ELMSFORD, N.Y. (December 6, 2007) - The Metropolitan Golf Association is awarded New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson the 2007 MGA Distinguished Service Award, the association’s highest honor. Mr. Anderson, winner of a Pulitzer prize in 1981, is the 35th recipient of the award which is presented annually to a candidate who has contributed "...distinguished service to golf and its related activities, consistent with the valued standards and honorable traditions of the game.” He accepted the award at the MGA Annual Meeting and Dinner on Wednesday, December 5 at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. 

For more than 40 years Dave Anderson has entertained, enlightened and delighted golf fans nationwide with his uniquely insightful columns and brought us all closer to the game. Born in Troy, N.Y., in 1929 and educated at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., he started his career in sports journalism as a writer for theBrooklyn Eagle and the New York Journal American. He joined The New York Times in 1966 as a general assignment sports reporter and has been a “Sports of the Times” columnist since 1971.

An avid golfer and member of the Knickerbocker Country Club in Tenafly, N.J., Mr. Anderson possesses a keen understanding and respect for the game which always comes through in his writings. While he has covered many sports, his uncanny ability to unearth a unique or touching golf story and bring the “heart” of the game and its players to his readers has distinguished him among his peers for more than four decades.

The author of 21 books and more than 350 magazine articles, Mr. Anderson has received numerous awards for his work. His work appears in several anthologies including: “The Grantland Rice Prize Sports Stories,” “The Golf Book” and “Great Golf Stories.” The highlight of his career, however, came in 1981 when he was awarded Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary for his sports column. He was inducted into the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame in 1990. The 1994 Associated Press Sports Editors Red Smith Award, the 1974 Nat Fleischer Award, and the 1965 and 1972 E.P. Dutton Awards are also among his credits.

Although writing for a global audience, Mr. Anderson has kept a strong Met Area base and, despite his busy schedule, has always found time to give something back to the game. An active member of the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association board of directors, that Association awarded him the Lincoln Werden Golf Journalism Award in 1996.

Mr. Anderson has also been an enthusiastic supporter of the MGA and its activities. He served on its Public Information Committee and has made countless appearances at charity golf events and at important Association functions. For more than a quarter century he has supported local golf. It seems he never says “no” to a request to help as a guest speaker or to support an area golf association.

The media landscape has undergone dramatic changes during Mr. Anderson’s career, and he has been a mentor for hundreds of reporters looking to break into the business. Despite his announcement earlier this year that he will officially retire fromThe New York Times, he is not done writing, and will continue to appear as a columnist in the Times with 18 columns per year. Due in large part to his outstanding body of work, career longevity and the way he has elevated the game of golf and all who are involved with it, the MGA is proud to add Dave Anderson’s name to the impressive list of Distinguished Service Award winners.

The Metropolitan Golf Association was founded in 1897 and is one of the nation’s oldest and largest regional golf associations, with 538 member clubs in the tri-state Metropolitan Area. Other awardees at the annual meeting include George J. Zahringer III of Deepdale Golf Club as the 2007 Jerry Courville Sr. MGA Player of the Year Award and the election of officers and board members to the MGA Executive Committee.

For more information on Dave Anderson or the MGA Distinguished Service Award please contact Jeanne McCooey (jmccooey@mgagolf.org) or Bob Nielsen (bnielsen@mgagolf.org) at the MGA offices at 914-347-4653.

 

Past MGA Distinguished Service Award Winners

1973	Clarence Benedict	1990	Arthur “Red” Hoffman
1974	Joseph C. Dey	1991	Ann Beard
1975	Jerry Courville Sr.	1992	Ira L. Mendell
1976	William P. Turnesa	1993	Joseph A. Donahue
1977	Fred Corcoran	1994	Guido Cribari
1978	Al Laney	1995	Arthur Weber
1979	Cynthia Alexander (Foshay)	1996	C.A. “Tony” Wimpfheimer
1980	Harry Cooper	1997	William & Lois McTurk
1981	Robert Trent Jones Sr.	1998	Rees Jones
1982	Dr. Richard Silver	1999	James Cotter
1983	P.J. Boatwright Jr.	2000	Oliver & Eleanor Lazare
1984	Isaac B. Grainger	2001	Gerald T. Mahoney
1985	George E. Sands	2002	Lowell M. Schulman
1986	James R. Hand	2003	Charles Robson
1987	Dana Mozley	2004	John C. Baldwin
1988	Arthur E. Lynch	2005	J. Michael Carter
1989	John F. McGillicuddy	2006	Joseph C. Cantwell