by Fred Seely
Special to the Daily Record
You may know attorney Doug Milne but Tiger Woods doesn’t.
But Tiger knows his son. Very well.
The eldest of Milne’s sons is a media official with the PGA Tour and his daily life consists of being a liaison between the world’s best golfers and those who cover them for newspapers, radio, the Internet and television. If you saw one of the many replays of Woods’ press conference last Friday, that was Doug Jr. sitting next to him.
“It’s really cool,” said the 41-year-old Milne, the eldest son of the Jacksonville attorney. “It’s a lot of time away from my family, but they understand, and the kids like to take pictures of me and Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and show them around at school.”
Milne will attend about 25 events this year, teaming with two others to handle the media. The team spreads around the duties but often Milne arrives around 6:30 a.m. and leaves when the last story has been written. Yes, 15-hour days are standard.
“I love it because of the people and because every week is a new office. Not much better than being able to spend a week at Bay Hill, huh?,” he said during last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at the Orlando golf course. “I’m no good at golf, not at all, but I know the terminology and I’ve been fortunate to establish a good relationship with the players.”
Indeed, when Woods spent a half-hour in the interview area last Friday, it was with Milne sitting next to him, calling on the next reporter with a question and gently prodding the conversation along. Woods deferred to him throughout the session, letting Milne take the lead. He may lead the world in golf, but it was apparent that Woods was going to let Milne lead the press conference.
Finally, it became time for Woods to go, and Milne said, “Two more questions.” When the two had been asked, he said “Thank you, that’s it.”
Milne’s home-away-from-home is balanced by easy hours when he’s back in town, and he has plenty of time for wife Isabella and the three kids in their Ortega home. In fact, home has been Ortega for almost all his life.
The Milnes are one of the city’s most respected and recognizable families. Grandfather Doug was a food broker who was close to the Winn-Dixie Davises, and father Doug has Winn-Dixie ties as well as helping a myriad of local charities.
Indeed, the name ‘“Milne” is all over the city, always in recognition of their charitable work.
Young Doug went through Episcopal High and graduated from Lynchburg (Va.) College, and started as a writer at Ch. 12. A fellow employee landed a job at PGA Tour Productions and Milne followed, gradually working his way up until he became a top-level producer, overseeing both “Inside the PGA Tour” and “Inside the Senior PGA Tour” programs on ESPN.
Family then called. His father and his next-eldest brother, Joey, bought into the Cross Creek restaurant chain and young Doug went part-time with PGA Tour Productions and full-time with the restaurants.
That wasn’t for him, as it turned out. He saw an internal PGA Tour ad for a Tour media official and got the job in 2006, and he’s been following the Tour ever since.
“My biggest thrill — and honor — was in 2007 when I was chosen as the U.S. media liaison for the President’s Cup,” he said. “I did everything with the U.S. team during the matches in Montreal. There was a team dinner one night: Tiger Woods was to my left, Barbara Nicklaus was across from me and Jack Nicklaus was to my right. I thought, ‘Gee, how is this happening to me?’”