April 2025 - Revered Chicago Sportswriters Nurtured Masters Legend

Jones, Roberts cultivated writers to promote their new tournament
Photographs courtesy of USGA
This article appeared in the April 2025 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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Longtime Chicago Tribune sportswriter Charlie Bartlett played an integral role in giving the Masters national credibility. As one of the founders of the Golf Writers Association of America, Bartlett would maintain regular correspondence with club officials, as seen in the letters above.

When I became the golf writer of the Chicago Tribune and covered my first Masters in 1997, I often was told that I had big shoes to fill. “You’re following in the footsteps of Charlie Bartlett,” I heard time and again from many of the veteran Masters sportswriters about the legendary Chicago Tribune golf writer.

That point was underscored when I walked into the vast media lounge that was named for Bartlett. Every year at its annual dinner, the Golf Writers Association of America honors a golfer with the Charlie Bartlett Award for “unselfish contributions to the betterment of society.” Bartlett, by the way, was one of the founders of the association.

Indeed, I was walking in big footsteps.

Bartlett, the Tribune’s golf writer for 36 years until his death in 1967, is one of several sportswriters linked to the origins of the Masters, helping to make it what it is today. Another Chicago connection is Herb Grais, a columnist for the Chicago Times and Sun-Times, who in the 1920s founded The Chicago Golfer. This publication led to the nationally distributed Golfdom, the first periodical devoted to the business side of the game, and a forerunner to Golf Digest and Golf Magazine.

Those early sportswriters always have been part of the Masters story. Founders Clifford Roberts and golf icon Bobby Jones knew press coverage was essential when they launched the first tournament in 1934.

It hardly is a coincidence that the Masters is held in early April. Back then, there was a gap between the end of baseball spring training and the beginning of the season, as teams barnstormed their way up north. Grantland Rice, perhaps the most lauded sportswriter ever and an early club member, convinced Roberts and Jones to stage their event at that time to allow the sportswriters who were in Florida to jump off the train for a few days in Augusta.

The press lounge at Augusta National bears Bartlett's name in recognition of his impact on the event. L-R Dudley Green of the Nashville (TN) Banner, Clifford Roberts, chairman of The Masters, and Bartlett's son, Michael, unveil a portrait of Bartlett in the facility.

At the behest of Roberts, Jones added to the allure by making his return to golf in 1934; he had stepped away in 1930 at the age of 28 after winning the Grand Slam.

“The Masters enjoyed heavy media coverage from its outset when the attraction of Bobby Jones enabled it to essentially match the U.S. Open as the most covered golf event of the year in 1934,” said David Barrett, author of “Making of the Masters.” “By 1940, with Jones and chairman Clifford Roberts courting sportswriters and the tournament annually creating much drama, some 300 writers covered the tournament, and a press tent was erected.”

Barrett added, “Grantland Rice writing his nationally syndicated columns about the Masters helped get the tournament on the map from the beginning.”

Bartlett actually wasn’t there for the first Masters, but was on hand for Gene Sarazen’s legendary double eagle in 1935. Bartlett’s impact as a golf writer was immense.

Long-time Tribune columnist David Condon said Bartlett “succeeded Grantland Rice as the most influential author in golf.”

How big was Bartlett? When Ben Hogan was recovering from injuries he sustained in a car accident, he talked with only one writer: Bartlett.

The taciturn Hogan didn’t like many people, but in the words of Columbus columnist Kaye Kessler, “if you didn’t like Charlie, you were warped.”

Bartlett earned the nickname “Total Recall” because nobody knew more about the intimate details of the game. He usually was last out of the Masters press room because writers constantly bugged him for facts to fill out their stories.

Chicago Sun-Times stalwart Herb Graffis was another founder of the GWAA. Here, Graffis (middle) is pictured with inaugural Masters winner Horton Smith (left) and 11-time major champion Walter Hagen (right) in a promotional photograph for Wilson.

“Charlie was a very warm guy,” said Doc Gien, the longtime PR man for Arnold Palmer. “He loved the business, and he loved anybody who loved the business.”

Grais, meanwhile, also had a big career. In addition to the magazines, he founded the National Golf Foundation, the Club Managers Association of America and, like Bartlett, was one of the founders of the Golf Writers Association of America.

It was Grais who believed that golf was a business as well as a game. Golfdom, for example, was a magazine with a controlled circulation that was sent to the president, green chairman, professional, greenkeeper and course manager at each club.

In 1977, Grais became the first journalist inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, which noted, “His greatest contributions to the game came not from what he wrote but through the conception of his ideas.”

Of his honor, the self-effacing Grais said, “I was voted in by guys who were kind enough to forget that distinguished service means that you had better damn well do, or go broke.”

Grais and Bartlett are members of the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame.

The Masters never has forgotten the impact of those early sportswriters on the tournament. In 2017, Augusta National unveiled a state-of-the-art media center. The exterior looks like a classic Southern estate. The inside features a grand staircase (think “Gone with the Wind”) with a state-of-the-art working area that includes a television at every desk. Then-Masters chairman Billy Payne said the goal was to “build the best media facility in the world.”

Thankfully there is a holdover from the previous media complex. It still is called the Bartlett Lounge, a testament to Bartlett and those other early sportswriters who helped create “the tradition unlike any other.”

A former Chicago Tribune golf writer, Ed Sherman is a frequent contributor to Chicago District Golfer.