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my mind," Wright says excitedly. "Here is a man who announced before the championship that he was here in Scotland to win the championship and that this would be his only appearance in the championship [the British Open conficted with the PGA Championship, which was match play at the time. Hogan didn't play the PGA Championship because he didn't feel his legs were strong enough to walk a potential ninety holes.] And he wouldn't be back to defend. And he did it! I knew right then that I had to be around golf for the rest of my life." Armed with an education from the Felsted School in Essex and a degree in English language, literature, and Russian, plus work as a Russian interpreter in the British Army (when he wasn't going AWOL to watch golf tournaments), Wright set out for a trip down the yellow brick road in the world of media. Who wouldn't want to hire a man with those credentials? "I was in the service in 1953 and I was based near enough to Carnoustie to get to the course and watch the Open Championship. I had to watch this American, Ben Hogan, play." The CBS golf commentary team at The Masters. (back row, left to right) Bobby Clampett, Verne Lundquist, Jim Nelford, Ben Wright, Bill Macatee, Peter Kostis. (front row) Jim Nantz, Ken Venturi and Tom Weiskopf. Everyone. He found his road to writing success flled with the potholes. Unfortunately, this stress instead of success claimed Wright's marriage as collateral damage. Finally, Wright became an offcial, card-carrying sportswriter. He started at the Daily Dispatch in Manchester, which led to the Daily Mirror in London. The next step was another stint as a freelance writer with the added position of broadcaster. The next fve years gave Wright a world of exposure. He wrote weekly columns for national U.K. papers the Observer and the Sunday Times. Wright shares a story of his early days in television. "I was part of a show on Granada Television in the early sixties called Scene at 6:30," Wright says with a smile. "My main responsibility was to produce twenty minutes of sports a week. The network owner, Sidney Bernstein, was a genius, but he hated sports, so it was twenty minutes a week. He did want music, though, and I had to take care of that. "I had a regular singer, Val Doonican, who was popular at that time," Wright explains. "One day, Van called in with terrible laryngitis, so now I have to fnd someone to step in his place." Ben Wright with enterWright rallied the troops, tainer Sammy pleading with them to fnd Davis, Jr. in someone. As the afternoon wore Las Vegas. on, there was still no singer for that night's show. "Finally, one of the produc-