FORT WORTH — He knew it was coming.
Dan Jenkins said so on more than one occasion.
He wanted the message on his tombstone to read, “I knew this would happen.”
Even predicting his eventual demise, His Ownself remained one step ahead of the rest of us, filing his epitaph as a game story on deadline. Jenkins passed away March 7, and hundreds of notables and nobodies went to Christ Chapel Bible Church on Friday to pay respects to the most influential sports journalist of the past century. They came, too, looking for a few more chances to chuckle at the humor that Jenkins defined for generations of readers and writers.
Jenkins generously offered his humor to the pro and the peon alike. And, since he passed last Thursday night, local fans and international celebrities have offered their appreciation in quadruple bogey quantity. Tom Watson, for instance, wrote Jenkins’ daughter Sally “through tears,” he said.
“Your dad made me laugh and think at the same time,” Watson wrote Sally last week, which she suggested was the most accurate assessment of her father’s abilities.
Sally had become ill, and could not deliver her tribute to her dad at Friday’s service. But her comments were offered by a family friend, who voiced on her behalf one of the kindest comments a child could give their parent.
“I don’t know that you can say anything higher about a guy than that his children preferred his company to all others,” said Sally through her tribute, as well as in her Washington Post column, “and his approval to all the credit in the world. I was so lucky to be his.”
Teddy Allen, columnist for the Shreveport Times, came with his wife Linnea to offer their respects, Linnea with an incredibly moving vocal performance of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Teddy told the congregation about sending Jenkins a fan letter when he was an upstart sports writer in 1984. Jenkins returned a note thanking him for his kindness, and invited Allen to come to Fort Worth and visit with him as he launched “Life Its Ownself,” a best-selling follow up novel to the breakthrough “Semi-Tough.”
Allen told attendees that Jenkins’ wife June made note of the correspondence. June Jenkins told him that Dan typically didn’t return fan mail. But he was moved to in Allen’s instance, creating a life-long friendship which was more typical of the encounters awestruck sports writers enjoyed in press boxes and media tents during Jenkins’ later years. More than one reference was made to Jenkins taking time to talk to the nervous, star-struck intern, or young journalism school graduate who was hoping to make their way as a sports writer. Jenkins may not have held punches when critiquing an imploding golfer, but he was gracious to make time for writers who summoned the courage to introduce themselves to the best in the business.
Jerry Tarde, chairman and editor-in-chief of Golf Digest, and Mike O’Malley, Jenkins’ magazine features editor, also offered tributes at Christ Chapel. Speaking specifically to the courage required to first meet an icon like Jenkins, O’Malley talked about the trepidation that accompanied him to Augusta when he met Jenkins for the first time.
“It’s 1996, and my second day on the job (at Golf Digest). I fly to Augusta National to meet Dan Jenkins at the Masters,” he said. “I was terrified. I knew that Dan could be hard on editors, that he kept the hearts of the incompetent ones, the drones, the know-nots and so on, in a jar on his desk.”
After the memorable ’96 Master’s ended, and O’Malley flew back to the Golf Digest offices in Connecticut, he said Jenkins’ article arrived via fax the following Tuesday.
“It was brilliant, of course. But there was one section in it that didn’t quite work for me,” said O’Malley. “Dan calls in for questions, and I give it the ‘homina-homina-homina,’ and I’m basically freezing up. And he finally cuts through it and says, ‘Hell, Mike, everyone needs an editor. We can fix it.’ And we did. And from then on, it was like a collaboration. I never had a better experience, because he taught me so much – a writer to an editor.”
Jenkins brought the game to the masses through his prose, Tarde said, by finding a way to write what many thought, or at least wanted to say.
“He defined not just a generation of golf writers,” Tarde said, “but he defined the sport. “He taught us how to write golf, talk golf, smoke golf, drink golf. He just created the modern language of golf. He made it fun.”
In the end, fans have a little less to grieve about, and a little more to look forward to. Sally mentioned in her comments how she had the chance to read Jenkins’ final manuscript, a novel that will be published soon. In it, we can enjoy a reunion of several of Jenkins’ famous characters like Billy Clyde Puckett and Jim Tom Pinch. Even as Jenkins “caught a cab,” as he often quipped about his friends who’d passed away, he left a gift behind for us to look forward to.
Jenkins may have even left one more parting jab, saved for one of the few who didn’t enjoy his humor. Around the time Jenkins was being eulogized, Tiger Woods stepped to the tee at the 17th at TPC Sawgrass for this weekend’s THE PLAYERS Championship. Woods drove two shots into the water amid swirling winds, and took a quadruple bogey. During the revelry that followed today’s service, at a nearby convivial establishment – as Jenkins would have approved – laughter erupted when it was suggested that this was His Ownself getting in the final word with Woods.
Too bad Tiger didn’t pay more attention to Jenkins. He might have known this would happen.
(Headline photo from Golf Digest’s Dom Furore)