Men For All Seasons

Dan Jenkins and Arnie Helped Define Post-war American Golf. They and Others Like Them Are Now Gone, and the Game Will Never Be the Same.

NO DAN JENKINS AT THE Masters this year, for the first time since ’50. Jenkins will be cited but not seen at the PGA Championship at Bethpage in May. He died on March 7, in Fort Worth, where he was born in 1928. Dave Anderson, another sportswriting legend, was class of ’29. Dave died last year. Between them, they must have written a million words about Arnold, who was also born in 1929 and died on the eve of the 2016 Ryder Cup. More than a million, if you count the times Palmer showed up in Dan’s Twitter feed. Jenkins died while Arnold’s tournament was being played at Bay Hill, where Arnold lived. Dow Finsterwald, winner of the ’58 PGA Championship, lived down the street (and still does) on Masters Boulevard. He dropped by Arnold’s often, and they drank lateafternoon beers out of a dorm-room ’fridge in Arnold’s workshop. Dow was born in ’29, too.

A foursome of golf ’s greatest generation, right there. Not to be confused with Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation. That generation earned its capital letters in World War II (1939- ’45). The members of golf ’s greatest generation came out of college in the prosperity and peace of mid-century America. Your toaster lasted forever.