a club pro job to the megabucks players today who really have little understanding of how the old days were. Dan always made the point that golf heritage was foreign to today’s tour players. Their pampered lifestyle today dulls the senses to realizing the rough and tumble way it used to be to earn a living as a tournament player. Today’s players use clubs and balls the players of Jenkins’ early days could have only dreamed about, along with all the money.

Dan Jenkins made the inset of a September 1990 Golf Digest cover with Bush No. 1.

As a former day-to-day staffer with Golf Digest for more than 30 years, I spent many of them working with Dan on his columns and long pieces for the magazine. His association with the magazine began in May 1956 when he wrote—what else—a humor story on golf glossary terms. My estimate is he wrote at least 250 articles. It was my job to get his monthly column ready, finding out what he was writing about and securing a piece of art to illustrate his copy. Once I had the story in layout form, there wasn’t much else to do but make sure it was “put to bed” properly with factchecking and proofreading. He was one writer you didn’t fuss with on his text, but then you didn’t have to. He knew how long to write to fit his words in a column, including art. On longer reads, we would plan how much runover type there was “let it run” to avoid making any cuts. When we did need to get his input on cuts and such, like all the great writers, he provided an efficient snip or tweak and we were done. However, the lack of chances to call him up to talk about a column didn’t give me much opportunity to just have short chit-chats about the golf scene, and that was a shame for me.

I was not as close to him as our main editors who assigned him stories, but I did get with him one time for a round of golf, I believe around the time of the 1994 U.S. Amateur in Ponte Vedra, the first of Tiger Woods’ three in a row. While I enjoyed the round, I stunk so badly on the golf course, it is not a memorable moment in my career. I had a great time discussing the game with Dan during the round and lunch, but my poor play bugged the heck out of me and I felt embarrassed to play so badly. Dan, however, wasn’t hung up about my game and was probably surprised I was so upset about it and was a gracious host.

Like other golf-writing greats I was associated with during my managing editor work at Golf Digest—Charles Price, Peter Dobereiner, especially—I now look back and see I should have overcome my innate shyness and spoken more at length with them about the game and the writing process. For sure I could have picked up much advice from Dan about how his unique style, which no one had seen before or since, was created and developed. His style, in both fiction and reporting, was most often described as irreverent, satirical and stinging…but I found it to be factual and correct. Anyone who got zinged by Dan, as far as I saw it, deserved it. Many figures in golf took themselves way too seriously and inflated their own importance. Dan brought them down to the correct size. Where criticism was leveled at his writing was his general practice of favoring the iconic name or legend over the common golfer who had a brief shining moment as a major champion. Jenkins loved it when the marquee player won, since it would generate greater readership. He did not get as enthused when the lesser-known player won who would not be of any great consequence in the history books and ruined a great storyline. He was sometimes asked by relatives to go gently on their family member. But Dan hoped people could approach his writing from the right perspective to know how to read his meaning.

Writers tried to imitate Dan Jenkins, but there was no one like him and never will be.

The golf world took a deep loss in 2016 with the passing of Arnold Palmer. He had been a pivotal and influential figure since the 1950s and we are just at the start of seeing how his absence will affect golf going forward. In 2017, we didn’t lose anyone with Palmer's immense clout, but international golf star Roberto De Vicenzo, administrators such as Sandy Tatum, Stuart Bloch and Hootie Johnson and smooth-speaking broadcaster Dick Enberg were among the golf-related personalities who passed away in the last year. Below are notable golf deaths, listed chronologically within their golf category.

Players

Jane Mack, 72, Dec. 30, 2016: A four-time Virginia State Golf Association Women’s Amateur champion, she also won the association’s inaugural Women’s Stroke Play Championship in 1978.

Gail Sykes Clayton, 68, Jan. 20: Winner of the 1965 U.S. Girls’ Junior, the Schenectady, N.Y., native also won the 1968 national intercollegiate women’s individual title while playing for Odessa (Texas) College and the 1975 and 1976 Ohio Women’s State Amateur.

Betty Stanhope-Cole, 79, Jan. 27: With traces of Babe Zaharias in her blood, the Canadian excelled at numerous activities. In golf, she won the 1956 Canadian Junior Girls, 1957 Canadian Ladies’, and the 1967 Canadian Ladies’ Close. She won the Alberta Ladies Amateur 16 times, and 40 City of Edmonton Championships. Pro golf was not financially lucrative enough to play, but in 1980 she retired to help mentor young players on the Canadian Ladies’ Golf Association.

