Jeff Babineau, recipient of PGA Lifetime Award, remembered by colleagues

AUGUSTA, Ga. – I didn't fully appreciate how much Jeff Babineau meant to me until he was gone. Babs, as many of us called him, died Dec.

9, 2024, at his home in Oviedo, Florida. He was 62 and left behind a loving wife, three children and countless friends and admirers of his work. It was only after I no longer could call or text him that I realized how much I relied on him as a sounding board, as a mentor, as someone who had showed me the ropes at Golfweek when I first made the crew that attended majors.

[Reading back through our text string brings a wave of smiles, chuckles and eventually tears whenever I do so. ] Babineau, longtime editor of Golfweek and a senior writer before that, was one of the industry's most recognizable and revered figures. He covered hundreds of tournaments on the PGA Tour and LPGA, as well as more than 100 major championships and 12 Ryder Cups.

He was named the 35th recipient of the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, and his career will be celebrated Wednesday at the 52nd annual ISPS Handa GWAA Awards Dinner at Augusta Country Club. Being at the Masters this week brings back memories of accompanying him one year to an Under Armour party, where I watched a master work a room of agents and player managers before hanging with Jordan Spieth's father. He knew everyone in golf.