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August
2, 2003
Reflections
on Augusta National
In
the Deep, Deep Rough
By THOMAS CROFT
"Where
the hell is he?" the General
barked, jumping out of the all-terrain vehicle, as he rejected
the advice of his security and walked ahead of the pack to scope
out the situation. There had been 18 grueling and painful skirmishes
up to this point, and the General, enraged, wanted to see for
himself. So, with my step-dad at his side, Ike led the small
heavily-armed detachment up the ridge toward the huge odd-columned
building, searching with his keen eyes. Was the mysterious
man missing-in-action or a turncoat?
Suddenly, he saw the man he was looking
for, hunkered down, wearing sunglasses. The General was outraged.
My step-dad was incredulous that it had come to this, that the
General had been double-crossed to such a degree. Had something
happened to the missing mystery man, or was he just out of his
mind?
The European Theatre, 1944? No, Augusta,
Georgia, mid-1950s. The General, now President, had just butchered
18 holes at the Augusta National Golf Club. The man he was
looking for? The man America most loved to kick around. Read
on.
My step-dad was Eisenhower's golf teacher
during his presidency, when Ike had a winter home-away-from-home
at the National, staying at "Mamie's Cabin". Gene
Stout was head golf pro at the National for 15 years, and assistant
pro for awhile prior. He was well-liked in the PGA and the golf
world. My mom also worked at the National.for a short time.
Augusta's been in the news as it has
become embroiled in a brouhaha between Club Chairman Hootie Johnson
and Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations.
Burk had asked the Club to accept women as members, and organized
a demonstration during the Tournament in April on a muddy lot
the City contentiously assigned her, away from the main gate.
Assorted other demonstrators joined with her, creating a carnival
atmosphere.
What with Annika Sorenstam breaking through
and playing at the Colonial in Fort Worth in May, it seems Hootie
and the men have their hands full keeping a horde of hysterical
she-devils with seven irons from breaching the hallowed walls
of golfdom.
As hard-ass as Hootie appears, he is
but a mugwump from Rae's Creek, which meanders through the course,
compared to the infamous Cliff Roberts. Roberts was the stiff
New York investment banker who co-founded the Augusta National
with the golf god from Atlanta, Bobby Jones, Jr. My step-dad
knew the wrath of Roberts first hand. My mom was Roberts'
secretary for awhile in the '50s.
The current drama being played out runs
up against the trademarked National "tradition" that
is packaged for millions of TV viewers every year, as deep-voiced
hosts invite the viewer into the cozy, wood-paneled Butler Cabin
to talk about the tournament, to a pleasant and prozac-inspired
soundtrack.
You feel a part of some homey, green-jacket
pageantry. I love it.
But it's important to see behind the
Magnolia Curtain. I witnessed a bit of that "tradition"
first hand, working on the course one year and watching from
the galleries for many, and hearing some great stories regarding
the General and the mystery man, and other interesting tales
from my family.
In the Shadow of the
National
Augusta sits along a shallow, rocky stretch
of the Savannah River, down-river from Clark's Hill Lake, scraped
from the red clay where the river was dammed decades ago. Downtown,
Broad Street still struggles from decades of white flight and
suburban malls, like many nondescript southern towns. At the
top of "the Hill", as it's known, the former Bon Aire
Hotel still stands, majestically with huge magnolias surrounding
it, her beauty long frayed at the edges. Many of the golf stars
and sports reporters from the old days used to stay at the Bon
Aire. It's been a nursing home for decades.
Augusta was a strange town, a mix of
rich enclaves like the National and ivy'd suburbs with little
black lawn jockeys in the front yard, but also the real Tobacco
Road, not far from a sprawling run-down army post, and pockets
of abject poverty, black and white. Or, as my Mom used to put
it, "Augusta is damned near three hundred years of history
unblemished by progress."
For much of my early life, Augusta was
my hometown. I grew up in Berchmans Hills, a half-mile or so
away from the course. In the early 1930s, Jones, a famous amateur
golfer and the then-unknown stockbroker chopped up a hilly fruit
orchard called Berckmans nursery and founded the Augusta National
Golf Club. The first few years of the Masters Tournament were
not very successful, and the club nearly fell apart during the
depression. The initial investors were ripped off by the founders,
according to a recent book on the history of the Club. Yet the
Club survived the tournament becoming one of the world's premier
sports events, and one-fourth of the fabled Grand Slam.
The National has long been part of the
lifeblood of Augusta. I used to attend the tournament when I
was a teenager, when tickets were plentiful, easily becoming
a member of Arnie's Army.
The course is bordered by a busy stretch
of Washington Road, and also Berckmans Road, which passes through
hilly, suburban neighborhoods. As kids, we would hike to Rae's
Creek, deep in the woods that used to blanket the area, before
it vanished onto the course grounds, hidden behind ominous fences.
We always heard stories that guards with shotguns and rabid
German shepherds awaited the foolish boy that dared to scale
the walls.
Waiting for Masters
Week, and the Gates Finally Open
When I was growing up, there was something
truly mystical about that week. Hotels, motels, restaurants
and bars, and even plumbing supply services were named after
the Masters, its influence on the other 51 weeks of the year
wholly beyond any explanation. For 51 weeks of the year, the
high fences, trees and thick bushes sequestered her as some pharaoh
would his plump virgin daughter. As the fall and winter droned
on, everyone waited for the return of the week that made the
town famous again.
