Mark Rolfing may well be the reason for the professional golf season in Hawaii. This Christmas Eve, he is grateful for a miracle far beyond the game that means so much to him.
He will be home to work the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in two weeks, as The Golf Channel’s tower analyst. More than 30 years ago he introduced the PGA Tour to Kapalua, where he lives on the fifth hole of the Bay Course, was a partner in the original hotel and the primary inspiration behind the building of the Plantation Course, where the TOC is played.
Rolfing will stay home to work the Sony Open in Hawaii (Jan. 14-17) and the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai (Jan. 21-23), which kicks off the Champions Tour season.
Three days later, he returns to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for a series of tests to determine if his Stage 4 salivary gland cancer, discovered this summer, is gone after surgery and six weeks of radiation.
“I think I beat it, but it’s not for sure …,” Rolfing says. “In the meantime, my doctors are all coming out to the (Hyundai) tournament and they have a big advertisement. I don’t think they would do that if they weren’t optimistic.”
Rolfing, inducted into the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame in 2000, is not a changed man, though he admits the “need to be careful politically went down the tubes with my diagnosis.”
He has always lived for the moment and loved his diverse friends and blessed life.
The son of the late president of Wurlitzer Piano and Organ Company grew up in the Chicago area and has lived in Pebble Beach, Kapalua and a historical lodge in Montana with wife Debi. She is now back on Maui with her beloved “angel babies,” providing foster care for infants — many suffering from medical problems — before they are adopted or reunited with their birth mothers. She never left Mark’s side the last six difficult months.
“I really don’t need anything for Christmas,” Mark says with uncharacteristic deliberation. “I got the miracle of all time, and friends who really care.
“More than anything, I realized there is no game in the world like golf. I realized that because of my extended family in golf, how they supported me and who I heard from … All that inspired me so much.”
There were hundreds, including former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who suffered from the same cancer, which he attributed to years of chewing tobacco.
“He had gone through it and ended up in the hospital with a feeding tube for months,” Rolfing said. “The whole thing was, he told me he was not a good patient. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do and he said a good patient can beat this thing.”
Rolfing did absolutely everything the doctors asked. He is still exercising three times a day and flossing and gargling even more to keep infections away, and keep that distinctive voice intact.
Rolfing has been considered the face of Hawaii golf since he started the Kapalua International offseason event in 1982. He was instrumental in bringing the TOC to the resort 17 years later and creating the professional Hawaii golf season, which now stands at four including the LPGA in April.
Rolfing is also the most memorable voice of the game in Hawaii, thanks to his work with ABC, ESPN, TGC — tournaments and Morning Drive and Golf Central — and NBC.
He fell into that career 30 years ago and has been hooked since. Coming back to Kapalua was a goal when he started his cancer therapy, but so was going back to work. How many people say that?
“It’s all such a part of me. There’s only so much TV I could watch the last six months without jumping out of my chair and offering an opinion,” says Rolfing, 66. “That’s become me, later in life.
“The whole TV broadcast analyst thing happened later in my life and career. I know I have a limited amount of time and obviously this whole cancer diagnosis jolted me pretty hard, but it made me realize I’ve got to do exactly what I want to do now for the rest of my life.”
He calls 2016 an “epic” year for golf. NBC is covering the U.S. Open championship for the first time and he is going to Brazil for Olympic golf and Hazeltine in Minnesota for Ryder Cup.
“For me to have that opportunity, given where I was six months ago, is unbelievable,” Rolfing says. “I have to take advantage of that.”
Along with Wednesday, Dec. 30, when Jordan Spieth and a few more of Rolfing’s golf buddies arrive on Maui for what he calls “the best field in the history of Hyundai.”
“I’m looking forward to the 30th,” Rolfing says. “That will be a great moment and day for me. Everybody comes, all the colleagues I’ve missed whether they are players or broadcasters or media, you name it. They are all coming for a different reason, but I get a chance to say hi and take a listen.
“I’m back.”
