Blind Shot

PHOTO BY JON RIZZI

Impeccable Credentials

Kaye Kessler’s coverage of The Masters has ended, but his legacy endures.

In 1935, when Gene Sarazen’s double-eagle propelled him to immortality in the second Masters, Kaye Kessler was 10—the same age as Jack

Nicklaus was in 1950 when Kessler, then writing for the Columbus Citizen, became the first to cover the cub that would become the Golden Bear. Thirteen years later, Nicklaus won the first of his six green jackets at Augusta while Kessler covered the first of his 56 Masters.

One of only a handful of writers to have reported on that many, “Kess” or

“Kessy” became a fixture at Augusta’s media center, where a photograph of him phoning in a story hangs in the restaurant. Moving to Colorado in 1985 to become the media relations director for The International at Castle Pines didn’t preclude his annual spring pilgrimage to Georgia, and as recently as last summer, at age 97, he still entertained the idea of heading down this spring.

But Kaye died December 9, 11 days shy of his 98th birthday. Honored by the Colorado and Ohio Golf Halls of Fame and Augusta National, he was himself a Master—not only of writing, but of living, and truly a gentleman unlike any other. —JON RIZZI

WRITE OF PASSAGE:

Kessler poses beneath a photo of himself in the in the media center at his penultimate Masters in 2018.