Herbert Warren Wind, 89; Famed Golf Writer Coined ‘Amen Corner’
Herbert Warren Wind, 89, the golf writer who coined the term “Amen Corner” at Augusta National, died Monday of pneumonia in Bedford, Mass., said his nephew, writer Bill Scheft.
Wind was renowned for his fluid, graceful style and lengthy profiles -- he wrote longhand and in pencil -- during stints with the New Yorker (1948 to 1953 and 1960 to 1990) and Sports Illustrated (1954 to 1960). “I needed 5,000 words to clear my throat,” he once joked.
“He was a great historian of the game and a terrific writer,” Jack Nicklaus said Tuesday. “There have been three or four guys who really stood above the rest. He was certainly one of them.”
The Masters was an annual stop for Wind, who traveled the world profiling the legendary players and their sport. While working for Sports Illustrated in 1958, he dubbed the 11th, 12th and 13th holes at Augusta National “Amen Corner.”
The second of six children born to a tanner in Brockton, Mass., Wind graduated from Yale and received his master’s degree from Cambridge University.
He fell in love with the game in England and in 1950 competed in the British Amateur.
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