Showing my age here, but I was a huge fan of Will Shortz long before the NYT crossword due his involvement with Games magazine in the 80s. I expect there are other Games fans here. In the age before the internet it was a huge part of my entertainment cycle each month.

Love the guy, he's a national treasure.

Games Magazine was amazing in its early years. Puzzles often were interlinked, and ranged in complexity so that an 8 year old could be completely absorbed and so could a life long puzzle solving grandparent.

I loved discovering the hidden puzzle contests

I'd swap the word 'Puzzle' for 'Crossword' in the title. I thought the article would be about someone like Martin Gardner or other puzzle designer.

While the focus of the article is on crosswords, Will Shortz makes all kinds of puzzles. He has a Sunday Puzzle show he does on NPR which is a word game and he is a prolific author of Sodoku puzzles as well as others. So I'd argue that puzzle master is appropriate.

Duly noted. To accommodate non-native English speakers, I kept 'puzzle.'

He's also a very good table tennis player: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14946868