The 1984 Masters will be remembered for its winner, Ben Crenshaw – “a breakthrough for the heartbreak kid,” as Dan Jenkins’ piece was headlined in Sports Illustrated.
But Masters week 1984 also should be remembered for another breakthrough that might seem small but was huge in scope – much like the sportswriter who made it happen, Irwin Smallwood.
Smallwood – then the sports editor at the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record where he worked his way up for 42 years from copy boy to sportswriter to managing editor – was in Augusta as he usually was every April. He was accompanied by Greensboro’s young golf writer, Helen Ross, covering her second Masters for the paper.
Ross and Houston Post writer Melanie Hauser were a novelty on the golf beat back then – women covering the men’s game. “You could count the number of female sportswriters who had been credentialed quite literally on one hand,” Ross said. As was custom back then, Ross and Hauser weren’t allowed in places such as the locker room or the men’s grill at Augusta National Golf Club, where the male writers who covered the Masters were routinely welcomed.
Ross and Hauser mentioned their frustration to Smallwood. Ross retold what happened next to the News & Record: “The next day at the annual meeting of the Golf Writers Association of America when the call went out for new business, [Smallwood] stood up and said, ‘I think it’s criminal’ – I’ll never forget him using that word – ‘that our female members don’t have the same access to do their jobs here that the rest of us do.’”
Later that week, GWAA leaders met with then Masters chairman Hord Hardin in his office and brought up the issue. Hardin immediately changed the policy to allow female journalists to go where any other sports writer was able to go, including for lunch in the grill room that had never served women before.
“His support then – and throughout my career and life – has meant everything to me,” Ross said of Smallwood.
Count me among the many who share that regard for Smallwood, who died peacefully in his home on Saturday night at age 98 – reportedly sighing and taking his last breath after his daughter whispered in his ear that his beloved North Carolina Tar Heels had taken a quick 10-point lead against Duke in the basketball rivalry’s annual regular-season finale.
Smallwood had been “retired” from the Greensboro paper for eight years by the time I took over the golf beat in 1997 when Ross left the paper for a job at the PGA Tour. But it was Irwin who took me under his wing at Forest Oaks Country Club when I was leading my first coverage of what was then called the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic, delivering the pep talk that was desperately needed that lifted a writer’s confidence and steered my career toward focusing on golf journalism. He did this in spite of my ineptly screwing up the newspaper’s Masters credential request and ending his long streak of going to Augusta the month before.
Irwin had a special way of making anyone in his orbit feel better about themselves, and he never stopped mentoring long after he stopped getting paid to lead journalists. He had that kind of impact on everyone – especially fellow newspaper folks in an industry and city that he cherished. Ed Hardin, a longtime sports writer and columnist in Greensboro, told Winston-Salem writer John Dell of Smallwood’s passing: “It’s like losing a father.”
Smallwood was a legend in Greensboro, where his institutional knowledge never waned, from his presence at the founding of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953 and Charlie Sifford breaking the color barrier on the PGA Tour in the South at the 1961 Greater Greensboro Open – both at Sedgefield Country Club. It was Smallwood who assured Sifford that he would be treated fairly if he played – seven months before the PGA Tour lifted its Caucasian-only clause.
He covered most of Sam Snead’s eight victories in what was fondly known as the GGO, including Snead’s last PGA Tour victory at age 53 in 1965. At Smallwood’s urging, the trophy given to the PGA Tour winner in Greensboro was named the Sam Snead Cup in 1998. The media center at the Wyndham Championship was named after Smallwood a few years ago, which is fitting since most of the facts and records in the tournament media guide we all rely upon were tabulated and verified by him.
When media show up in August in the Irwin Smallwood Media Center, they can even pick up the 2024 program and read two stories written this year by the room’s namesake.
All of his accomplishments earned Smallwood considerable honors – North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame, the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame and North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. But he didn’t do anything for accolades.
Smallwood embodied what we too often take for granted in our golf world. It’s good people like Irwin – people who stand up for those who need standing up for and do the right things and play by the rules even when nobody is looking – who make this game, this industry and this world a better place.
Rest in peace, Irwin. And thanks for everything.
E-MAIL scott
Top: Irwin Smallwood is a member of North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame, the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame and North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
Woody marshall, Greensboro (N.c) News & Record