Mark Rolfing will receive one of golf’s biggest honors on Wednesday, the Golf Writers Association of America’s William D. Richardson Award, presented annually on the eve of The Masters. Since the 1940s, the GWAA has bestowed the Richardson Award on people who have made “consistently outstanding contributions to golf.”
Past winners include a wide variety of the sport’s influencers, including Hall of Fame players, entertainers who lent their name and fame to advance the game, and even a U.S. president who was also a member of Augusta National, where Rolfing will receive the award at a dinner Wednesday.
Early winners in the 1950s range from Bing Crosby to Bob Hope, Babe Zaharias, Dwight Eisenhower, and Frances Ouimet.
More recent honorees include Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Dottie Pepper, and Johnny Miller.
Another recipient, Arnold Palmer, figures heavily in Rolfing’s ascent from cart washer at the Kapalua Resort during his early days on Maui to the man known internationally as the “Mr. Hawaii” of golf and called the best on-course commentator in golf broadcasting by USA Today.
“In one way it’s the old story,” Rolfing said. “Debi (his wife) and I came to Hawaii on vacation (in 1975) and never left.
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“I had given up on a pro golfing (playing) career and was trying to figure out what I would do. Slowly, through the ’70s, I worked my way up at Kapalua and was eventually in charge of the golf, and in effect GM of the resort.”
Rolfing is best known worldwide for his work as a golf broadcaster. And though his name is synonymous with golf in the islands and particularly on Maui, his impact on his adopted home (he is from Illinois) transcends golf. He has impacted the state of Hawaii and its economy via major sports events, especially, but not limited to golf.
In the case of Rolfing, who turned 77 last month, his influence extends far beyond the microphone, especially for Hawaii.
“His story should be told,” said Ray Stosik, who worked with Rolfing on Maui going back to the 1980s, and is now tournament director of the Sony Open in Hawaii. “He’s so low-key, most people don’t know the things that happened because of him. … Mark has always been a visionary. Always flying at 40,000 feet, thinking five years ahead.”
Rolfing views the timing of this award at The Masters as fortuitous, as he continues to try to convince the PGA Tour’s new hierarchy that two longstanding events — the Sony Open in Hawaii and the Sentry at Kapalua — are worth keeping on the annual schedule that the PGA plans to cut many events from. Realistically, at least for now, he proposes that the event tied to the PGA Tour at Waialae Country Club since 1965 will remain on the schedule for 2027.
“Hopefully I can still generate some support,” Rolfing said Saturday. “It’s not about what Mark Rolfing can do, but who Mark Rolfing can deliver. The players trust me.”
This goes back to when he was a player himself. Although Rolfing never got a PGA Tour card, he was a pro who played in several events, including the 1982 Hawaiian Open in the same field as Palmer.
As Rolfing played at Waialae, his idea for a pro event on Maui took shape.
“Here we are, one event in the state, on this private course. What if we had one on Maui, on a course that people watching on TV could actually play on someday, since it’s a public course? At first, people were pretty negative on the idea.”
But Palmer was among those who liked it, and committed to play in the first Kapalua Open, which Rolfing built from scratch, independent of the PGA Tour. Rolfing told investors he could deliver Palmer, and he did. David Ishii — the future Hawaiian Open champion and Japan Tour star from Kauai — won that tournament, and the $15,000 first-place purse.
Palmer’s willingness to support emerging events carried huge weight. The next year’s first-place award was the then-unheard-of sum of $100,000, and it was won by Greg Norman.
“His first win on American soil,” Rolfing said of the Hall of Famer from Australia. “A big turning point for us.”
The Kapalua Open and other events conceived by Rolfing in the early 1980s were not affiliated with the PGA Tour. He secured TV exposure through ESPN and NBC, with events in Hawaii as prime-time programming on the continental U.S. Because golf is a daytime sport, he turned what is normally a programming disadvantage into a positive.
Eventually, he and the PGA Tour did come to terms. One of their first joint ventures was a tournament in the Bahamas, won by Hale Irwin.
“A funny thing about that one was about half of the field was club pros from Hawaii,” Rolfing said. “And the paper there spelled Irwin’s name wrong in the headline when he won.”
Rolfing’s production company started small, with just a couple of employees, and Debi Rolfing as vice president. He made a key early hire in Sherel Stosik, who had been a top TV news producer in Honolulu.
