By Tom LaMarre – Courtesy The Sports Xchange
Mark Rolfing, one of the most talented and respected golf commentators in the game, will be back on the air next month after a cancer scare.
The 65-year-old Rolfing, who underwent a 7 1/2-hour operation to remove a malignant tumor after he was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer in July, will return for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua on Jan. 7-10.
“It wouldn’t feel like the Tournament of Champions or the Sony Open without him,” executive producer Molly Solomon of Golf Channel said of Rolfing, who lives in Kapalua.
“He’s so happy. He sends me pictures once a week showing how healthy and happy he is. I do worry that he’ll overwork himself, but he assures me this is the healing he needed.”
Rolfing discovered a small lump on his cheek below his ear on July 1 and believed it was part of a sinus infection, but the diagnosis was Stage 4 salivary gland cancer.
After surgery, he underwent six weeks of proton radiation at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, a sophisticated treatment aimed at a target on his face to avoid damage to his mouth and his brain.
“It was a jolt,” said Rolfing, who played pro golf briefly in the 1970s before becoming the head professional at Kapalua “I look back on it now, I don’t even know how I really coped with it at the time.
“Debi (his wife) was a rock at that moment and has been ever since. She helped me through the diagnosis.”
Rolfing played in the Kapalua International (now the Hyundai) from 1982 until 1997, when it switched from an unofficial event at the end of the year to the official start of the PGA Tour’s new year.
That’s how he got his break to get into broadcasting.
“The first year we had Isuzu as a sponsor (1991), to create some excitement they put up a car for closest to the pin on the 17th hole, and I won it,” Rolfing recalled. “They brought me to the booth. Don Ohlmeyer was the producer and he had me back as a guest for three days.
“In those days, if you hadn’t won a major championship … those were the only analysts. They offered me a tryout the next week in Palm Springs in the World Cup.”
NBC Sports hired him two years later, and he is approaching 30 years in television, also working with NBC’s partner, Golf Channel.
Rolfing worked with the Golf Channel crew leading up to the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., in August, but left the day before the start of the final major of the year and drove two hours to Chicago for the operation.
Obviously, he can’t wait to get back.
“I cannot believe how good it is to hear my voice,” Rolfing said. “And I cannot believe what kind of miracle I received.
” … I was motivated not to do anything but get better. I was worried. ‘What if this was the last Kapalua for me?’ One thing I would never want to have happen is to not be able to go up there.”
Rolfing has a PET scan scheduled in Houston after the Hawaii swing to see if the cancer indeed is gone.
Tom LaMarre has been a sportswriter and copy editor for more than 50 years, including 15 years with the Oakland Tribune and 22 with the Los Angeles Times. He was the Tribune’s beat writer for the Oakland Raiders for seven seasons in the 1970s, highlighted by their 32-14 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and collaborated on a book, Winning Offensive Football, with quarterback Ken Stabler. He also covered the Oakland Athletics when they won three consecutive World Series during the 1970s and the Golden State Warriors when they won the NBA championship in the 1974-75 season. With the Times, he wrote columns on golf, football and skiing. These days, he is the Golf Editor for The Sports Xchange. LaMarre graduated from Skyline High in Oakland and attended the University of San Francisco.