Many of Rosaforte’s close friends gathered to raise money for a cause that was dear to his heart.
PALM CITY, Florida — The Rosie, the inaugural charity tournament held Monday in honor of award-winning golf journalist Tim Rosaforte, raised more than $200,000 that will be used for college scholarships for First Tee Florida Gold Coast and the Evans Scholars Foundation.
Hosted by the Floridian Golf Club – where Rosaforte was a longtime member and once held court with President Obama on the range – many of Rosaforte’s close friends and colleagues gathered at the picturesque setting to raise money for a cause that was dear to his heart.
“Tim was a vice-chairman of the First Tee and one of our biggest supporters,” said Carl Mistretta, Executive Director of First Tee Florida Gold Coast. “It is heartwarming to have Rosaforte scholarship recipients Katie Harwood and Jacie Goodman join us for this event, which will fund new scholarships well into the future.”
Executives from the PGA Tour, PGA of America, USGA, NBC Sports and more than a dozen local golf clubs were on hand to support The Rosie. Rosaforte moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1981 and spent the next four decades tirelessly covering the sport while his career ascended from the Fort Lauderdale-Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest, Golf Channel – where he became the sport’s first true “insider” – and NBC.
Fellow golf writers and peers of Tim Rosaforte participated in The Rosie on Monday: (from left) Randall Mell, Craig Dolch, Bill Davis (pro) and former Golfweek editor Jeff Babineau.
“Scholarships change the lives of these young people and an amazing number of people are supporting this cause because of Rosie,” said PGA Professional Jack Druga of the Evans Scholars Foundation, who spearheaded the tournament for his close friend. “Brad Martin and the Martin Family Foundation and the Floridian, Head PGA Professional Morgan Jewell and owner Jim Crane deserve a special thanks for our success today.”
Rosaforte died on Jan. 11, 2022 at 66 after a two-year battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. Among his many honors: The PGA of America made Rosie the first journalist – and 12th person – to receive an honorary membership; Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament presented Rosie with the Memorial Golf Journalism Award; and his hometown PGA Tour event (now known as the Cognizant Classic of the Palm Beaches), named its media room after Rosaforte and created the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Journalist Award.
Inaugural The Rosie was held Monday at the Floridian Golf Club. Here are the hats, balls and markers used by the participants. (Photo: Craig Dolch/Special for USA Today)
“Tim would be humbled and overwhelmed with the love being shown even after he’s been gone for more than two years,” said his wife, Genevieve Rosaforte, who participated Monday with her family. “He would love that kids are being influenced and encouraged through this event. We are all proud that his legacy lives on, but there are also bittersweet feelings of not having him here.”
How to give to Tim Rosaforte College Scholarship fund
Donations and bids on a collection of special golf prizes can still be made to the Tim Rosaforte College Scholarship by visiting www.rosieproam.com.
“I’m not in Tim’s league or Larry’s league,” Mell said, “but I am so grateful to be in their company.”
There’s a long list of golf writers who considered themselves fortunate to have worked alongside Tim Rosaforte.
Then there’s Randall Mell, who worked with Rosaforte not once, not twice, but three times.
“My career has been stumbling into Rosaforte’s path,” Mell said, smiling.
Mell did more than stumble. He spent the last quarter century writing about professional golf in the hotbed of South Florida at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel before transitioning into TV/digital at the Golf Channel alongside Rosie.
On Wednesday, the 64-year-old Mell was linked to his old pal again when he became the third person to receive the Rosaforte Distinguished Journalist Award, joining Rosaforte (2021) and Larry Dorman (2022).
The award was created by the Honda Classic three years ago to honor the award-winning Rosaforte after the Jupiter resident had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The Honda Classic renamed its media room after Rosaforte, who died 13 months ago at 66.
“I’m not in Tim’s league or Larry’s league,” Mell said, “but I am so grateful to be in their company.”
Mell was introduced to Rosaforte in 1985 when the Wisconsin native took a job at the Sun-Sentinel’s bureau in Tamarac. While Mell was learning the business, he was exposed to the work of Rosaforte, the Sentinel’s golf writer.
“If you had told me as a kid in that bureau that someday I would receive an award named after Tim, I would be blown away,” Mell said. “I remember devouring everything he wrote. You wanted to emulate the best.”
