Dave Kindred, a 1963 Illinois Wesleyan graduate who for more than 40 years has captivated readers by bringing them closer to many of the greatest performers and personalities in sports, has been named the recipient of the 2010 Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism.
Kindred, who now lives in Locust Grove, Va., is the 21st individual to be selected joining such notables as Bob Verdi, Jim McKay, Dan Jenkins and Jack Whitaker. He will be honored April 7, at the 38th Golf Writers Association of America annual spring dinner and awards ceremony at the Savannah Rapids Pavilion in Augusta, Ga.
In announcing the award, PGA of America President Jim Remy said, "Dave Kindred's career in sports journalism has been a journey of chronicling the highs and lows of many of golf's greatest performers, and through his talent to tell a story within a story, he has truly inspired us.
"Of the many sports that Dave has covered worldwide, we are grateful for his love for the game of golf. His passion for the game has served readers for generations to better appreciate the game. For his lifetime service, The PGA of America is proud to present him with this award."
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The author of 10 books, Kindred has covered every sports event in America, most of them dozens of times. By his count, he has covered 75 major golf championships, the first the 1966 PGA Championship. He began his journalism career as a sportswriter for the Bloomington (Ill.) Daily Pantagraph. Kindred has covered 39 Super Bowls, 43 Kentucky Derbys; 44 World Series, three NBA Finals, 17 Muhammad Ali championship bouts; eight Olympic Games (Winter and Summer) and eight Wimbledon Championships.
"This is a thrill for me," said Kindred. "I am honored to be on that list of recipients, all of whom I've admired for so long."
When describing how sportswriting has evolved over generations, Kindred said the delivery systems may change -- from newsprint to the Internet -- but one thing will always be the same: "We are storytellers."
"We've come," he said, "from scratching stories on cave walls to today's online blogs. But our purpose is the same. What we all do, what I've tried to do, is inform and entertain -- and I hope that in golf I've helped readers better understand both the game and its people."
Born in Atlanta, Ill., a central Illinois town of some 1,600, Kindred got his first career boost at age 15 when his mother bought him a typewriter.
"I remember the moment well," said Kindred. "And I wanted to type something I'd remember forever. So I typed 'Stanley Frank Musial.' "
From that moment, Kindred never stopped polishing his talent for sportswriting on the keyboard while chronicling sport's premier events and its personalities. He earned a journalism scholarship that paid half his tuition to attend Illinois Wesleyan. While he attended school and two years after (1959-65), he worked full-time on the sports and city desks at the Daily Pantagraph.
From 1965 to '77, he was a staff writer and columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal before joining The Washington Post (1977-84) and later had terms with The Atlanta Journal Constitution (1984-89) and the former National Sports Daily (1989-91).
Kindred further enhanced his readership from 1991 through 2007 as a columnist for The Sporting News. Since 1997, he has been a contributing writer for Golf Digest. He also is a regular contributor online for the National Sports Journalism Center at www.sportsjournalism.org.
Of his love of golf, Kindred recalls how he was introduced to the game during the summers he spent with his grandmother in Lincoln, Ill., where he first caddied at age 12 at the nearby Elks Country Club.
"I was so eager to caddie and be among the first picked that I once slept overnight in a sand trap," said Kindred. "I only did it once, because my grandmother discovered that I had not come home the night before."
Kindred was a shortstop and pitcher for Atlanta High's baseball team and a point guard on the 1959 basketball team which won its first 29 games his senior season before losing two games short of the Illinois Sweet Sixteen.
Kindred's past honors included the Associated Press Sports Editors' 1991 Red Smith Award for lifetime excellence in sports journalism. The 1997 National Sportswriter of the Year as chosen by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, he is a member of that group's Hall of Fame. He also has been enshrined in the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame and in 2000 received the Curt Gowdy Award, given by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to basketball. He is a multiple winner across a span of 30 years in the Golf Writers Association of America writing contests.
In 1994, Kindred further demonstrated his love for golf by collaborating with Tom Callahan to write "Around the World in 18 Holes," a travelogue detailing the pair's 37,000-mile journey playing golf from the Arctic Circle to Kathmandu.
Kindred said there is a difference in tone and voice in how he writes about golf as opposed to other sports.
"I discovered that I write about football as if it's war," he said. "But I write about golf as if it's poetry. I like poetry better than war, so I prefer writing golf."
His next book, "Morning Miracle," a look inside The Washington Post, is due out in July.
Kindred and his wife, Cheryl, are the parents of a son, Jeff, of Locust Grove, and four grandchildren.
The PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, first presented in 1989, honors members of the media for their steadfast promotion of golf.
The award selection committee is composed of representatives from The PGA of America, PGA Tour, USGA, LPGA Tour, Champions Tour, European Tour, Augusta National Golf Club, Golf Superintendents Association of America, National Golf Course Owners Association, American Society of Golf Course Architects, the National Golf Foundation and past recipients.
