Michigan Golf Hall of Fame Inductees  

Jack Berry

Jack Berry is a renowned sports writer who honed his ability reporting sports in the Detroit area. Beginning his sports writing career with the UPI, United Press International, in Detroit, he went on to write for both the Free Press and the Detroit News. A talented writer, Jack covered most sports and all of our national sports teams. Covering golf for many years allowed Jack to bear witness to some of the great events in golf. Jack also loved writing about amateur golf and covered the Michigan Amateur for several years. For committee service on the Michigan Golf Summits I and II, he received an Outstanding Service Award.

Jack wrote about Michigan golf for 40 years. During this time, he had a strong, national influence on promoting the sport for all golfers. He served for more than ten years on the Board of Directors of the National Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), two years in the mid ’80s as President and eight years in the ‘90s as Secretary-Treasurer. As President in 1984, he successfully intervened with Augusta National Golf Club Chairman, Hord Hardin, to lift the ban on female reporters in the Masters’ locker room.

Golf throughout the state of Michigan benefited from Jack Berry’s powerful pen. He advanced the promotion of golf in our state by writing the Guide to Michigan Golf, first published in 1991 and updated in 1993. He followed this in 1992, with an influential inside back cover column for Golf World entitled, "A Convincing Case for Michigan: When it comes to golf, this Northern state is state of the art." Jack also used his skills to promote and publicize the formation of the Michigan Women’s Publinx Golf Association and the Metro Detroit Executive Women’s Golf Association. He is a regular contributor to the Michigan Golfer and Chicagoland Golf. The GAM Distinguished Award in 1997 acknowledged his wealth of contributions to amateur golf and more than three decades of writing that inspired the growth and maintained the popularity of golf in Michigan.

Since retiring, he freelances for national and local golf publications. Locally, he serves as the GWAA’s representative at Michigan State University, interviewing journalism students as prospective scholarship recipients. He hosts an annual celebrity golf day fundraiser for the Friends of Wayne County Parks Committee. He has four bright, beautiful and loving daughters with whom he is very close.