Mell became the Sun-Sentinel’s golf writer in 1997 after Rosaforte had moved on to cover golf for The Palm Beach Post, Sports Illustrated and Golf World. Three years later, Mell served as a co-host alongside Rosaforte and Mark Wood for the radio show “Golf World on Air” that ran Saturday mornings for almost a decade. Mell was just happy to be involved.
“Tim was the star of the show,” Mell said. “We were just his sidekicks. He gave us such credibility because Tim knew golf and he knew all the major players.”
Mell was reunited with Rosaforte in 2009 when he was hired by the Golf Channel, where Rosaforte was serving as golf’s first true TV insider.
Mell jokes that he wasn’t stalking Rosaforte; it’s just their careers, for some reason, overlapped like Arnold Palmer’s grip.
“Obviously, Tim was a big influence on my life,” Mell said. “He was always so willing to help and pay you a compliment when you wrote a good story. He would emulate Fred Turner, our old sports editor at the Sun-Sentinel, with a gruff, ‘Nice job, Mell.’ ”
“Tim would be thrilled to know Randall was the latest deserving winner of the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Writers’ Award by the Honda Classic,” said Genevieve Rosaforte, Tim’s longtime wife, who was at the ceremony along with daughter Molly. “Tim always had the utmost respect for Randall’s work ethic and his professionalism, and we both really enjoyed being around Randall.”
Mell received his plaque Wednesday at PGA National, the day before the Honda Classic starts. This will be the final year American Honda is the sponsor, but the tournament is expected to remain at PGA National with another sponsor.
Mell covered his first Honda Classic in 1990 — a story on 16-year Chris Couch, a local, qualifying for the tournament — when it was held in Broward County. Mell has been around to see the peaks and valleys this PGA Tour event has traveled over the past 35 years.
Like most journalists, he roots for the story, not the individuals. Fittingly, he won a Golf Writers Association of America national writing award for his story on Mark Wilson’s playoff victory in the 2007 Honda.
Mell, retired and living in Orlando, admits it has been tough to watch Honda leave as the tour’s longest-running sponsor and the tournament struggling to attract top names because of its placement on the schedule.
“I am proud of the work I did covering the Honda Classic,” Mell said. “It was in my backyard and I treated it as if was a major. In some ways, it was my golf home, and there’s an ache when something happens to your home.
“But I always looked forward to covering the Honda and spending the week with Rosie. We all miss him a lot, especially this week. You can’t think of Honda without thinking about Tim.”
Dolch inducted into the South Florida PGA Hall of Fame
Longtime Palm Beach Post golf writer Craig Dolch was presented his Hall of Fame plaque Wednesday by South Florida PGA Executive Director Geoff Lofstead at PGA National.
Dolch was inducted into the South Florida PGA Hall of Fame this year with former LPGA star Donna White.
“It’s a tremendous honor to me. I know Tim would be pleased. We would have had a few laughs about it. It’s certainly very high on my list of honors that I have gotten,” Dorman said about the award.
Here are a few photos of the ribbons from PGA National.
Mackenzie Hughes of Canada lines up a putt on the 13th green during the first round of The Honda Classic at PGA National Resort And Spa on February 24, 2022, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)Russell Knox of Scotland plays his shot from the second tee during the first round of The Honda Classic at PGA National Resort And Spa on February 24, 2022 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)Zach Johnson prepares to tee off on the 15th tee during the first round of The Honda Classic at PGA National Resort And Spa on February 24, 2022, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Players at the Honda Classic are wearing purple ribbon in honor of the late, beloved golf writer Tim Rosaforte. pic.twitter.com/tEPl9IEH1q
Rosaforte was the first journalist to be given honorary membership by the PGA of America.
Golf journalist Tim Rosaforte’s Celebration of Life will be held Thursday, February 17, at 2 p.m. at Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Rosaforte, who rose to popularity as an insider for Golf Channel, died on January 11 at 66 from Alzheimer’s disease.
Rosaforte worked for Golf Digest, Sports Illustrated, and a half-dozen Florida newspapers, including The Palm Beach Post from 1987-94.
Rosaforte was the first journalist to be given honorary membership by the PGA of America; he received the Memorial Golf Journalism Award last year; and was awarded the 2014 PGA Lifetime Achievement Award. His alma mater, the University of Rhode Island, endowed a scholarship in Rosaforte’s name in the neuroscience department.
The Honda Classic named its media room after the longtime Jupiter resident and created the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Writers Award; he was the first winner. Players and caddies in next week’s PGA Tour event at PGA National will wear purple ribbons that read “Rosie.”