Simon Hobday, 76, March 2: A South African golfer whose reputation for being a free spirit seemed greater than his playing ability, Hobday won the 1994 U.S. Senior Open, four other Champions Tour events, plus six titles on the Sunshine Tour, including the 1971 South African Open. He also won twice on the European Tour.

Jackie Pung, 95, March 15: Undoubtedly Hawaii’s First Lady of Golf, Pung won the 1952 U.S. Women’s Amateur and went on to win five LPGA Tour events. She finished second in the 1953 U.S. Women’s Open, but in the 1957 National Open, after seemingly coming out the winner, she was disqualified for a scorecard error that still shocks the system.

Carole Jo Kabler, 78, March 16: The 1955 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion, she won several more premier amateur events before turning to a pro career starting in 1970. She won four times, playing under the married names Skala and Callison.

Sam Holmes, 19, March 17: A freshman golfer at Missouri State who lost his struggle with anxiety and depression. He was widely regarded as a generous person who thought of others first.

Ken Still, 82, March 19: Jack Nicklaus was among those to pay tribute to this three-time PGA Tour winner. Still’s lone Ryder Cup appearance was in Jack’s inaugural playing in 1969. “Not a single person who met Ken Still walked away with anything less than a smile,” Nicklaus wrote in a tweet.

John Paul Cain, 81, March 20: One of the best players to emerge from Texas Tech, he achieved late fame on the PGA Champions Tour. He played at least one senior event each year from 1986 to 1999, playing in 289 tournaments in all and earning $1.84 million in prize money with victories in the 1989 Greater Grand Rapids Open and the Ameritech Senior Open in 1994. The Houston stock broker was also a five-time club champion at Champions Golf Club in Houston.

Bob Brue, 82, April 19: One of Wisconsin’s most accomplished players—and lover of bucket hats—Brue was a club pro, instructor, tour player and even a trick-shot specialist. He played in more than 100 PGA Tour events, and was most visible as a Champions Tour player, where he earned more than $1 million. He held the first-round lead at the 1961 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills but faded to a tie for 22nd.

Pat Browne Jr., 84, April 20: He ranks with legendary Charles Boswell as the most accomplished blind golfers in history. Browne won the Guiding Eyes Classic 25 times, 23 U.S. Blind Golf Association national titles, 70 events worldwide and was given the Mary Bea Porter Award in 2007 for inspiring others to face similar challenges.

Cassandra Kirkland, 32, April 30: A member of the Ladies European Tour who died following a two-year affliction with lung cancer; she was not a smoker and had led a healthy lifestyle. The French player won the 2012 Sanya Ladies Open.

Roberto De Vicenzo blasts a drive in the 1956 Masters Long Drive Contest.

Roberto De Vicenzo, 94, June 1: I always thought of this Argentinian great as an international version of Sam Snead. Both played well late into their dotage, both were proficient winners, and both had magnificent and stylish swings. Roberto won the 1967 Open Championship, the inaugural U.S. Senior Open in 1980, and some 230 other tournaments, but, sadly, of course, is infamously linked to the scorecard error in the 1968 Masters that forced him to finish runner-up.

Charles Owens, 85, Sept. 7: What a marvel the 6-foot-3 Owens was on the course. The African-American golfer turned pro in 1967, played cross-handed, had a limp due to an Army injury, pioneered the 52-inch Slim Jim anchored putter, and became good late. Mastering the putter allowed him his most success on the Senior PGA Tour, with two victories in 1986. Because of that, he was my first assignment to do an instruction story for Golf Digest, with Bob Toski doing the analysis.

Tommy Horton, 76, Dec. 7: A two-time Ryder Cup player, he won eight times on the European Tour and 23 times on its senior tour. He also had an impact in course design, broadcasting and as a golf author.

