Some gut punches stay with you, sending a pain that tears deep and dulls your senses so that even one year later you feel the reverberations. The death of Jeff Babineau is a prime example.

Friend, colleague, editor, traveling companion, confidant, soulmate . . . he filled many roles in my world. Babs’ passion for golf was in the same orbit as mine and when we met a story that ignited our emotions we rarely went anywhere with it till talking it over with one another. His vote of confidence was most crucial and my guess is, he thought similarly.

When Babs died on Dec. 9, 2024 at 62, tears were relentless and what consumed me was a slide-show of memories that kept playing in my mind – from drinking coffee at 2 a.m. while getting major championship stories written, to a wild ride through the Scottish countryside to attend a Springsteen concert in Glasgow, to watching him “work the range” at Bay Hill which he could do like no other scribe.

Lord, how my awe for him overflowed while watching him chat with caddies, equipment reps, agents, and volunteers. Yet his humility was immense and he’d turn and ask: “Jimmy Mac, whatcha working on?”

So, okay, here’s what has consumed me in recent days. Archives. Specifically, browsing through an assortment of stories written by Babs during his wildly productive golf-writing career. Why? Because he had such a wonderful touch, because he treated the game and the people in it with respect and because, well, because reading Babs is great for the soul and it helps ease the pain of not being able to talk to Babs.

A small sampling follows.

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His lead in the Orlando Sentinel to arguably the most significant of Tiger Woods’ 15 major wins, the first one at the 1997 Masters:

“The final par putt evaporated into the hole, and Tiger Woods, energized by the moment, delivered one, then two roundhouse right uppercuts that cut through the Georgia air as he stood on the 18thgreen at Augusta National Golf Club.

“Didn’t he realize that he already had delivered his knockout blow, soundly humiliating and lapping a world-class field by 12 shots enroute to setting a tournament scoring record at the 61st Masters?

“Kids today.”

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This one brought a huge smile to my face, because it captured the essence of our love of golf-writing – one, the joy of traveling to meet new stories; and two, the fact that the best writers are those who are devoid of ego and feel blessed to have such a job.

Writing a “year in review” for Golfweek in 2017, Babs was in form after having “hopscotched Planet Earth to chronicle this great game, which I feel quite privileged to do.”

He loved being at the Latin America Amateur at “The Teeth of the Dog” in the Dominican Republic and while he wrote about eventual winner Paul Chaplet of Costa Rica, Babs had a warm and loving heart with an innate talent for finding those human-interest stories such as Jacklin Jean of Haiti. Correctly assuming no one had heard of this golfer, Babs let us in on an engaging story:

“A father of five, (Jean) had just taken up golf, hitting balls in a field, as some of his children shagged them. He beat five players in a qualifier to get to the LAAC using three clubs: an 8-iron, a pitching wedge, and a putter.

“The staff at Casa de Campo took such a liking to Jean that it gave him a bag with his name stitched on it, and somebody gave him his first full set of irons. Yes, we grow this game one player at a time. Judging from his huge grin, Jean was happy to be a small part of it.”

Most times, Jeff Babineau would drive about a half-hour from his house to have an audience with Arnold Palmer at the Bay Hill Club. But on a very special assignment, Babs visited Palmer's longtime home in Latrobe, Penn., and it led to memories that he savored forever.

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Is there a better “hometown” tournament to have than what the Orlando Sentinel beat guy had? You know, the one hosted by Arnold Palmer? Of course not, so it’s no surprise that Babs shared a special relationship with The King and these words written early in 2020 – about 3 ½ years after Palmer’s death and in the early days of the pandemic – are so good:

“Arnold Palmer was a wise man. He once said that if everyone in the world played golf, we would not have wars. He was probably right. He usually was. Wanting to hang on to his kindness and generosity and ideals in these times is not so much a marketing hook for a tournament as it is a throwback call to civility and just plain being nice to one another. Palmer tried to be kind to every person, big or small, who crossed his path. Wouldn’t it be great if, for more than just this week, we all could channel our inner Arnie? It is somewhere deep within all of us, no?”

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One of Babs’ last stories, written late in November a few weeks before he died:

“While her peers chase wins on the LPGA, Nelly Korda is chasing something even more meaningful: History. Hey, some play chess when others are playing checkers, right? That’s Korda.

“On Sunday, a five-birdie dash (11-15) at the start of the back nine would stake her to a round of 3-under 67 and lead to her seventh victory of the season. Korda outdistanced her closest competitors by three shots, shooting 14-under 266 to capture The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican for the third time in four seasons.”

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So many PGA Tour members lived in Orlando during the days Babs was the beat guy for the Sentinel that it was crucial you got to know them. An easy task for the big man; everyone loved Babs.

He became friends with Payne Stewart. He knew another two-time U.S. Open winner, Lee Janzen, from their college days at Florida Southern. That Stewart and Janzen were friends was at the heart of a touching memory Babs wrote about when contributed to Golfweek’s special look-back at the 1999 jet mishap in which Stewart died.

“(After covering the Disney tournament at which Stewart missed the cut) I ran into Stewart while at Dr. Phillips High School to watch my oldest son play a Pop Warner football game. Payne’s son, Aaron, was playing for Dr. Phillips. I can picture Payne as if it were yesterday. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and a blue SMU cap, in his full glory all riled up talking about his son’s position change that week. It was the last time I’d see him.

“Two days later, I was in the Golfweek offices when a call came in that there was a private jet in distress, and that a prominent PGA Tour player was on board. We quickly flipped on CNN. The caller told me he thought it was Lee Janzen, an old college buddy of mine. So I called Janzen’s cell phone, hoping the news wasn’t true, and was relieved to hear his voice. And then he said these chilling words: ‘It’s Payne.’ ”

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A few emails have been saved, some silly back-and-forth text messages, too. One funny one still makes me laugh – screen-saving media guide photos of Aaron Baddeley, Cameron Smith, and Stuart Appleby, all with wildly long and disheveled hair, Babs quipped: “Do they have barbers in Australia?”

We loved golf, being at tournaments, talking to players and caddies, and seeing our stories through to the end. Most of all, we cherished our friendship and the fabric that tied it all together was our devotion to a fraternity of those who had a passion for the written word.

Miss him terribly. But still read his words with a smile on my face. Which prompts me to add – 30 –

(He’d know.)