Pastor Tom Mullins will deliver the eulogy. Christ Fellowship is at 5343 Northlake Blvd.
The service will be live-streamed at funerals.online.church.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations go to West Palm Beach Alzheimer’s Society, Trustbridge Hospice, the First Tee-Florida Gulf Coast or the Tim Rosaforte Scholarship, University of Rhode Island Foundation and Alumni Engagement, P.O. Box 1700, Kingston, R.I., 02881.
Rosie was doing his thing on Golf Channel almost two years ago and today he is gone at the too-young age of 66.
Professional golf lost a great friend Tuesday when Tim Rosaforte died of Alzheimer’s Disease.
So did I.
I have had the honor of being close friends with Rosie, as we all called him, for almost 40 years. I was moving into a condo in Tampa in January, 1981 and Tim was the one moving out, headed to South Florida where he would meet his wife Genevieve, raise daughters Genna and Molly and start a career that would take him to the top of the journalism business.
Less than two years later, I took a job at The Evening Times in West Palm Beach and ran into Rosie at a PGA Senior Championship at PGA National. We have been best buddies ever since.
Hard to believe Rosie was doing his thing on Golf Channel almost two years ago and today he is gone at the too-young age of 66. Alzheimer’s doesn’t care how famous you are, how much you’re loved, how hard you’ve worked, how many zeroes are in your account and how much you have given to others.
Tim knew he was having memory-loss issues when he retired from TV at the end of 2019. Like most who have this insidious disease, he thought he would beat it or at least hold it off.
“I know what I have isn’t good, but I’m not giving up,” he said not long before he missed the 2020 Masters for the first time since 1983.
He tried to turn his diagnosis into a positive. “I haven’t been around my family a lot because of work,” he said, “and this gives me a chance to be with them and their loved ones.”
Tim never gave up. His body just gave out.
Tim Rosaforte poses between Jack and Barbara Nicklaus during The Jake 2017 event for the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital when Tim was the emcee. (Photo: Jim Mandeville/The Nicklaus Companies)
He lived long enough to see Genna and Molly recently triple the number of grandchildren in the family from one to three. He got to hold the precious little ones while their parents held on to hope.
Rosie became golf’s first media “insider,” someone who knew professional golf’s inner workings and had the trust of the biggest names. They knew if Tim called, it must be a big story.
There were few famous people who didn’t give him their phone number. He was so famous he carried around two phones, so not to miss a call. You could call him Timmy Two Phones.
He fought long enough to be honored in ways journalists usually aren’t honored.
PGA of America, Jack Nicklaus honored Rosie
The PGA of America made Rosie the first journalist – and 12th person – to receive an honorary membership.
Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament presented Rosie with the Memorial Golf Journalism Award last year. Tim was unable to attend the ceremony, but his good friend Jim Nantz – who won the 2019 award – presented the award to Rosaforte
This award was poignant for several reasons: The relationship between Jack and Tim goes back farther than ours – they first crossed paths at the 1980 PGA – and was so meaningful to the sport.
Nicklaus was perhaps the greatest interview of all time, and Rosaforte cultivated this relationship. They lived less than 10 miles apart, Rosie in Jupiter’s Abacoa subdivision and Jack at Lost Tree Club in North Palm Beach.
It was also fitting Nantz presented the Memorial award because it was Nantz who reached out to Rosaforte in 2020 when he learned of his health issues and invited him to the Nantz National Alzheimer Center in Houston. After Nantz’s father died from the disease, Nantz created the NNAC in 2011. It has treated thousands of Alzheimer’s patients every year.
The Honda Classic, the hometown PGA Tour event that Rosaforte so proudly supported, last year named its Media Room after Tim and created the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Writers’ Award, which he was appropriately the first to receive. Sadly, Tim won’t be around for this year’s Honda Classic in six weeks to congratulate the next winner.
Most recently, the University of Rhode Island, where Rosaforte became the first member of his family to attend college and earned a journalism degree in 1977, endowed a scholarship in Rosaforte’s name in Neuroscience.
That’s the most a person can hope for – they made a difference and made this world a better place.
That was Rosie. If you walked into a media center, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who Tim didn’t have a positive impact on their life. Whether it was advice, encouragement or an occasional kick-in-the-butt about your attire, Rosie was always there for you.
