An answer presented to contestants during Thursday’s edition of “Jeopardy!” featured a familiar face — especially to everyone at USA TODAY Sports.
The $600 answer, part of a category celebrating 40 years of USA TODAY, read: “Stories by USA TODAY’s Christine Brennan helped get this golf club to admit its first female members in 2012.”
Thanks! 😉 https://t.co/YoSv7XGwgo
The question — and here’s your spoiler warning — would be: “What is Augusta?”
Brennan, who has been writing about Augusta National since 1999, wrote a series of columns and one particularly poignant piece in 2002. The column spurred years of public debate regarding the club’s lack of female members.
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“As an opinionated journalist — a columnist — I’m thrilled that sex discrimination in golf has finally become an issue,” Brennan said in a 2003 interview with Sports Illustrated. “It’s a very good dialogue for the sport to be having.”
Ten years after that column, Brennan broke the news that Augusta National admitted its first female members in 2012.
Brennan, who joined USA TODAY in 1997, has been honored as one of the country’s top 10 sports columnists three times by the Associated Press Sports Editors and has covered the last 18 Olympic Games — summer and winter — for USA TODAY Sports.
Previous stops in Brennan’s career include the Miami Herald and Washington Post. She was the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM).
Brennan has also authored seven books. Her 2006 sports memoir, “Best Seat in the House,” is the only father-daughter memoir written by a sports journalist. Her 1996 national best-seller, “Inside Edge: A Revealing Journey into the Secret World of Figure Skating,” was named one of the top 100 sports books of all-time by Sports Illustrated. She also serves as a commentator for CNN, ABC News, PBS NewsHour and NPR’s Morning Edition.
Brennan won the prestigious Red Smith Award in March 2020, presented annually to a person who has made major contributions to sports journalism.
“I’ve been so fortunate to know or work with quite a few of the Red Smith Award winners over the years,” Brennan said after winning the award. “They have been my role models, my editors and my mentors, so to join them is very humbling.”
