There was a time, not that long ago, when daily newspapers with vibrant sports sections and deadlines that stretched deep into the night rather than early into the afternoon punched above their weight when big events came to town.
Like persimmon-headed woods and The Beach Boys, it’s sadly something from another time.
But not in Southern Pines, North Carolina, not when one of the U.S. Opens rolls into the area and not when The Pilot has ink, newsprint and owner/publisher David Woronoff.
Last week, when the U.S. Women’s Open was being played at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, The Pilot went back into major-championship mode, transforming itself from a two-day-a-week paper with 10,000 subscribers into the most comprehensive source for tournament coverage anywhere, in print or online.
“We believe we exist to serve our community. Unfortunately, too many hedge-fund-owned papers have it backward. They think the community exists to provide them a living.”
DAVID WORONOFF, OWNER/PUBLISHER, THE PILOT
With a writing staff that includes New York Times best-selling author Jim Dodson along with noted golf writers Jim Moriarty and Lee Pace and renowned photographer Joann Dost, among others, The Pilot did what it does so well: tell stories, serve readers and show the rest of the newspaper business how it still can be done.
“We believe we exist to serve our community. Unfortunately, too many hedge-fund-owned papers have it backward. They think the community exists to provide them a living,” said Woronoff, who, along with four other partners, bought the paper in 1996.
Most of the time, The Pilot gets along with an 11-person newsroom, covering life in and around charming Southern Pines, where a railroad track cuts through the middle of town and golf is never far away.
For the Women’s Open, just like for the three men’s U.S. Opens played at Pinehurst No. 2 and the 2001 and 2007 Women’s Opens at Pine Needles, The Pilot goes all in.
The seven freelancers along with most of the rest of the full-time staff produce the usual Wednesday and Sunday paper, which included 10-page photo sections devoted to the tournament last week.
There also were five 32-page daily sections about the U.S. Women’s Open produced along with a daily email newsletter about the championship that was sent to 22,000 residents of Moore County and another 44,000 to subscribers of magazines that Woronoff’s company owns around North Carolina.
As if that weren’t enough, there was a streaming radio station called Golf Rock, which interspersed music and interviews with players, officials and others.
At a time when most newspapers have nearly shriveled away and sports sections tend to be a rehash of two-day-old happenings, why does The Pilot keep doing what it does?
Maybe it’s as simple as, doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.
“It all comes from a promise I made 20 years ago,” Woronoff said. “After the ’99 U.S. Open, where we had broken ground for a newspaper like this, Mrs. (Peggy Kirk) Bell (the late Pine Needles owner) buttonholed me and said, ‘You are going to do something like that for my (2001 Women’s) Open, aren’t you?’
“I said, ‘I promise we will cover it as intensively as we covered the ’99 Open.’ Twenty years later, we’re still delivering on that promise we made to her.”
Editor’s note: Global Golf Post was part of a content-sharing arrangement with The Pilot during the week of the U.S. Women’s Open.
E-MAIL RON
Ron Green Jr.