I can attest to that more than anyone. When my then-14-year-old son Eric almost died from encephalitis in 2005, Rosie didn’t just send flowers. In early 2006, he arranged a fundraiser the week of the Honda Classic that included all the big stars locally. Jack and Barbara. Raymond and Maria Floyd. Don Shula. Nick Price. Jesper Parnevik. Olin Browne. Bob Toski. Dana and Brett Quigley. JoAnne Carner. Tom Fazio. Jimmy Roberts, et al.
All Tim asked of me was a list of family and friends I wanted invited. He did the rest. The money raised that night enabled us to buy a wheelchair van and make the modernizations to our home.
How do you say thank you to that? It doesn’t seem enough.
Rosaforte put others before himself
That was Tim Rosaforte. As big as he became in the business, he always thought of others.
He loved attending concerts, especially the Eagles and Steely Dan, never stayed out late, rarely drank more than two beers and always was there with advice.
If Tim had a flaw, said his brother Andy, “it was he was too driven. Too much of a perfectionist.”
Not a bad flaw to have.
I occasionally walked to the Honda Media Center with Tim when we entered PGA National, but would rarely make it there with him because Rosie would be stopped by so many people. And he knew all their names.
I once asked Tim how he remembered everyone’s name. It wasn’t just because he had a good memory. “It’s just like a PGA Professional,” he said. “When a member walks in your door at 7 a.m., you better know their name.”
Everyone in golf knew Tim Rosaforte, and he knew everyone in golf.
What I wouldn’t do to call him and hear his voice. On either of his phones.
The former Palm Beach Post sportswriter, 67, was golf’s original insider.
Tim Rosaforte, who rose from a newspaper reporter to become one of the top American golf journalists, died Tuesday of Alzheimer’s Disease. The Jupiter resident was 66.
Rosaforte was only the second person in his family to go to college, using that determination to become a sports writer and eventually one of the most popular announcers on Golf Channel and NBC Sports as golf’s first true insider.
He didn’t have outrageous opinions or wasn’t a former player. Rosie, as he was known, simply told you what was happening behind the scenes, and he had the perspective to make sense of it. With his recognizable bald pate, he became almost as famous as the stars he covered.
Rosaforte rubbed shoulders with presidents, literally, and he had phone numbers to other heads of state. More importantly, he had access to the game’s superstars such as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and anyone else who mattered. Rosaforte had so many contacts, he walked around with two phones. Legendary announcer Jim Nantz said Rosaforte once had Woods on one line and Palmer on the other.
Rosaforte has been recently honored in several ways: The PGA of America made him its 12th – and first journalist — honorary member. He received last year’s Memorial Golf Journalism Award. The University of Rhode Island, where he graduated in 1977, endowed a scholarship in his name in the neuroscience department. And his hometown Honda Classic named its media room after Rosaforte and created the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Writers’ Award.
The son of a sanitation company owner in Brewster, N.Y., Rosaforte used his hard-as-tungsten work ethic and can-do personality to attend the University of Bridgeport, where he played as an undersized linebacker and on special teams. There, Rosaforte’s tenacity caught the eye of future Dallas Cowboys head coach Dave Campo, at the time an assistant.
Tim Rosaforte poses between Jack and Barbara Nicklaus during The Jake 2017 event for the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital when Tim was the emcee. (Photo: Jim Mandeville/The Nicklaus Companies)
“Tim was a good player who studied film, took angles, understood limitations, and played hard,” Campo told longtime golf writer Jaime Diaz before Rosaforte won the 2014 PGA of America Lifetime Achievement Award. “He was one of those rare athletes who almost got all of it out of himself.”
Diaz said Rosaforte read that quote and nodded. “That’s me. I took that football formula and that’s my life.”
And what a life it was. Rosaforte’s work took him to places golf fans can only dream about. He covered 147 major championships and 17 Ryder Cups at iconic golf venues such as Augusta National, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews and Oakmont. He didn’t just attend these events, he covered them like the morning dew.
Rosaforte was golf’s original “insider,” one of the first print journalists since Will McDonough to make the transition to network TV. Rosaforte worked at The Palm Beach Post from 1987-94, after stints at the Clearwater Times, Tampa Times and Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, and before moving on to Sports Illustrated and Golf World/Golf Digest.
His first TV gig was alongside veteran Jay Randolph on the old Sunshine Network in the 1990s. Rosaforte moved on to PGA Tour Sunday on USA Network in 2003 before he started appearing regularly on Golf Channel in 2007.