Club pros

These PGA of America members died, having served 50 or more years: Brian Boggess (Aug. 27), Joe Bonadio (Jan. 14), William (Billy) Brown (March 8), Ed Bucklin (May 23), Skinny Carter (May 26), Jim Chapman (Sept. 16), John Conley (Aug. 31), Harold Dore (Dec. 20, 2016, age 97), Michael (Mike) Dowaliby (Sept. 17), Bill (Cotton) Dunn (Oct. 7), Robert Foppe (Aug. 25), Robert Ford (Aug. 18), Ellsworth Franklin Jr. (Sept. 24), Rudolph Gimbrone (Sept. 21), Bart Haltom (July 19), George Hannon (Oct. 19), Thomas Hanson (Nov. 3), J.B. Harris (Jan. 23), Joseph Kotlarczyk (April 17), Michael Krak (Jan. 28), Tom Kuhn (June 22), George Lauretti (April 22), Michael Mancini (Dec. 24, 2016, age 102), John Mathias (Oct. 26),  Richard McGuire (June 23), Jim Minana (Oct. 4), Sal Monte (June 28), Joe Moresco (March 25), Paul Mosca (Aug. 21), David Mose (Aug. 7), James (Jim) Orsi (July 30), Paul E. Parsons (April 26), Herman Peery Jr. (Jan. 21), Jerry Pepper (Aug. 5), Bob Pritchett (Oct. 20), Gary Rehfeld (Jan. 11), Melvin Rowe (Jan. 3), Kenneth Sample (Oct. 12), Gene Shreves (March 28), George Skomsky (June 4), Charles (Joe) Stoddard (June 27), Jack Tindale (Aug. 17), Lawrence (Larry) Tomasino (Nov. 2), Richard Walker (July 9), Robert (Bob) Watson (July 17), Joseph Wilson (June 18).

Media

Edwin Pope, 88, Jan. 19: A south Florida institution, Pope was a sports columnist for the Miami Herald for more than 50 years; in golf he reported on the major events, including covering 63 Masters Tournaments. He was a classic example of a sports writer’s progression to nationally known columnist during a time when the newspaper business ruled supreme and columnists carried great clout. In 1989, Pope was the youngest winner of the Red Smith Award, given for lifetime achievement in sports journalism.

Ken Bowden, 86, March 4: American born but internationally raised and cultured, he became an influential golf journalist in the 1960s, beginning with Golf World UK in 1962. From 1969-1972 he was editor at Golf Digest, whereupon he became Jack Nicklaus’ collaborator on hundreds of articles and a dozen books and many translations. Jack said, Ken “became me in the printed word.” Bowden co-authored with Dick Aultman one of the finest golf books, “The Methods of Golf’s Masters.”

Don Ohlmeyer, 72, Sept. 10: A longtime sports producer at ABC and NBC during the 1970s and 1980s. He created the Skins Game during the Thanksgiving weekend, starting in 1983, and it was a hit for several years before the glut of Silly Season events it created ironically forced it off the air.

Dick Enberg, 82, Dec. 21: The versatile and beloved TV broadcaster who was honored in multiple sports worlds made his presence felt in golf, notably with NBC in the 1990s. Among his calls was Payne Stewart’s now iconic 1999 U.S. Open victory. With Phil Mickelson on the verge of being a father for the first time while trying to win, Enberg delivered a trademark “Oh, my!” after Stewart holed the winning putt.

Course architects

Gary Chapman, 49, Jan. 26: Golf architect Jerry Matthews hired him as a full-time associate in March 1992 and they did many Michigan designs. He was made a partner in 2006 in the firm of Jerry Matthews Natural Course Design.

Brad Benz, 70, March 16: He learned golf design with Dick Phelps in Denver, becoming his design partner in 1973, mainly working on public courses in the Plains States and Texas. In 1983 he and Mike Poellot formed a design group out of California. In the 1990s Benz expanded his reach into international work.

Vicki Martz, 72, April 13: She spent most of her 35 years in design work with the Palmer Course Design group, where she started in 1985. She had been an American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) member since 2000. Among her main projects were The K Club, County Kildare, Ireland, the TPC of the Twin Cities in Blaine, Minn., and the Classic Club, Palm Desert, Calif.

Robert Moote, 92, May 29: A Fellow of the ASGCA, Moote’s first jobs were supervisory in nature, and in the late ‘50s he began a 20-year job as course superintendent at Oakdale G.&C.C. near Toronto. During that time he practiced course design with his brother David, who was president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America in 1964. Robert and his son, David, would later work together at R.F. Moote and Associates.

