He speaks softly but carries a big pen.

The press boxes and the locker rooms at athletic events in the Carolinas aren’t going to be the same without him. Sportswriters may not even know what it is that’s missing, but there will be a void.

Whether it was a golf tournament, a Charlotte Hornets game, a Carolina Panthers game or another showdown between the Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels, Ron Green Sr. was there. And just having him in our presence made us all want to be a little better at our profession.

Green is putting the cap on his ball-point, locking up his lap-top computer and calling it a wrap on a 52-year career as the premier sports columnist for The Charlotte Observer. He’s going out in style, of course, covering the 99th U.S. Open at Pinehurst. If you know Ron Green, you know this is the perfect exit.

"Golf is my favorite sport to cover," Green said. "It’s a fascinating game played in beautiful places with endless possibilities."

Vintage Green. Kind of makes you wish he was writing this column. But he still has a few more to send back to Charlotte this week. Then it’s over except for an occasional guest column and maybe some freelance stuff and perhaps a book that he’s working on. Old writers never die. They just run out of bytes.

"I haven’t retired earlier because I still love writing," said Green, 70 but not looking it. "I’m healthy and I felt good and the people at the paper encouraged me to stay. Actually, I never thought I would go willingly into retirement, but I wanted to quit before they wanted me to."

Fat chance of that happening. You don’t ask legends to leave.

"I decided I’d hang on until the Open came here," Green said. "We’ve talked all these years about how much we wanted one at Pinehurst. Eddy Landreth (a former Charlotte writer) said, ‘You can’t retire until after the Open. That would be like Dean Smith quitting before he broke the coaching record.’ "

It hasn’t exactly been a farewell tour, but Green is learning how much he’s respected by the people he’s written about and worked with over the years.

"The Hornets honored me at halftime of one of their games and Jerry Richardson (owner of the Carolina Panthers) gave me a jersey with my name on it," Green said. "If I’d known it was going to be this nice, I would’ve retired several times."

Green knows he’s going to miss being around the action that he’s documented for so long.

"I’m going to miss seeing all the people in the press rooms and press boxes more than anything," he said. "More than I’ll miss the athletes. Of all the tens of thousands of athletes that have come and gone during my 50 years, I’m sure that none of them has enjoyed what they were doing more than I did. I’ve had a charmed life."

Green also feels blessed that his son, Ron Jr., is following in his footsteps with The Observer.

"That’s a great feeling," he said. "The only problem is that we think too much alike. We want to do the same stories."

Green has filed his prose from 45 Masters Championships.

"Our publishers have decided to put out a book on what I’ve written about the Masters," Green said, "and in attempting to learn how big it would be, they determined that I had written around 250,000 words on the Masters."

Of all the events he’s covered, two of the six Masters that Jack Nicklaus won stand out most.

"The ‘Bear Tracks’ Masters in 1975 when Jack tracked down Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller is my favorite," he said. "And when Jack won his last one in 1986, that was special."

Green ranks Red Smith as the best sports writer he’s read, but lists Jim Murray and Blackie Sherrod as the most entertaining and Dave Kindred as the most graceful. "I enjoy reading Furman Bisher, too," he said. "I love the way he strings words together."

Ron Green does a pretty darn good job of that himself.