And we do mean regularly. If a story broke, Rosaforte would soon have the inside info.
“I’d receive a call from Tim when nobody else would call me,” said Nicklaus, who first met Rosaforte at the 1980 PGA. “He’ll say, ‘Jack, I need your opinion on something.’ Not many guys would do that.”
“I think one of the reasons Tim was so good is because he knew the game,” World Golf Hall of Famer Nick Price of Jupiter Island said. “He was very passionate about playing the game. Tim would always ask very specific questions. He always wanted to get the answers correct, and that meant a lot to me.”
In a sense, Rosaforte was like Ben Hogan; their success was based on digging – for scoops or the ball out of the dirt. Rosaforte would always make the extra call. Or four. It was in his DNA.
“There’s a lot of insiders in sports today, people like Adam Schefter, Peter Gammons and Tim Kurkjian,” said Geoff Russell, who was Rosaforte’s boss at Golf World and later at Golf Channel. “If you go back 30 years, Tim was doing that before most of them.”
Just not in the same manner.
“He was clearly the trailblazer in this role,” said Tommy Roy, NBC golf’s executive producer. “It seems like there’s so many people out there who are ‘gotcha’ writers. They find a way to rip people and attack them. Tim wasn’t like that. He was so well respected.”
Tim Rosaforte was always comfortable in a golf tournament media room.
Rosaforte gradually built trust with the players – and a list of contacts that his colleagues would dream of having. It wasn’t the number of phones; it was the phone numbers he had that was so impressive.
“I used to kid Timmy, ‘How many U.S. Presidents do you have in there?’ ” said Golf Channel host Rich Lerner. “The question should have been, ‘Who don’t you have?’ The answer was ‘nobody.’
“And he was the last person to let you know about it. He wouldn’t brag like some journalists. There is not an ounce of conceit in him.”
Getting a phone number from the world’s top golfers in the 1980s and 1990s wasn’t easy – you had to build years of credibility — and it’s more difficult these days. Rosaforte kept himself relative with today’s stars through his hard work, perspective and knowledge of the game.
“You have to know when to toe the line between knowledge that you can divulge and you can’t,” Woods said. “I think Tim has done a fantastic job of that.”
In 2013, Rosaforte actually scooped the White House press corps when he broke the story that President Barack Obama was playing golf with Woods at the Floridian in Palm City.
Rosaforte’s only error came when he met President Obama on the range. “I patted him on the shoulder when he walked over,” Rosaforte said. “I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to touch a President.”
Rosaforte wrote four books and served as the president of the Golf Writers Association of America. He was a 12-handicapper whose low-piercing shots were as direct as his opinions.
“You could always trust Timmy,” Ernie Els said. “He would ask the tough question, but he would always treat you fairly.”
Rosaforte started having memory-loss issues at the 2019 U.S. Open. He was taken off the air as doctors originally thought he was having anxiety issues. He was later diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and retired at the end of 2019.
Nantz, whose father died of Alzheimer’s, reached out to Rosaforte in 2020 to have him visit the Nantz National Alzheimer Center in Houston. Doctors determined the Alzheimer’s had advanced and decided against trying experimental treatment because of the potential side effects.
“Tim’s mind was razor sharp for so long and then, all of a sudden he was lost,” Nantz told the University of Rhode Island magazine. “Sadly, due to my own father’s own battle with this insidious disease, I know the heartache it has caused for all who love Tim. (Wife) Genevieve and the girls (Genna and Molly) have handled the caregiving side of this with beautiful grace.
“It’s the untold story of Alzheimer’s. There are more people whose lives are changed almost overnight than just the one who is suffering from the disease.”
Survivors include wife Genevieve, daughters Genna (Nick) Bezek, Molly (Mason) Colling, nephew Grayson, and grandchildren Graham, Finn and Saylor.
Tim Rosaforte won’t be covering the Honda Classic, but his presence in the media center will still be felt, this week and beyond.
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Tim Rosaforte won’t be covering the Honda Classic, but his presence in the media center will still be felt.
This week and beyond.
Honda Classic executive director Ken Kennerly announced Monday that the tournament’s media room will be named the Tim Rosaforte Media Center.
Additionally, the Honda Classic has created the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Writers’ Award with, appropriately, Rosaforte the inaugural winner.