Sid Puddicombe, 85, June 1: After an attempt to play professional hockey, he turned to greenkeeping in Saskatchewan, a career he led at a few locations from 1957 to 1988 when he opened Sid Puddicombe Associates in Nisku, Alberta. He was later joined by sons Grant, Mark and Tod.

Dominic Palombo, Jr., 94, July 21: After World War II, he earned a Penn State degree in landscape architecture. He designed parks and ball-fields, but in 1957 he began operation of a golf course and the design bug hit him starting in the 1970s, designing courses mainly in Pennsylvania.

David Gordon, 95, Oct. 20: Son of golf architect William F. Gordon, David was a bomber pilot in World War II who later went to work for his father and became a partner in 1953. Their courses were ranked by Golf Digest among America’s Toughest in the late 1960s and later in its 100 Greatest, including Saucon Valley. David was president of the ASGCA in 1959 and at his death was the longest-tenured member.

Roger Packard, 70, Oct. 14: The son of accomplished course architect Edward L. Packard, Roger joined his father’s design firm and eventually became the primary designer, making a large impact in the Midwest before Roger moved to China in the early 2000s.

Player/Administrator

P. Daniel Yates Jr., 98, May 12: Imagine seeing 78 consecutive Masters, beginning with the first in 1934. Atlanta businessman and amateur standout Yates did, and after becoming an Augusta National member in 1961 served on assorted committees, including as a moderator during tournament press conferences. His brother Charles and son Danny also were club members.

Frank Tatum, 96, June 22: “Sandy” Tatum starred at golf as the 1942 NCAA champion for Stanford before building a lawyer career in San Francisco. With that base, he launched into a hugely pivotal golf administrative career that included a U.S. Golf Association presidency and a strong perspective on U.S. Open course setups. His adept quote that the USGA wasn’t trying to “embarrass the best players in the world, we’re trying to identify them” after players were bludgeoned by tough Winged Foot in 1974 is easily a top 10 golf quote of all time. Even his architectural forays were a success: the Links at Spanish Bay in 1989; with Jim Summers they did three courses in California; with Johnny Miller on Bay Club StoneTree in Novato, Calif. (2000), and consulted with Tom Fazio on the design of The Preserve G.C., Carmel, Calif. (2000) and with Chris Gray on the redesign of TPC Harding Park in San Francisco (2003).

Player/Teacher

John Jacobs, 91, Jan. 13: A pioneer in every sense of the word, the two-time European Ryder Cup captain was instrumental in forming the European Tour but perhaps was better known for his brilliant teaching career and his thoughtful, philosophical and analytical beliefs about the game in all aspects. He played on the 1955 Ryder Cup team and went 2-0. He also teamed with David Pottage on a course design firm that did dozens of English courses.

Teacher

John Anselmo, 96, July 13: The Huntington Beach, Calif.-based instructor worked with Tiger Woods from ages 10 to 17, at which point Butch Harmon stepped in. Anselmo utilized the tie-in to the golf champion by writing a book, “A-Game Golf: The Complete Starter Kit for Golfers from Tiger Woods’ Amateur Instructor.”

Administrator/Personalities

Bob Fischer, 68, Feb. 12: A Southern California Golf Association board member and member of the Los Angeles Country Club, Fischer served as chair of the Rules & Competitions department starting in 2014 and was heavily involved in the Hall of Fame and Junior departments. He was active in the USGA Junior Amateur committee as well.

Bill Meadows, 82, Feb. 28: He established the garden-center giant Meadows Farms Nurseries in 1960 and joined up with Bill Ward to design Meadows Farms Golf Course in Locust Grove, Va.

Mark Laesch, 62, March 4: The founder of Golfstat in 1984, he changed the game for college golf with his focus on live scoring, rankings and detailed analysis of players’ games. College golf had never been viewed so closely. His family business had been a dairy store empire in central Illinois; I grew up on Laesch Dairy Vitamin D milk in Bloomington, Ill.; their chocolate milk was awesome.

Don Samatulski, 66, March 17: A longtime club professional, he was an accomplished player who served as assistant coach at Post University and at Sacred Heart University starting in 2015.

