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For Jim McCabe, Writing Is Par
for the Course

By Kathy Kurtz Ferrari
Staff Writer
3/11/10
Jim McCabe found his passion early.

The Milton resident, who happens to be one of the most respected sportswriters in the country, followed his talent and a childhood dream.

“I would say I was one of the rare young kids, where I knew what I wanted to do,” McCabe said, remembering what brought him to become a sports journalist.

At the age of 12 or 13, he would attend Boston Red Sox games with his father and score every play on a score sheet. The next day, he would read all the daily papers at his home in the Squantum section of Quincy, comparing his notes to those of the sportswriters in the papers.

“I remember telling my father, ‘This guy is wrong. They had this play wrong.’ And my dad would say, ‘Hey, if you think it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?’ So I would write stories strictly for myself, and my dad used to read them,” McCabe said with a smile. “I always knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

McCabe has lived in town since 1995 with his wife, Jeanne, and two sons, James, 16, and Colin, 14. He made a name for himself as the golf writer for The Boston Globe, where he worked for more than 20 years. But in 2008 he moved to a national forum, as a senior writer for Golfweek magazine. He now writes for a specific, knowledgeable golf audience as he travels around the country, closely following players on the Professional Golfers’ Association of America tour.

He began his career as a writer with weekly papers in the area, later working on the desk of the Boston Herald in 1983. After two years there, he got a call from the Globe. “I was a Boston kid. Working at the Globe was like you had made it,” McCabe said, noting that the paper was known as having the best sports section in the country.

Around the same time, a young kid named Tiger Woods was making himself known on the golf links, and the Globe decided to start a golf section. McCabe eventually became its editor, which allowed him to do more writing. As Woods’ legend grew and the game of golf flourished, more people wanted to read about it. That meant there was a growing niche for golf writers.

McCabe took advantage of the timing. His knowledge and commitment to the game matured, and he now is counted among the nation’s top authorities on professional golf.

A Tiger’s Tale

McCabe has spent years following Woods, observing his game as part of the media that covered him closely.

“What fascinated me about him was exactly what now is disappointing about him,” McCabe said. “I would deal with him at tournaments, and watch him and write about him, and it always fascinated me that he could be in the spotlight, be in demand and talk to the media all the time … and truly, basically never make a mistake, and never really be in trouble.”

McCabe said that Woods was always accessible to writers, and had surrounded himself with very few confidants, in contrast to some athletes and celebrities who travel with a large entourage. McCabe sensed that the level of security in Woods’ small group helped him hide the lifestyle that led to one of the biggest scandals in golf.

“To the levels that this was going on, and the degrees to which he was into this lifestyle is stunning to us, stunning to every other golfer,” McCabe said.

McCabe admits that he was always “a pro-Tiger guy,” even calling him a genius, but he has many questions as to how the revelations of Woods’ personal life will affect how the game welcomes him back. He said Woods needs to reshape his image when he returns, and go beyond the public apology he made Feb. 19.

That event, which captivated audiences around the country, is thought to have been part of Woods’ therapy. But miscommunications between the PGA, Woods’ handlers and the Golf Writers Association caused McCabe and other writers to end up making news themselves when they decided to boycott the announcement. Thinking it would be a true press conference, the writers were told to pick three of their members who would be allowed to cover the announcement. With those parameters, the writers refused. According to the PGA, there was a communications “screw-up.”

“We just felt, because we didn’t know the whole story, it made sense for us to boycott it,” McCabe explained. “What was interesting about it, as the camera scanned the audience, I knew several of those people work for [Woods] … come to find out that those people were all seeing him face to face for the first time since Thanksgiving [when events began to unfold]. …So you realize there might have been something to this. Those were the people he felt he needed. They worked for him.”

McCabe stressed that people involved in golf are anxious for Woods’ comeback.

“They need him back, I think, because people want to talk about him … so why not talk about what he did on the golf course?” he said.

When does he think Tiger will return?

“My guess is that he will be back sooner than later. …I think he’ll be back in March playing golf somewhere. And I think he will be at the Masters.”

Whenever Woods returns, McCabe knows the world will be watching, and he is anxious to be one of the few who has front-row access to one of the biggest stories in sports history.

It has something to do with passion.