Rosaforte, a 65-year-old Jupiter resident, retired in late 2019 after a decorated career that included a 12-year stint as Golf Channel’s “insider” after writing for publications such as Golf Digest/Golf World, Sports Illustrated and the Palm Beach Post, where he worked from 1987-94.
Not long after Rosaforte retired, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
“Tim is one of the major reasons why the tournament has grown in stature over the years,” Kennerly said. “He has been our hometown voice providing coverage both nationally and internationally.”
In addition to covering the Honda Classic since 1981, Rosaforte has served as host of the tournament’s pro-am draw and moderator for corporate events involving PGA Tour players.
“I’ve got a lot of great memories from the Honda Classic,” Rosaforte said. “Jackie Gleason riding around in his souped-up golf cart … I got to meet Joe Willie Namath the first time at a Honda. I wish I would have been there when Jack (Nicklaus) won with the five closing birdies (in 1978).
“These are two great honors I’m thrilled to receive. The Honda Classic has always been a special place for me. I hope to be there for many more.”
These are the latest in a series of awards Rosaforte has received in the last six months. The PGA of America made Rosaforte just the 12th person – and first journalist – to earn honorary membership, an award usually given to presidents and celebrities.
Rosaforte was also named the winner of this year’s Memorial Golf Journalism Award. The award was created to honor journalists who served their profession with conspicuous honor and made a significant contribution and impact on golf journalism.
“Tim has been honored by so many organizations and deservedly so,” Nicklaus said. “Barbara and I are delighted the Honda Classic has become the latest tournament to pay tribute to Tim and his wonderful career.”
Rosaforte has won more than 30 writing awards and wrote two books on Tiger Woods and another on the Ryder Cup. He also served as the president of the Golf Writers Association of America.
“Tim was in a rare group of sportswriters who had the skill to translate storytelling and reporting in print to television,” said Joe Steranka, a member of the Honda Classic’s board of directors. “That allowed him to break and cover the biggest stories in golf.
“While his stature grew nationally and internationally, Rosie never forgot his hometown here in Palm Beach County and the role the Honda Classic had in promoting the sport and raising money for charity.”
Tim Rosaforte has covered more than 150 majors. It’s his battle with Alzheimer’s, not cornavirus, that’s keeping him from the Masters.
For Tim Rosaforte, this week’s Masters will be like no other. The longtime golf journalist won’t be covering this revered tournament for the first time since 1983.
His absence has nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic that delayed the Masters to the Fall. If only it was that simple. Last month, Rosaforte was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. He has been having memory issues for about two years. Rosaforte turned 65 on Oct. 25.
Instead of keeping Golf Channel’s viewers informed throughout the week, Rosaforte will watch this Masters from his Jupiter, Florida, home. Rosaforte retired from Golf Channel last December because of the cognitive problems.
Rosaforte – or “Rosie,” a nickname he has had since high school — last visited a PGA Tour event in late February, when he was at his hometown Honda Classic at PGA National. This week is when his new world, and the diagnosis, really hits home when he stays home.
“I’ve been going to the Masters for a long time,” Rosaforte said Thursday at his Jupiter home. “I’ll miss the tournament and the golf writers award dinner, which I have emceed a lot. Nothing lasts forever. It’s time for me to take a break.
“Truth is, I missed a lot of my family while they were growing up. I now have a chance to spend more time with my family and meet their friends and get to know what great people they are. My youngest daughter, Molly, just got married to a golf professional from Old Marsh (Mason Colling).”
Cold, hard facts
Rosaforte was golf’s original “insider,” one of the first print journalists since Will McDonough to make the transition to network TV. Rosaforte worked at the Palm Beach Post from 1987-94, after stints at the Tampa Times and Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, and before moving on to Sports Illustrated and Golf World/Golf Digest.
His first TV gig was alongside veteran Jay Randolph on the old Sunshine Network in the 1990s. Rosaforte moved on to PGA Tour Sunday on USA Network in 2003 before he started appearing regularly on Golf Channel in 2007.
And we do mean regularly. Rosaforte was ubiquitous on the Golf Channel, seemingly appearing every day to update the world on any breaking news. He eschewed outrageous opinions and instead relied on cold, hard facts he uncovered through relentless reporting.
“I’d receive a call from Tim when nobody else would call me,” Jack Nicklaus said. “He’ll say, ‘Jack, I need your opinion on something.’ Not many guys would do that.”
