Knickerbocker C.C. Dedicates Golf Library To Famed Columnist Dave Anderson
On Oct. 30, some 75 family and friends attended a unique event –the dedication of a library dedicated to golf.
The Golf Library – named in honor of New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson – was christened that night at the Knickerbocker Country club in Tenafly.
Anderson, avid golfer and Knickerbocker member since 1980, has authored 22 books and contributed chapters or stories on 30 more book and they are all included in The Golf Library which already has 420 books and room for up to 1,200.
The idea of a library came from Anderson’s friend and fellow Knickerbocker member Mike Beckerich, himself a publisher of golf books, who also donated a quantity of books.
The library itself is located off the main dining room at Knickerbocker and more than $30,000 has been spent in infrastructure. The room includes trophies and memorabilia and the centerpiece is a group of lettered golf balls arranged to resemble a typewriter. That was a gift from Tom Watson and his father in 1981 upon Anderson being named the Pulitzer Prize winner for distinguished commentary from his Times’ columns written in 1980.
In the future, more books and collectibles will be added and a speakers series with Knickerbocker’s neighboring clubs will be developed.
In 2007, the year Anderson retired as a full-time journalist, he received the Metropolitan Golf Association’s Distinguished Service Award, the association’s highest honor. The award 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.
Anderson, a 1951 graduate of The College of the Holy Cross, loved writing sports. “It didn’t make a difference what sport. I wrote about the people, not the sport,” he said.
But golf had to be way up there on his list. He began covering golf in 1967 – the U.S. Open at Baltusrol - and subsequently covered 38 U.S. Opens and 38 Masters championships.
“Jack Nicklaus was the best interview in sports. He’d sit there and give you answers, not just sentences, but paragraphs. I’d always learn something from him. Golfer as a group were usually very good.”
He also enjoyed the late Seve Ballesteros, with whom he once played in a pro-am. After Anderson drained several putts to help he and Seve finish third in the event, the Spaniard asked to see Anderson’s putter, an old Bobby Jones Calamity Jane model.
“He thought it was a very interesting putter. The next year during an interview at The Masters, he saw me there, pointed and said, ‘He’s a very good putter.’ I wanted to put that on my tombstone I was so proud.”
Anderson extensively covered boxer Muhammad Ali , following him around the world to report on 32 of his fights.
Born in Troy, N.Y., in 1929, Anderson grew up in the Bay Ridge section Brooklyn and was hooked on sports from a young age. In 1938, his father took him to Ebbets Field to see the Brooklyn Dodgers. There, he saw Carl Hubbell pitch for the New York Giants against Brooklyn, while Babe Ruth acted as the first base coach for the Dodgers.
Three years later, the Anderson family again ran into Ruth at a Greenwood Lake restaurant where he was playing catch with a group of youngsters.
In December, 1941, Anderson remembered listening on the radio to a pro football game between the Giants and the Dodgers one Sunday when the announcer interrupted to say Pearl Harbor was bombed.
“I’ll never forget it. My father was reading the paper. He looked up and said, ‘That means war.’ “
Following college graduation, Anderson began his career at the Brooklyn Eagle, making $40 per week, for one of the 15 metropolitan newspapers at the time. When the regular Dodgers reporter broke his hip early in the 1953 season, Anderson, at age 24, was suddenly the full-time beat reporter for his hometown team.
“There I was covering a team with Hall of Famers like Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella. It was the best assignment in New York sports,” Anderson said. “There were no mass interviews. It was eight or nine reporters, not 50 like today with all the cable media. You could have an actual conversation with the players. Today, all they want is a 20-second sound bite.
“And we traveled on the trains with the teams. I’m one of the few who remembers that era.”
In 1955, the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in the World Series.
Six years later, in 1961, Anderson was hired by Sports Illustrated on the 20thanniversary of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.
“I went up to his room at the Lexington Hotel at 5:30, just as a statuesque blonde (not Marilyn Monroe) was leaving. I ended up staying for over two hours. He would talk about that hitting streak forever.”
On two other occasions, Anderson would team with DiMaggio in pro-am events in advance of the Super Bowl, in New Orleans in 1978 and in San Diego in 1988.
“Joe was always a pretty good autograph signer when I was him except this one time a guy popped out of the woods on the golf course in San Diego with a bat in his hand. He asked Joe to sign the bat, saying ‘Please, Mr. DiMaggio is has your name on it. It’s your model bat.’
