Sid Dorfman, Famed N.J. Golf Journalist, Passes Away At Age 94

Sid Dorfman, a member of the Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey and the first golf writer for the Newark Star-Ledger, passed away at age 94 on Saturday, Feb. 15.

Dorfman, who worked at The Star-Ledger beginning at age 15, introduced such features in The Star-Ledger as the high school sports Top 20, All-State teams for all sports, and full coverage for girls’ sports.

A longtime member of the Maplewood Country Club, he was a visionary in the coverage of golf in the state. He implemented the popular Weekend Golf Results with a Hole-in-One section that would appear each Monday during the golf season.

According to The Star-Ledger, Dorfman in 1968 “waged a successful campaign in his column to create a legitimate state championship for women. He sharply criticized the Women's New Jersey Golf Association and the Garden State Women's Golf Association for running a "state championship" confined to their Associations while excluding public links and other qualified golfers. Reacting quickly, the two Associations formed a separate Women's New Jersey State Golf Committee to run the state championship, excluding no one. The two Associations remained "exclusive," but at least the championship no longer was.”

In 2008, the Women's New Jersey State Golf Committee merged with the New Jersey State Golf Association which now administers seven statewide women's championships, including the Women's Amateur.

He reported on some of the greatest golfers in history, including Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Dorfman, a 2004 inductee into the MetroWest Jewish Hall of Fame, would use the pseudonym Paul Ryan during his first season on the local golf beat because an editor was convinced the country clubs would not allow a Jewish writer onto their courses.

Besides golf, he covered bike races, boxing and even picked horse races, using the pseudonym “The Masked Lady.”

His “Dorf Feature Service,” located in Mountainside, established blanket coverage of high school sports for the newspaper’s circulation area. Dorfman continued to write columns for The Star-Ledger several times per week well into his 90s.

In a statement, Gov. Chris Christie, a former schoolboy athlete at Livingston High School, said: "Sid Dorfman was an institution all his own in New Jersey sports coverage. All New Jersey kids growing up and a part of high school and college sports should know that he played a huge role in the joy of seeing their names and pictures in print and bringing them the attention they earned for their success in athletics."

Surviving are his wife, Marianne; his daughter, Rhoda; his son, Gary, and his wife, Marianne Dorfman; his grandson, Scott, and his wife, Elana Dorfman; and grandchildren, Jessica and Lael Dorfman. Sid was also predeceased by his loving grandson, Jason.