In a sense, Rosaforte was like Ben Hogan; their success was based on digging – for scoops or the ball out of the dirt. Rosaforte would always make the extra call. Or four. It was in his DNA.
Tim Rosaforte and fellow golf journalist Larry Dorman in the media room at the British Open at St. Andrews, scotland, in 1990. (Photo: Provided)
“There’s a lot of insiders in sports today, people like Adam Schefter, Peter Gammons and Tim Kurkjian,” said Geoff Russell, who was Rosaforte’s boss at Golf World and later at Golf Channel. “If you go back 30 years, Tim was doing that before most of them.”
Rosaforte gradually built trust with the players – and a list of contacts that his colleagues would dream of having. Whenever a golf story broke, Rosaforte would call the principals involved; he would receive so many calls, he would always carry two phones so he wouldn’t miss one.
It wasn’t the number of phones; it was the phone numbers he had that was so impressive.
“I used to kid Timmy, ‘How many U.S. Presidents do you have in there?’ ” said Golf Channel host Rich Lerner. “You could start with the Presidents and work your way down to the greatest players of all time. The question should have been, ‘Who don’t you have?’ The answer was ‘nobody.’
“And he was the last person to let you know about it. He wouldn’t brag like some journalists. There is not an ounce of conceit in him.”
Getting a phone number from the world’s top golfers in the 1980s and 1990s wasn’t easy — you had to build years of credibility — and it’s more difficult these days. Rosaforte kept himself relative with today’s stars through his hard work, perspective and knowledge of the game.
Big scoop on President Obama and Tiger
Access was the key to his success. There weren’t many things going on in professional golf that Rosaforte didn’t know about. In 2013, he actually scooped the White House press corps when he broke the story that President Barack Obama was playing golf with Tiger Woods at the Floridian in Palm City.
Rosaforte’s only error came when he met President Obama on the range. “I patted him on the shoulder when he walked over,” Rosaforte said. “I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to touch a President.”
“You could always trust Timmy,” Ernie Els said at last week’s TimberTech Championship in Boca Raton. “He would ask the tough question, but he would always treat you fairly. I’ve known Timmy since the late 1980s. Man, this really hits hard.”
Early last year, his colleagues noticed Rosaforte wasn’t his normal cool, calm-headed self on the set. He was constantly looking at his notes instead of confidently delivering his message.
He was taken off the air last summer and spent the next several months seeing doctors, who initially diagnosed the problem as anxiety. After a four-month break, Rosaforte went back on air late last year, but Golf Channel officials reluctantly made the decision to announce his retirement on Dec. 19, leaving a huge void for his viewers – and Rosaforte.
“I’ll miss the competing, I won’t lie about that,” he said. “I won’t miss getting the names wrong.”
Rosaforte took great pride in knowing and remembering the names of the sports writers — many of who he mentored — as well as the crew at Golf Channel and many other folks in the golf business.
“I always admired the golf pros,” he said. “When somebody comes through the door in the morning, you need to know their names.”
Battling Alzheimer’s
CBS announcer Jim Nantz reached out to Rosaforte to invite him to the Nantz Alzheimer’s Institute in Houston last month to seek alternative treatment (Nantz’s father died of Alzheimer’s). Tests confirmed the disease and doctors decided it was best not to start Rosaforte on new medications.
“Tim is respected by everyone in golf,” Nantz said. “The sport is predicated on several basic tenets — integrity, trust, selflessness. Tim embodies all those characteristics. In a day and age where distrust of the media abounds, Tim was always respected and admired by all. He will be missed at Augusta.”
This week’s Masters will be strange enough without Rosaforte’s absence. He missed in 1983 because he married Genevieve.
“I know I’m going to miss not having him there,” Lerner said. “Tim is in his 60s and he was still out there grinding and digging like he’s a rookie and his job is on the line. That’s how you’re supposed to do it.”
In a sport where even the world’s best players make several mistakes during their round, Rosaforte rarely made one whether he was on air or continuing to write for his other publications.
“You have to know when to toe the line between knowledge that you can divulge and you can’t,” Tiger Woods said. “I think Tim has done a fantastic job of that.”
Rosaforte was taught never to ignore facts. He knows he is facing a formidable opponent in Alzheimer’s.
“I know what I have, and I know things don’t look good,” Rosaforte said. “I’m a fighter. I’m not giving up.”
