For golf writer Steve DiMeglio, hitting was more than just a job

Steve DiMeglio, longtime golf writer USA Today and, laterGolfweekhe was one reporter who could show up in the press tent, sit with Tiger Woods on the practice green, find things he could use, and a lot he wouldn’t, and live to do it again a week later.

“DiMegs,” as Woods and many others called him, was 63 years old when he died at his Ponte Vedra Beach apartment earlier this week following a battle with prostate cancer. He lived alone, single, childless, his parents passed away. Hitting was his life. The players, caddies, officials and other writers were like his family.

“Unfortunately the world of golf lost a part of our family today,” Woods said in a message to X. People in golf, especially people associated with the PGA Tour, misuse the word. the family. The PGA Tour is not a family. But this time, Woods used the full name. A handful of Tour media officials, who live near DiMeglio, checked in on him regularly during his 30-month ordeal. They were worried when they could not reach him on New Year’s Day.

DiMeglio was an 8-handicap golfer with such athleticism and a deep connection to the game that he could play pretty much any course he wished to play. His favorite way to get to any course was in a fast cart equipped with a beer cooler. A golf course that didn’t allow smoking was a nightmare for him.

DiMeglio was loyal to Delta Airlines, Marriott hotels, Bud Light, Marlboro Gold and the Mellow Mushroom pizzeria chain. He rented cars from anyone. He liked to travel with his teams, but he hired clubs when needed. He was wearing a shirt with the logo of the club where he last played. He worked in shorts and basketball shoes but cleaned up after himself at the annual Golf Writers Association of America dinner on the outskirts of Augusta. He served on the GWAA board of directors for years.

If you were taller than 5-foot-8, DiMeglio called you the Big Guy. He was about 5-foot-5 with a cropped goatee and a distinctive head of hair combed straight back without product. Born and raised in Minnesota.

Part of DiMeglio’s unique status, as a well-liked and respected golf beat reporter, came from the fact that he worked for a paper that many professionals read the moment they opened their hotel room door or walked down to the lobby. Before the rise of the Internet, USA Today was the bible of the PGA Tour, more than New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or any other paper. Arnold Palmer is reading USA Today. Tim Finchem read it. Tiger Woods read it.

DiMeglio got the best of Woods. He rarely wrote about Woods’ problems in his private life. He felt that an athlete should be able to live a private life. But along with two close friends, Doug Ferguson of the AP and Bob Harig of the Sports Illustrated, no one has documented Woods’ surgical procedures with more precision. That surgery had an impact on Woods’ public life.

DiMeglio wrote with incredible economy, speed and accuracy, but also with an insight and sense of golf history. He can be hilariously and remarkably direct. Sometimes he asked people, “What is your evil?” He knew that being evil was an essential part of the human condition. The only time he really judged people was when golfing reporters asked themselves boring, deadly, sensationalist questions at press conferences.

Before the advent of Google, DiMeglio could name all LPGA commissioners, including Bill Blue, who only served two years. DiMeglio knew the ins and outs of women almost as well as men. He counted Dottie Pepper, Paula Creamer and Lexi Thompson as friends and sources. It can be tricky for journalists, navigating these kinds of relationships. For DiMeglio, it was second nature.

He would speak with great pride about his late father, who was a university professor. He was an avid reader of newspapers and magazines and seemed to retain everything he read, but he was completely unassuming and thoughtful, in his own way. When he smoked in front of you, he held his hand close to the cigarette and blew his smoke at you.

DiMeglio came to the golf beat after covering major league baseball for years and wherever the conversation went: baseball, golf, national politics, classic rock music, management efforts to eradicate unions in newspapers and the auto industries of the Big Three automakers. , then back to golf. In politics, he was a liberal. He had a strong stance on many golf reforms. He almost ruined LIV Golf. Well, he lived a few miles from the PGA Tour offices. You have probably never seen him speak on television. He believed that writers should be read and not seen.

When his editors gave him space, DiMeglio wrote rich, detailed pieces, sometimes on unexpected topics, such as Jack Nicklaus’ sixth-place finish in the 1998 Masters at age 58.

At the 2019 Masters, in Woods’ pre-tournament press conference, DiMeglio asked Woods what everyone wanted to know.

DiMeglio: “A few couples. First of all, what is the logo on your shirt?”

Woods: “Frank.”

DiMeglio: “What?”

Woods: “Frank, my head cover.”

DiMeglio, continuing: “Can you tell us, what do you think about the changes made to the five and how would you play that hole differently?”

Woods: “The fifth, it’s just long. Bunkers, still deep. I think they are unplayable, to make the ball green. You have to be very lucky and find a position where you can get to the front edge of the green. You need to get out of those bunkers. But it’s just really long.

“The green one, I know it has been sweetened. That new pin on the top left, they created it years ago, to provide an opportunity to put a pin there. But now they will definitely have a pin up.

“It will be interesting to see what they do with the curriculum in that hole. It was raining here. It’s soft. The fairways won’t let you. If that’s the case, I don’t know if we’re going to play the fifth at 495 yards every day. I’m sure the tee will be raised, very similar to what we see in seven, sometimes in one. Sometimes the tee boxes are moved up. Sometimes, when it’s warm, they put the tee boxes back.

“There is a lot of flexibility in the way they build these boxes because they are very long. You can go around the golf course, you can play it maybe 7,400 yards if they want to play it on the short side and north of 7,500 if they want to play it on the long side.

“It will be interesting to see how they organize it, but I’m sure they will do a fantastic job as they always do and present us with an incredibly tough, but extremely fair, test.”

Do you see the length of that response, the effort Woods put in, the details he gave? So to speak, that’s all a function of the quality of the question, and a reflection of how Woods feels about the reporter who asked it.

Michael Bamberger accepts your email at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com