“My wife actually worked for Mark before I did,” Ray Stosik said. “In 1985, Sherel was general manager of Rolfing Productions. My background was in construction, so when they asked me to come to work, at first it was building structures needed for golf telecasts.”
Stosik had also been a professional basketball player in Europe.
“One day, Mark said, ‘Want to do a basketball tournament?’”
A couple of meetings later with Maui parks and rec officials, Chaminade athletic director Mike Vasconcellos and basketball coach Merv Lopes, and ESPN execs in Bristol, Conn., and the Maui Invitational was born. Instead of mid or low majors, the tournament would now feature giant-slayer Chaminade and the most prominent Division I programs in college basketball.
“One of the key twists for that one was talking with coaches like Dean Smith and Bobby Knight and getting them to let the alumni fly over on the same plane as the team, stay at the same hotel as the players,” Stosik said. “That way the benefactors got a great experience, and it helped it make financial sense.”
After the first year, the tournament was moved from the War Memorial to the Lahaina Civic Center. Although capacity was less at Lahaina, it made sense because it was closer to most of the islands’ best restaurants and resorts, Stosik said.
“People said that move was crazy,” Rolfing said. “But it worked out fine.”
Like the golf tournaments, the Maui Invitational generates millions of dollars in direct visitor industry spending and marketing via sunny skies televised nationally during late fall and winter months.
Pro basketball players aren’t the only celebrities who love golf on Maui, but Rolfing and Stosik seemed to have a special bond with many of the hoops stars.
Rolfing became friends with Michael Jordan, who would spend three weeks a year playing golf on Maui (and other islands), with Rolfing, club pro Marty Keiter and others.
Nike magnate Phil Knight often brought players like Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and others to Kapalua, Stosik said.
Rolfing has always been media-friendly — reporters know him as down-to-earth, transparent and patient.
“I was pretty new, learning what was going on in the ’80s,” said retired sportswriter Ann Miller, who was beginning to cover more golf at the Honolulu Advertiser. “He was really good to work with. Also, you think business guy, maybe not someone I’d want to hang out with. Turns out the opposite, a great guy to hang out with.”
Rolfing’s broadcasting career was probably inevitable, but it started without him trying. He was a TV interview subject during an unexpected long delay in play at a tournament and it turned into an unintended audition tape.
By 1986, he “was traveling all over,” as an announcer for 20 events, while his company was continuing to grow and start new golf tournaments, including numerous LPGA and senior events.
“I really shifted gears in 1989,” said Rolfing, who turned over his company to the employees. “My Hawaii focus went from being an entrepreneur to being in effect a politician.”
Actually, he has never run for public office, though he has been asked more than once. But he was an appointee to the state’s newly formed Hawaii Tourism Authority, and served as chairman of events. Among other things, he worked on negotiations for the state with the NFL’s Pro Bowl, which was held in Hawaii nearly every year for four decades since 1980.
Rolfing’s biggest personal challenge came in the summer of 2015, when he was diagnosed with stage IV salivary gland cancer. After radiation treatment, in January, 2016 he announced via text message, “Mucho tears in Houston. Cancer is 100% gone. Miracle”
In 2017, Mark and Debi Rolfing received the PGA’s Distinguished Service Award for their “growth-of-the-game initiatives.” But this honor was more than just about growing a game, it was also about growing infant children; the Rolfings are licensed foster parents who have provided cradle care for dozens of newborns while they await adoption placement or reuniting with birth parents.
Now, nine years later — and three decades after he quietly built an empire — Rolfing will receive another major award. He hopes this one will help in his efforts to save at least part of the PGA Tour’s Hawaii Swing. He knows he can’t do it alone, but he also knows it falls on him to lead the charge — and to know when to use his clout and when finesse is the right tool.
“I like to fish,” he said Saturday. “What I am doing right now is throwing net, which is quite difficult. Everyone thinks it’s important how you throw the net. Not really. It’s how you bring the net in. You have to pull it all in at the same time, and if you pull in one side too fast, all the fish get away. I’m throwing net and trying to pull everyone together.”
2026 GWAA Annual Awards
(Honoring 2025 season)
>> William D. Richardson Award (Outstanding contribution to golf):Mark Rolfing
>> Ben Hogan Award (Continued active in golf despite physical handicap/illness): Bud Cauley
>> Jim Murray Award (Cooperation/accommodation to the media): Stacy Lewis
>> Charlie Bartlett Award (Unselfish contribution to society): Brandt Snedeker