Rosaforte is showing the same tenacity he did while playing as an undersized (6-foot-1, 230 pounds) linebacker at Bridgeport, then the University of Rhode Island, then during his 40-plus years as a journalist. He grew up in Brewster, N.Y., the son of a mechanic who was in the garbage business, the first of his family to graduate from college.
Former Fort Lauderdale Strikers coach Eckhard Krautzun once tried to stop Rosaforte from entering the locker room after a game because he was unhappy with a story Rosaforte had written. After a staredown, Rosaforte brushed past Krautzun to continue doing his job.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Rosaforte’s work ethic and talent earned him the PGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism in 2014. He was inducted into the South Florida PGA Hall of Fame in 2012, the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
He was president of the Golf Writers Association of America and has won more than 30 writing awards. He has written two books on Woods and another on the Ryder Cup.
The golf world has recently reached out to Rosaforte. The PGA of America announced Rosaforte would become the first journalist to receive an honorary PGA membership, usually reserved for Presidents and other celebrities.
At last week’s TimberTech Championship, Nicklaus was among many players to sign a get-well poster, a gesture that left Rosaforte emotional. Rosaforte has been covering the Golden Bear since the early 1980s and earned Nicklaus’ respect.
“I think one of the reasons Tim was so good is because he knew the game,” World Golf Hall of Famer Nick Price of Jupiter Island said. “He was very passionate about playing the game. Tim would always ask very specific questions. He always wanted to get the answers correct, and that meant a lot to me.”
Rosaforte spends his days working out, playing golf and visiting with family, friends and his grandson. He hopes to write a memoir on his career. He’s down to one phone.
Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease, as anyone who has watched a family member or friend go through it can attest. It robs someone of the most precious commodity — your memories.
For Rosaforte, that includes covering more than 150 majors and every Ryder Cup since the early 1980s. He has had an Arnold Palmer with Arnold Palmer, won a match with Raymond Floyd as his partner, has had Nicklaus’ trust for decades and many one-on-ones with Woods. With his bald pate, Rosaforte is as recognizable as many of the star golfers who live in our area.
Rosaforte knows he has lived a charmed life, one he built through hard work. Now that he’s been thrown one of life’s big curveballs, he’s not looking for sympathy.
“I don’t want people thinking I’m about to die,” he said. “At the same time, this makes me look at the fact I’m not going to live forever. I never really experienced that. But I’m optimistic. If I continue to work out and eat right, let’s see how it turns out.”
Golf Channel has announced Tim Rosaforte, 64, will retire at the end of the year, ending a 12-year stint as an Insider for Golf Channel.
Over the course of his more than 40-year career as a golf journalist, Tim Rosaforte has become one of the most respected storytellers in the sport. Golf Channel has announced that Rosaforte, 64, will retire at the end of the year, ending a 12-year stint as an Insider for the network.
Rosaforte parlayed his in-depth reporting skills as an award-winning senior writer for Golf Digest and Golf World into an on-air role with Golf Channel in 2007. By 2018, he was reporting exclusively on the top players and trends in golf for various Golf Channel shows.
Rosaforte’s debut on Golf Channel dates to the mid-1990s, which was early in the network’s history. He also was the host of PGA Tour Sunday.
“Tim Rosaforte has been a stalwart of golf journalism for more than 40 years, first as a newspaper reporter in South Florida, then as a magazine writer for Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest and Golf World, and finally as a television insider for NBC and Golf Channel,” said Geoff Russell, executive editor of Golf Channel. “As our industry evolved, Tim evolved with it. No matter the platform, he excelled and established the standard for the rest of us to try and match. Golf Channel will miss him, and so will the entire golf community. But our loss is his family’s gain. No one I know deserves a happier retirement more than Tim Rosaforte.”
Over the years @TimRosaforteGC has done it all in golf journalism. But I hope what’s not forgotten about the way he went about his business is how kind he was to young aspiring folks. Great reporter and writer. Even better dude. Thanks TRo. @GolfChannel@GolfDigest@GolfWorld
The list of Rosaforte’s accomplishments in telling the stories of golf’s biggest names and events is staggering. He reported from more than 125 majors and 17 Ryder Cups throughout his career and racked up writing awards from the Golf Writers Association of America.
He is a recipient of both the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, as well as the Lincoln Werden Journalism Award, and is the author of three books.
“It’s been a great run, but now it’s time to reset my focus from golf to family,” Rosaforte told the Golf Channel. “I’ll always have fond memories of Golf Channel and all the great people that work there.”
