R.I.P. Leonard Kamsler

Longtime and revered golf photographer Leonard Kamsler has passed. He was 85.

Golf Digest’s Peter Morrice put together this tribute to Kamsler with some of his best images and wrote:

Kamsler took assignments in other fields as well, working for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice and the Harlem Globetrotters. He even shot for country-music labels and medical journals. But golf was the constant. Known for his innovative techniques, he brought high-speed stroboscopic photography to golf in the 1970s using a Hulcher camera, developed to analyze football plays. Kamsler retooled his Hulcher to shoot 100 frames per second, more than 200 images for a single swing, and the frame-by-frame swing sequence was born.

From Alan Bastable’s story at Golf.com:

Kamsler shot all the greats, even the famously camera-shy Ben Hogan — well, sort of. According to one story Kamsler liked to tell, he was assigned to snap a swing sequence of Hogan in Texas. “Hogan would never, ever permit anyone to photograph him,” Dave Allen, a former GOLF Magazine instruction editor, wrote in a text message on Tuesday. “So Hogan was out on this one hole with a shag bag to hit balls. Leonard tried to camouflage himself as a bush and sneak up on Hogan. He went through some great pains to do this, hauling his heavy camera out there and then covering himself with some green plant life he gathered along the way. Well, there’s a reason they called Hogan The Hawk — he spotted Leonard nearly right away, picked up his bag of balls and moved on.”

Kamsler, who grew up in North Carolina, had an interest in photography from a young age; his father gave him a movie camera when he was 12, igniting Leonard’s passion for visual arts. Years later, as an undergraduate at Duke University, Kamsler took an art appreciation class that had a lasting impact on him.

Earlier this year Kamsler was awarded the PGA of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Photojournalism. Bob Denney filed this excellent profile at the time.

Here is the PGA’s tribute video to Kamsler:

"The PGA of America is deeply saddened by the passing of Leonard Kamsler, a pioneering photojournalist whose talented eye entertained and inspired generations of all who love the game of golf." — PGA President Jim Richerson pic.twitter.com/7dTVtnCtLv

— PGA of America (@PGA) November 18, 2020