Westchester native Jimmy Roberts was presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the Metropolitan Golf Association at the organization’s annual meeting December 7. The accomplished broadcaster was chosen for the award based on his “distinguished service to golf and its related activities, consistent with the valued standards and honorable traditions of the game.”
Roberts, a 13-time Emmy winner who has covered the World Series, Super Bowl, and Winter Olympics as well as golf, traces his interest in the sport to his upbringing in Westchester. “I’m a 914 guy,” he says. “I learned to play golf at a club in the Met Area, I caddied at clubs in the Met Area, I belong to MGA clubs. I’ve had close friends who have been administrators and professionals here. I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.” Roberts was raised in White Plains and currently lives in Rye.
Westchester Country Club is Roberts’ home course, although his hectic schedule covering the PGA Tour for NBC and the Golf Channel precludes as many rounds as he’d like to play. He’s also busy contributing to the game through extensive volunteer activities for the MGA. “His answer has always been ‘yes’ whenever we’ve asked for his help,” says MGA Executive Director Jay Mottola. Roberts has lent his talent to voice-overs for the MGA’s caddie-training video and assisted with the Met PGA Section’s Educational Forum. He also serves on the board of the Met Golf Writers Association and freely uses his contacts to bring major talents like Davis Love III to the association’s annual dinner.
The Distinguished Service Award was created in 1973 and has been awarded to luminaries such as Robert Trent Jones, Sr., Lowell Schulman, Dave Anderson, David B. Fay, and Jim Nantz.
Also honored at the dinner at Westchester Country Club was 2016 MGA Player of the Year Stewart Hagestad, a California native currently living in New York City. The 25-year-old champion not only won the Met Amateur but made his mark nationally with a gritty come-from-behind win at the U.S. Mid-Amateur championship played at Stonewall in Elverson, PA.
