Ken Griffey Jr. is Photographing This Year’s Masters Tournament at Augusta
Baseball legend and Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. has been spotted at the Augusta National Golf Club with his camera covering this week’s Masters Tournament.
Griffey Jr’s transformation from baseball slugger to lens craftsman has been well-documented and The Athletic reports that Griffey Jr. is covering The Masters for Masters.com.
Behind the lens :camera_with_flash:@MLB Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. is working as a credentialed photographer for the first time @TheMasters pic.twitter.com/NjQqBDSCJF
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 10, 2025
Griffey Jr. — pictured above with his Sony equipment as usual — appeared on The Masters’ YouTube channel to talk about his photography career, explaining that he first picked up a camera so he could blend in better when attending his kids’ sports games.
“I was still playing — and I understand what my dad felt like coming to watch me play — but now with social media, it was a little different everybody is like oh Ken’s here,” he explains.
“My daughter literally stopped dribbling a basketball and just looked at me, when she was five, and I was like ‘OK I’ve got to pay more attention to what’s going on.’ And I figured nobody’s messing with the photographer, well let me pick it up.”
Griffey Jr. is a keen golfer himself and has played at Masters events before arriving this year to capture the tournament on his camera. He has previously been spotted at a Major League Soccer (MLS) game photographing Leo Messi as well as a series of NFL games.
Sports photographer and @MLB Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. in his element. 📷⚾️ pic.twitter.com/kK79DiWnIO
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 31, 2023
No doubt his glittering career as a baseball player has helped his second photo career — Griffey Jr. is ranked seventh on the all-time list of home runs having spent most of his time at the Seattle Mariners.
But Griffey isn’t the only baseball Hall of Famer and, bizarrely, Seattle Mariners player to take up photography. Pitcher Randy Johnson occasionally turns up at NFL games.
Johnson’s website displays travel, music, and wildlife photos. His chosen logo is a dead bird which references a famous incident during his baseball career when he killed a bird with one of his pitches. In the bizarre incident, an unfortunate bird somehow flew into the path of the ball. Johnson was well-known for his fast pitches.
