Walter Adams Bingham, Jr. (August 27, 1930 – May 13, 2020) was an American sportswriter and golf historian.

Early life

Bingham was born on August 27, 1930, in Orange, New Jersey. He graduated from The Hill School in

Pottstown, Pennsylvania Pottstown is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Pottstown was laid out in 1752–53 and named Pottsgrove in honor of its founder, John Potts. The old name was abandoned at the time of the incorporation as a borough in 1815. In 1888 ...

, attended

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

for one semester before moving to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

where he took courses at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and worked as a

copy boy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the ''Herald Sun'' who began work there ...

at the

Los Angeles Examiner The ''Los Angeles Examiner'' was a newspaper founded in 1903 by William Randolph Hearst in Los Angeles, California. The afternoon ''Los Angeles Herald-Express'' and the morning ''Los Angeles Examiner'', both of which had been publishing in the ...

. During the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

he enlisted with the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

Career

Bingham was a writer and editor at ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' from 1955-1989. During his career at ''Sports Illustrated'' he covered tennis, baseball, golf, college football and bridge. In 1982, he was named Assistant Managing Editor. In 1983, Bingham left ''Sports Illustrated'' to join ''Time'' magazine at the request of its Managing Editor, Ray Cave. There, he helped organize coverage of the 1984

Winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...

and

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

. In 2002, Bingham joined the '' Cape Cod Times'' as a sports columnist. His primary topic is

PGA PGA is an acronym or initialism that may stand for: Aviation * IATA code for Page Municipal Airport, Coconino County, Arizona * ICAO designator for Portugália, regional airline based in Lisbon, Portugal * Abbreviation for Prince George Airport ...

golf, but he also muses on life on

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

and

running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is ...

Running

In 1963, while covering the

Boston Marathon The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was i ...

for ''Sports Illustrated'', it dawned on Bingham that here was a major sporting event which the average man could enter. On lunch hours he trained for the race after the summer of 1964 in the W. 63rd Street YMCA in New York. With only about 350 runners, Bingham ran Boston in 1965 in 3:45 and finished 200th. His personal best was 3:22 in 1966. He finished the

New York Marathon The New York City Marathon (currently branded TCS New York City Marathon after its headline sponsor) is an annual marathon () that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is the largest marathon in the world, with 53,627 finishe ...

in 3:36 in 1980. In 1981, he finished with a personal best of 3:13. He explained his unusual improvement running over the age of 50, "The nice thing about this sport, is that you always seem to improve as long as you keep working at it." In 1976, with his wife Betty, he co-founded the Port Washington Thanksgiving Day Five Mile race as a fund-raiser for the Save our Sports program for the local high school. In 2008, over 2000 runners participated in the event benefitting local charities.

Death

Bingham died of

chronic lymphocytic leukemia Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). Early on, there are typically no symptoms. Later, non-painful lymph node swelling, feeling tired, fever, nigh ...

on May 13, 2020.

References

External links

Walter Bingham Portal, Cape Cod Times

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bingham, Walter 1930 births 2020 deaths American magazine journalists American sportswriters