Jim Dodson, longtime golf writer and author, has been selected the 2011 Donald Ross Award recipient by the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA).

The award will be presented May 15 at the Donald Ross Banquet during the 65th ASGCA annual meeting in Denver.

The award is named for ASGCA's first honorary president and is presented to an individual who has made a positive contribution to golf and golf course architecture.

"This award means so much to me for two reasons," Dodson said. "First, I grew up playing the Old Donald Ross Course in Greensboro. His was one of the first names I knew when I began reading about golf. And second, so many of my heros have won the award."

Dodson, an award-winning author, is Sunday essayist for The Pilot and editor of PineStraw magazine. He has served as senior writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday Magazine and Yankee Magazine, and previously wrote "The Golf Life" column for Golf magazine.

His work has appeared in more than 50 publications worldwide, and he has won more than a dozen awards from the Golf Writers Association of America.

"Jim is a real friend of the game of golf and is well-respected by his peers and readers of golf literature," said ASGCA President Erik Larsen. "He has written biographies of some of the legends of our game. Jim also has a great understanding of the economic, environmental and social value a golf course provides to a community.

"His books about his relationships with his father and son and how they've been enhanced by sharing the game of golf - 'Final Rounds' and 'A Son of the Game' - articulate the importance of and philosophy behind the social aspect of the game. Ours is a game passed from one generation to the next, and Jim's writing will last for generations."

Dodson, who calls himself a golf everyman who celebrates the ordinariness of the game, said he is honored to receive the award.

"It is about the people who made a contribution to the game - not the Tour, not the fame, but to the game you and I know," he said.

The Donald Ross Award was established in 1976. Its first recipient was one of ASGCA's founding fathers, Robert Trent Jones.

Previous winners include professional golfers Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, architect Pete Dye, golf writers Herb Warren Wind, Charlie Price and Ron Whitten, and Dick Taylor, editor of Golf World magazine.

ASGCA's Donald Ross Award Committee is led by Past President Rees Jones.

Contact Tom Embrey at tembrey@thepilot.com.