Marino wrote the book for the 100th anniversary of our beloved Oakmont and has been a quintessential golf writer for six decades! It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
From the release:
VETERAN PITTSBURGH SPORTSWRITER MARINO PARASCENZO NAMED
RECIPIENT OF 2008 PGA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN JOURNALISM
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Marino Parascenzo of Ellwood City, Pa., whose six decades of reporting - 37 years of which were spent with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – featured more than 60 of golf’s major championships and many of sport’s pinnacle moments, has been named recipient of the 2008 PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. Parascenzo is the 19th individual to be selected. Parascenzo, 77, will be honored April 9, at the 36th Golf Writers Association of America Annual Spring Dinner
and Awards Ceremony at the Savannah Rapids Pavilion in Augusta, Ga.
“It’s an honor and a delight that The PGA of America will present this award to Marino Parascenzo, a consummate professional in all respects and someone who puts his heart and his soul into covering the game of golf,” said PGA of America President Brian Whitcomb. “Marino has been a trusted friend to PGA Professionals nationwide, and through those associations he has transferred their passion into his own work. There are few in his
profession who can achieve such a fine balance.”
“This is an award that I can’t figure out,” said Parascenzo. “I was doing something I loved. I just did it and I enjoyed every minute of it. I look at those who have been honored before me, and I ask, ‘What am I doing in this company?’ I know what they have meant to this game.”
In 1986, Parascenzo was named the 28th president of the Golf Writers Association of America, making him the second journalist from the Pittsburgh area (preceded by Bob Drum of the former Pittsburgh Press in 1959-60) to
hold that position.
Parascenzo, who has never shied from injecting fun to supplement a story, once received the approval of then-U.S. Captain Arnold Palmer to pose for a photo prior to the 1975 Ryder Cup at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier,
Pa.
Though Parascenzo failed to secure a horse for the photo, he asked that Palmer lean outside a window holding an oil lantern. The next day’s accompanying photo caption read: “The British are coming!”
Parascenzo said that he entered sportswriting by accident, when the sports editor of the Ellwood City Ledger went to another job and stopped him in the middle of the street to announce that he was the new sports editor.
Other winners include Herbert Warren Wind, Jim Murray, Frank Chirkinian, Dan Jenkins, Jack Whitaker, Jim McKay, and Ken Venturi.