Before I write this I want to tell you Ben Wright was a very good friend of mine, and I was saddened to read in another good friend Ian Hutchinson's excellent daily blog Golf News Now that he passed away following complications from a fall which broke 2 of his vertebrae at the age of 88 on August 29, 2021
I was disgusted by the way CBS, who he starred for along with his legendary producer Frank Chirkinian, and their director Chuck Will for 24 years, ended up handling an interview with a little local paper in Wilmington, and an unknown reporter Valerie Helmbreck on May 11 1995.
Now remember Ben was at the height of his colourful career, ensconced in the tower calling the action at the 15th,16th holes at Augusta, exchanging repartee with Gary McCord under the direction of Chirkinian who was the pioneer in producing TV coverage of golf that we enjoy today. He did that for 24 years, his last being after the interview in 1995.
They were all larger than life, Ben at just over 6 feet was a striking figure of a man, and his inspired vocabulary delivered with a perfectly English dialect made him the perfect golf broadcaster, especially in America at the time, along with the late great Peter Alliss. Over dinner and drinks their stories were legendary, and many about lesbians in golf were common, All of us in the media talked about it.
The Dinah Shore held every February in the California desert at Rancho Mirage was an annual lesbian pilgrimage for years, lesbian business women, lesbian hookers, lesbians looking for love, lesbians following their favourite golfers and that never made it to air on CBS or any other network covering the LPGA. In fact the private lives of LPGA players is rarely discussed on air to this day. The Dinah Events queer/lesbian line up at the Hilton Main Pool is jam packed every year including 2021.
It wasn't until Rick Reilly's hilarious best seller in 2003 "Who's Your Caddie" in his chapter with Jill McGill on the LPGA that he talks about lesbianism on tour.
So allegedly Ben got into a topic with Valerie that was taboo at the time, common place today of course, lesbianism in the LPGA. "Let's face it, lesbians in the sport hurt the women's game, they've gone to a butch game and that furthers the bad image of the game. It's not reticent, it's paraded"
He also told her "that women's boobs got in the way of their swing"...
Ben told me CBS told him to keep quiet, not to say anything and was originally backed by CBS president David Kenin.
Apparently a month later after drinks, Dan Jenkins says Ben told him he'd thought his comments were" off the record ", and soon others were pecking away at the "he said, she said".
In January 1996, Kenin gutlessly in my opinion, bowed to the continuing controversy and suspended Ben indefintely.
Ben had been re-inventing himself every since..
He had his battle with the bottle, and went through the Betty Ford Clinic shortly after he was suspended. He told me they found out vodka affected the part of his brain that was in part responsible for loosening his tongue, he vowed never to drink it again, although later in life he did enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, in his words.
To remind me how I met Ben, I went into my extensive rolodex and saw Ben's home number in England where I first called him in 1993 to come on my Fairways golf show at the Fan590.
We hit it off immediately, and he told me how he'd love to come over someday and broadcast our Canadian Open, which I helped facilitate later with my then colleague's at the RCGA.
His appearance on our Fairways show was a tremendous feather in my cap, we aired for over 20 years at 7am every Saturday morning, and our friendship grew and lasted until recent years when I retired from the broadcast business. There wasn't more than a month when I'd call him to keep up to date with our lives.
I read he was married 5 times, I first saw him doing a live broadcast from the inaugural Piccadilly World Match Play at Wentworth in 1964, a wildly popular international 8 man straight knock out over 36 holes, which Mark McCormack the new manager of Arnold Palmer and founder of IMG had set up to feature Arnie to the British public. He beat Neil Coles of England 2&1 over 36 holes that year.
Ben told me he came home from a tour in 1994, to find his wife had gone, leaving their house completely empty, I believe it was their home in Essex, England. He later settled in the hills around Spartanburg S.C happily, married to Helen (Litsas) who "revitalized his life" and who survives him in his passing, along with his daughter Margaret, 4 grandchildren and sister Susie.
Here's some things about Ben you might not know.
* during the war he served as a Russian interpreter in the British Army
* he began his career as a sportswriter in 1954 for the Daily Dispatch in Manchester, and Daily Mirror in London
* he went on to write for the Observer, Sunday Times, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Financial Times amongst others.
* he broadcast and won awards for the BBC and ITV in Britain, CBS, the USA Network, the Golf Channel, South African, Australian and New Zealand TV as well as CTV here in Canada.
* he has written books on golf cricket and soccer and his autobiography 1999 is a great read, "Good Bounces and Bad Lies"
* his own charity has raised over $7m for Mobile Meals of Spartanburg S.C.
RIP my friend, you have a whole new audience to entertain, as you did us for all those years...
Bryan Angus
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