It may not be appreciated quite how strong the tradition of women writing about golf in national newspapers has been in the United Kingdom.
Liz Kahn was the forerunner on the The Daily Telegraph in the 1960s, when she covered men’s professional golf because there was no women’s professional golf. Enid Wilson, who won the British Women’s Amateur championship three times in a row from 1931, wrote about women’s golf on the same paper. Patricia Davies, who was married to the late Dai Davies of The Guardian, wrote for The Times, mainly about women’s golf. Elspeth Burnside was an ever-present freelance contributor at golf events in the days when newspapers printed more golf than they do now. Lauren St John, now an author of popular children’s books, covered golf for The Sunday Times for a decade towards the end of the last millennium.
But the most eminent name and female voice on golf matters in the United Kingdom for years has been that of Lewine Mair, my Global Golf Post colleague who has just been named the 2025 recipient of the PGA of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, the third GGP contributor to be so honoured after this writer in 2013 and Ron Green Jr. in 2023. Mair is the only woman to have been appointed golf correspondent – not women’s golf correspondent – of a British national newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.
“Lewine, Patricia and I travelled together in the States a little,” Kahn said. “We were quite a threesome. She was a joy to work with, very helpful, very chatty. She has a very nice way of expressing herself. She is amazing at finding stories. Patricia was very interested in clothing and Lewine was very good at assisting her. I was very interested in minerals and the other two helped me with that.”
Davies said: “Lewine was always encouraging me to spend my money on expensive clothes in expensive shops in places like Palm Springs, but I got my own back on her when she had grandchildren and I would find expensive clothes for her to buy for them.
“I have huge admiration for Lewine because she was juggling so many balls,” Davies continued. “She had four children. She worked non-stop and she looked after Norman [her husband]. She is a very good sniffer out of stories, has a good sense of mischief and talks to people. And when you talk to people you get stories.
“It would not be unfair to say she can’t cook. She’s a rubbish cook, but that’s because it doesn’t interest her and she is so good at so many other things. She is a gifted artist, she can play the piano beautifully and she was a very good golfer. In fact, she is sickeningly talented.”
“I won £70 in my first tournament and was given a cheque by that very nice man Barry Edwards – and the cheque bounced.” — Lewine Mair
Mair wrote columns and profiles for Women & Golf magazine for 15 years. “I loved working with her,” Alison Root, a former editor of the magazine, said. “We had a great working relationship. What struck me about Lewine was the way she can glean information that other writers can’t. She asks unusual questions with such a charming smile and look of innocence on her face that no one can take offence.”
Mair’s success as a woman in a predominantly man’s world and her standing among mainly male golf writers is such that she is the current president of the Association of Golf Writers, having been chairman from 2007-10. She was always concerned about the comfort of golf writers who spend hours at their desks each day and was a member of a small and select AGW committee appointed to improve the quality of the seating in the press room. As such she became known as the “chair person” of the chair committee of the AGW. This desire to find comfortable chairs is why to this day she can often be seen typing away while perched atop two, sometimes three, chairs.
She is known also for having a less than strong grasp of technology, for making and receiving telephone calls to discuss golf from improbable places such as her hairdresser’s chair, and for loving cats almost as much as her four children, six granddaughters and one grandson. It should not be forgotten that she was among the first women golf professionals at the start of the Ladies European Tour. “I won £70 in my first tournament and was given a cheque by that very nice man Barry Edwards – and the cheque bounced,” she said.
When Norman, her late husband and himself a distinguished sports journalist, was in a care home, Lewine used to go and play the piano to the residents. Later, she wrote an acclaimed book about this – Tapping Feet: A Double-take on Care Homes and Dementia.
At golf events Mair’s modus operandi was to move around quietly, pricking her ears for a good line, seeing and not always telling and always asking the last question in a quite conspiratorial way. A straw hat might be on her head, a notebook would be in her hand, a cup of decaffeinated tea, coffee or a glass of water not far from her desk on which rested her telephone.
I know this because for years she and I were rivals, she on The Daily Telegraph and I on The Times. When Michele, her daughter, began working in golf for the International Management Group and thus appeared often at golf events, I felt surrounded by Mairs and referred to Michele as “DomDR” – daughter of my deadly rival.
I soon realised Lewine had certain habits just as I am sure she noticed mine. When her telephone rang she would pick up the receiver with the speed of light. It might have been her office but it might also have been a son or daughter or a grandchild, and if it was a family member a smile would spread over her face. Often those conversations would be terminated rather abruptly with Lewine saying: “Sorry. Got to go and interview Tiger Woods (or Nick Faldo or Colin Montgomerie). Talk later.”