Photo by Eric J. Kos

National Golf Writing Award winner and Alameda Sun columnist Ron Salsig assists an amateur golfer with club selection in the Junior Pro Shop.

The Alameda Sun's golf writer of note, Ron Salsig, recently took third place in the category of Daily (newspaper) columns in the Golf Writers Association of America's National Golf Writing Awards for 2007.

He was also recognized with honorable mention in the non-daily column category for a piece he wrote for Golf Today magazine.

Salsig's column titled, "Losing it in Q-school," ran under the column name Alameda Links.

The national award was split with a writer from The Journal News out of New Jersey.

This is not the first acheivement in golf for Salsig.

The national award-winning writer is a graduate of UC Berkeley who played for four years on the Cal golf team and served as head coach of the team for two years while attending graduate school.

He was the head pro at Tilden Park Golf Course in 1975 and played professional golf for eight years.

A car wreck in 1979 ended Salsig's pro career.

In 1983 Salsig became the founder of the John Susko Foundation, the first city-wide junior golf program in San Francisco.

Golf Digest magazine gave him their "Individual Citizenship" award for junior golf two years later, a prestigious national award presented at the World Cup Dinner.

Salsig became a writer in 1984 for Golf Today, which he continues to write for.

Jack Clark, the sports editor of the Alameda Times-Star for 62 years, served as mentor to Salsig, who eventually took over as sports editor for the paper in 1989 when Clark retired.

Salsig covered golf for the Alameda Newspaper Group until the late 1990s.

Salsig's writings have appeared in the Monterey Herald, San Francisco Examiner and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as well as the Alameda Journal.

In 2000, Salsig took first place in the Northern California Golf Association Writing Contest and he earned an honorable mention in the non-daily columns category in the 2006 National Golf Writing Awards.

Salsig has contributed to the Sun occasionally since 2002 and does so strictly for "community service."

Salsig also helps out the Junior pro golf program at the Chuck Corica Golf Complex.

But when it comes right down to it, Salsig says he's "just a golf bum."