Gary Baines

Gary Baines has spent nearly 40 years as a sports writer in Colorado, covering all sports, but recently focusing primarily on golf — the game that helped the former Columbine Country Club caddie (who looped for Jack Nicklaus during a 1981 exhibition at Pinehurst) earn an Evans Scholarship at the University of Colorado.

Prior to graduating with a journalism degree, Baines interned at the Littleton Independent and the Boulder-based Daily Camera, which hired him and where he would work for 25 years. He eventually rose to the position of sports editor, a position he held for six years. In 2008, he devoted himself mainly to covering golf, founding ColoradoGolfJournal.com, which led to him becoming a year-round contributor to ColoradoGolf.org, the Colorado Golf Association’s website, often filing and photographing multiple stories per day during the height of the golf season.

In addition to many CGA, CWGA and junior golf tournaments, USGA qualifiers and numerous other events, Baines has covered every Colorado Open since 1983, all 21 Internationals at Castle Pines, two U.S. Opens, one PGA Championship, one BMW Championship, three U.S. Women’s Opens, a Solheim Cup, four senior majors, two U.S. Amateurs and many other USGA championships. His work has resulted in a half-dozen Colorado golf journalism awards from such organizations as the CGA, Colorado PGA and the Colorado Open Golf Foundation. He also earned the 2019 Robert Kirchner Award for “outstanding contributions to the game of golf in the state of Colorado.”

In August 2022, Baines was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.