Golf Writer and Editor James Dodson to Receive ASGCA’s Donald Ross Award

James Dodson, longtime golf writer and editor, has been selected the 2011 Donald Ross Award recipient by the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA). The award will be presented May 15, 2011 at the Donald Ross Banquet during the 65th ASGCA Annual Meeting in Denver. The award is named for ASGCA’s first honorary president, and is presented to an individual who has made a positive contribution to golf and golf course architecture.

Dodson, an award-winning writer, is currently writer-in-residence for “The Pilot” newspaper in Southern Pines, N.C., and editor of PineStraw Magazine. He has served as Senior Writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday Magazine and Yankee Magazine, and previously wrote “The Golf Life” column for Golf magazine. Dodson’s work has appeared in more than 50 publications worldwide, and he has won more than a dozen awards from the Golf Writers Association of America.

“Jim is a real friend of the game of golf and is well-respected by his peers and readers of golf literature,” said ASGCA President Erik Larsen. “He has written biographies of some of the legends of our game. Jim also has a great understanding of the economic, environmental and social value a golf course provides to a community.

“His books about his relationships with his father and son and how they’ve been enhanced by sharing the game of golf‚‘Final Rounds’ and ‘A Son of the Game’‚articulate the importance of and philosophy behind the social aspect of the game,” he continues. “Ours is a game passed from one generation to the next, and Jim’s writing will last for generations.”

The Donald Ross Award was established by the ASGCA Board of Governors in 1976. Its first recipient was one of ASGCA’s Founding Fathers, Robert Trent Jones. ASGCA’s Donald Ross Award Committee is led by Past President Rees Jones, ASGCA.

ASGCA Background

Founded in 1946 by 14 leading architects, the American Society of Golf Course Architects is a non-profit organization comprised of experienced golf course designers located throughout the United States and Canada. Members have completed a rigorous two-year long application process that includes the peer review of four representative golf courses. ASGCA members are experienced golf course architects, able to counsel in all aspects of golf course design and remodeling and comprise many of the great talents throughout the golf industry.

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