For a few years in the late 1990s, I covered the Carolina Panthers and lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, reading The Charlotte Observer sports section every day. There were a lot of good writers in that paper, but there was one name I always looked for first: Ron Green. Two writers on the Observer staff shared that name, and it never was disappointing to see Senior or Junior, or preferably both, on the front page.
Oddly, it was after leaving Charlotte for Augusta, Georgia, when the Greens became friends. I’d crash in their rental home with North Carolina writers all week, drinking wine and sharing tales late into the evenings and talking Masters over breakfast every morning as they read my words in the Chronicle. Their support was gratifying and humbling. Turns out they’re even better people than writers.
The Greens are without peer, covering more than a combined century of invitationals at Augusta National between them.
This week, Global Golf Post’s Ron Green Jr. joined 2006 recipient Ron Green Sr. in being honored with the PGA of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. They are the first father-son combo on the roster, making them the Old and Young Tom Morris of the golf journalism fraternity. If you’ve been reading GGP for the last 13 years, you understand how deserving an honor it is for “Young Ron.”
The Greens are without peer, covering more than a combined century of invitationals at Augusta National between them. As Ron Sr. once said of the Masters: “I was silly in love with it. Like a guy in love with a girl. But I’m glad I was. I think it showed through in what I wrote.”
That sentiment is echoed in his son, whose love of the game and the places it’s played shines through in his work. Ron Jr. has graced these pages with his words and insights and engendered the respect of the subjects he writes about and the peers he works beside. He’s still the first name you look for when you open the magazine every Monday or log into GGP+ every Wednesday as he gives you something more than the birdies and bogeys.
“You’re right there, you feel it and see it,” he says of covering the game. “You try to convey it and offer some perspective for what it means, not just being caught in that moment. Take it beyond the moment if it warrants it and what it means in the grander scheme.”
For all the admiration and envy I have reading the Greens, it is folly to try to imitate them. The modest, lyrical, Southernly genteel words seem to pour so easily from their fingertips onto the newsprint. You can’t just walk out of journalism school and do that. You’re born with that kind of gift, and you nurture it into a craft. I don’t try to copy Junior’s golf swing either, because I don’t have that kind of smooth in me. (We don’t copy his chipping style either, for different reasons.)
Ron Green Jr. certainly has achieved a lot in a lifetime covering sports, and he warrants the accolades. Thankfully for us, he’s still not done.
Scott Michaux
TOP: Ron Green Jr. in Ireland
a.p. sachs
E-MAIL SCOTT