“I love the place, but I love the work I get to do and what it means that week”

AUGUSTA, Ga. – For weeks leading up to the Masters Tournament, and then during and after the week of the iconic event, ESPN.com’s golf section is brimming with Masters content – news, features, analysis, columns, video, stats, and more.

Overseeing and coordinating the robust coverage is the responsibility of Nick Pietruszkiewicz, ESPN senior editor, digital content.

As he celebrates his 14th year with ESPN this week, Pietruszkiewicz is firmly entrenched in the media center at Augusta National Golf Club along with the site’s golf reporters and writers. It’s an event he always looks forward to and a place that’s very important to him.

How important? He and his wife Dana have a dog named Birdie, and Pietruszkiewicz walks it with a Masters collar and leash.

“There is the intimacy and the enormity of the Masters,” he said. “I’ve said this before, each morning, before everything really starts, I like to go for a walk. Start on No. 1 until I walk up the hill on the 18th. I admit, I linger a little longer down around Amen Corner.

“Some of it is course recon, but a big part is just to get myself settled in for the day – to remind myself how lucky I am to be here doing this job at this place, but also the responsibility ahead,” he said.

Pietruszkiewicz and the rest of the golf team begin planning for Masters coverage well before April.

“We spend months having conversations and working on lead-in pieces, people and themes, stories that can be told across all our platforms,” he said. “We talk about who might be interesting once we get on the property, storylines we might want to keep an eye on. And, always, there is the elephant – er, Tiger – in the room.

“Once the first ball is in the air Thursday morning, we see where the action and the stories take us. I am surrounded by some of the best news people, analysts, and storytellers in this industry – and people I genuinely like and respect. So you let them be them.”

We got Tiger covered today. #themasters https://t.co/ZllNIg0cmZ

— Nick Pietruszkiewicz (@ProfessorNickP) April 7, 2022

While golf is his priority, Pietruszkiewicz also is a senior editor for Trending, Tennis, and Olympics. “I help out with those other areas, which are led by incredibly talented people like Elizabeth Baugh, Vic Seper and Amy Van Deusen,” he said. During his ESPN career, he also has worked on MLB, International, audience engagement, and college basketball.

But this week, he’s busy and happy at the Masters.

“This is a big deal. People, whether they care about golf or not, consume this event,” he said. “I love that part of it. I love the place, but I love the work I get to do and what it means that week.”

For more about ESPN’s coverage of the Masters, visit ESPN Press Room.