José MarÃa Olazábal and George O’Grady, the chief executive of the European Tour, have led the tributes to Dai Davies, the former golf correspondent of The Guardian who died yesterday. He was 69.
Davies was the golf correspondent at the Birmingham Post from 1965 until 1982, when he joined The Guardian. He retired in 2004 but continued to file stories and columns for a number of magazines and newspapers. It was, as he wrote in a note to colleagues recently, a perfect career. “I have lived the life I always wanted to, working for a newspaper I always wanted to, going to lovely places around the world, populated in the main by people I would have chosen to be with. Surely no journalist could ask for more?”
Andrew Chandler, manager of many of the game’s leading players, described Davies as a “colossus of the press room. His words were written with such sincerity that his love of the game always shone through. His voice will be sadly missed.”
The SJA sends its sincere sympathies to Dai’s wife, Patricia, also a noted golf writer, and their family.
First posted on May 20
To read The Guardian‘s appreciation in full, click here.