Ross Randall, 71, April 21: He coached the Kansas University men’s golf team for 28 years from 1979 to 2007, guiding seven KU teams to the NCAA Championships and 19 to NCAA Regionals. Randall coached five All-Americans with the Jayhawks, and his 27 all-conference selections include 2007 graduate and PGA Tour player Gary Woodland.

Dr. David Kovach, 73, June 28: A past member of the Virginia State Golf Association Board of Directors and a member of the selection committee for the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame.

Patricia Bridges, 95, Aug. 5: Considered the matriarch of Australian golf, her name adorns the trophy for the Women’s Australian Open. She was the only life member of Golf Australia, the governing body for golf in the country.

Glen Campbell, 81, Aug. 8: The country music superstar hosted and lent his name to the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open from 1971 to 1983 during the heyday of celebrity hosts.

Jerry Lewis, 91, Aug. 20: The entertainer was not above using golf for gags, and his 1953 movie "The Caddy" featured cameos by Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Julius Boros.

Louise Solheim, 99, July 7: The wife of Ping Golf founder Karsten Solheim, she made her own mark with her ability to be a sounding board for anyone seeking advice and for her devotion to the success of the Solheim Cup.

William (Hootie) Johnson, 86, July 14: A banker in South Carolina by trade, he was the fifth of seven chairmen in the history of Augusta National, a position that allowed him to set the direction of the Masters from 1998 to 2006. He oversaw improvements to the course and enhanced television viewing. He notably rebuffed pressure in the early 2000s to admit female members to the club, which eventually happened in 2012. A close friend of Augusta cofounder Clifford Roberts, Johnson was invited to join the club in 1968.

Lowell M. Schulman, 91, Oct. 8: An emeritus member of the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation Board of Directors. The real-estate developer was also a golf collector and member of the USGA Museum Committee.

Christopher S. Thomas, 54, Oct. 24: A native of Fullerton, Calif., he had a love for football and golf, and used the latter in his role as the Executive Director for the Northern California PGA Section for the last 15 years. Previously he had served with the California Interscholastic Federation. He led the Northern California PGA with an outgoing personality and courteous manner. Lowell M. Schulman, 91, Oct. 8: An emeritus member of the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation Board of Directors. The real-estate developer was also a golf collector and member of the USGA Museum Committee.

Stuart F. Bloch, 84, Oct. 29: President of the USGA in 1992 and 1993, he urged better environmental stewardship. He was also active on numerous USGA committees, chaired the Championship Committee and the Implements and Ball Committee, and he was also a member of the International Team Selection Committee.

R.J. Harper, 61, Nov. 8: The head of golf operations at Pebble Beach, he progressed from a course marshal there to head pro during the 1992 U.S. Open to championship director of the 2000 U.S. Open to general chairman for the 2010 and 2019 Opens. He also was the executive vice president of golf and retail at Pebble Beach Company and helped start AT&T Junior Golf on the Monterey Peninsula.

Carol McCue, 94, Dec. 16: A longtime executive with the Chicago District Golf Association and member of the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame. See a remembrance of her in my Golf Writers from the Heart section.

Caddie

Dave Musgrove, 74, Feb. 13: One of the European Tour’s stalwart loopers, he carried for three major winners with Seve Ballesteros (1979 Open Ch.), Sandy Lyle (1985 Open Ch., 1988 Masters), and Lee Janzen (1998 U.S. Open). He came close to another with Tom Watson at the 1991 Masters. In 2001 Musgrove caddied in his 40th consecutive Open Championship, with Janzen.

Greg Sheridan, 63, Nov. 22: The well-liked and respected bagman mainly worked the LPGA Tour for 35 years and carried for Kathy Whitworth, Beth Daniel and Natalie Gulbis, for whom he worked when she won her only tour event in the 2007 Evian Masters.

Fans/Workers

Marshall (Chick) Jacobs, 94, June 16: In a tragedy upon a tragedy, Mr. Jacobs died while attending Round 2 of the U.S. Open in Erin, Wis., in the arms of his son, Bill. Only three days earlier, Marshall Jacobs’ wife of 68 years, Lucille, had died from complications from a broken hip.

Charles (Chuck) Austin, 68, July 7: A 27-year tournament volunteer at the John Deere Classic, he was killed in an accident involving a JD Gator while helping prepare for the classic’s playing the following week.