Passion for Golf Was Always Evident

I never knew Babe Ruth or Joe Louis or Vince Lombardi, but I did know Jim Murray. In the writing business, Jim hit home runs, scored knockouts and won Super Bowls every time he sat down to write.

Golf might have been Murray’s favorite sport because he played it, and he was particularly devoted to Ben Hogan.

Murray was following Arnold Palmer one day at the Los Angeles Open at Rancho Park and Palmer hit a poor drive. As the ball landed in the rough near Murray’s feet, Palmer walked over.

“Well, Jim, what would your beloved Hogan do in this situation?” Palmer asked.

Murray didn’t hesitate a second.

“Hogan would never be in this situation,” he sniffed.

A framed letter from Hogan congratulating Murray for winning the Pulitzer Prize is prominently displayed on a wall as soon as you step inside the front door of Murray’s house. It was more important to him than the Pulitzer.

Murray loved writing about golf, but he joked that he couldn’t devote too many columns to it.

“I’ll lose the truck drivers,” he said.

In all those years of writing all his elegant, funny, thoughtful columns, Murray never lost anybody.