The build-up culminated in a great big
Masters' Parade "week", with Spring Socials and cotillions
warming up the Augusta crowd for the big upcoming event. With
high school marching bands and festooned floats of golf greens
and fareways, the golfers on display, and accompanied by beautiful
belles dressed in antebellum ballgowns, Miss Golf Augusta, sitting
on the back seat of a large open white Cadillac, would slowly
make her way down Broad waving white-gloved hands.
Finally, in April, as the Spring heated
up, the huge gates would swing open at the beginning of Masters'
Week for the Par Three Tourney, and thousands would stream down
Magnolia Lane carrying umbrellas, collapsible chairs, blankets,
picnic baskets, binoculars, water bottles, suntan lotion, hats,
sunglasses, insect repellant, transistor radios, flasks, etc.,
etc.
The beauty of the course was overwhelming,
covered in azalea and dogwood, with magnolia trees hugging the
white-columned clubhouse. Big green scoreboards and concession
stands blended in with the grass, trees and shrubs. The tall
pines shaded the long hilly paths along the fairways, dropping
straw during the inevitable windy golf days.
The galleries were colorful, respectful
at the beginning of the week. Beautiful high school belle-ettes
would show up in full bloom, wearing shorts, peddle-pushers and
culottes, and sporting the first of the season's tans. It was
as important to be seen as it ever was to actually watch
a single ball being struck.
But then again, if you worshipped the
game, as I did as a teen, Masters Week was the "second coming",
and the National was Mecca. Standing around the clubhouse,
we would gawk as golf giants walked out toward the first hole
Arnie, Ken Ventura, Billy Casper, Nicklas, Gary Player, Doug
Ford, Tommy Aaron, Lee Trevino, Chi Chi, and legends Sam Snead,
Hogan, Demarest, Nelson, Sarazen. Golf Nirvana.
Sixteen Deep on Sixteen
One year, I worked at the tournament,
along with my high school buddies Sumner, Hanger and one of their
pals, Pat Wiley. Sumner and Hanger were wild enough. Wiley
was a maniac, a high school drunk. We worked in the concession
stand that faced the 16th green and the adjacent lake, one of
the most dramatic holes on the course. We could watch the golfers
putt out. The 16th is where the crowds were their rowdiest,
on blankets and chairs on a hill behind the green and by the
lake.
As the week moved on, the concession
stand would draw lines of customers 16 or 20 deep, waiting for
a Pabst Blue Ribbon, Cokes, hot dogs, etc. Kegs of beer flowed
like the Savannah. One particularly steaming day, Wiley laid
on his back on the floor so that the beer tap cascaded PBR down
into his open mouth. He drank what seemed like a couple of
gallons one day, one of us keeping the tap pouring during the
rush of customers. He finally finished, sat up and wiped his
face, looked around for a second with this shit-eating grin he
was famous for, then fell backward, passed out. We dragged his
no-count ass to a dark part of the back of the stand, and shoved
him beneath a shelf. He slept the rest of the day, a sleep
of pure bliss, dreaming of sticking a two-wood second shot across
the pond to the green on the par 5 15th, two feet from the hole.
More Tales from the
National
My parents divorced in 1964. In 1967,
when I was 16, my mom suddenly re-married, hooking up with Gene.
A year or so before they married, Gene had resigned from the
National due to a run-in with Roberts. My family moved to the
Bahamas, where he became the pro at a new course (and I became
a young redneck in Paradise).
Gene had made a name for himself at the
National in its glory years. He was close to Bob Jones, many
of the golfers, and Palmer when he made his famous "charges"
in the 1960s. He seemed to know everyone. At the time, I didn't
completely understand why he left Augusta. As time went on,
and I got older, he told me a number of stories about the club,
the golfers, Jones and Roberts and, especially, Ike.
The first stories I ever heard about
the National came from my Mom, who worked as a secretary to Cliff
Roberts in 1955. She told me that long before the Tournament,
she would have to accompany Roberts in a golf cart, along with
an entourage of the greens committee, as Roberts conducted his
annual review of the course. My mom took dictation as Roberts
stopped at every hole, suggesting changes.
"It was like a parade," my
mom said, quoted in The Masters, by Curt Sampson, a juicy
little book on the history of the course (subtitled, "Golf,
Money and Power in Augusta, Georgia"). "He was
very nice, but he was a strange man. The absolute king. When
he spoke, everyone jumped, even the members."
Gene used to talk about wild parties
at the National. At one party in the off-season, the main drink
was Chatham Artillery Punch. It was named after a punch created
by the Savannah-based Chatham Artillery, in existence prior
to 1775. This "suave and deceitful brew" was served
to President James Monroe in Savannah in 1819 for the launching
of the USS Savannah. Supposedly, genteel ladies made up the
beverage, as, one by one, officers would sneak in, adding this
and that.
Recipe for Chatham
Artillery Punch
1 1/2 gallons Catawba wine
1 1/2 quarts Rye Whiskey
1/2 gallon Rum
1 1/2 gallons strong tea
1 quart Gin
1 quart Brandy
1/2 pint Benedictine
2 1/2 pounds brown sugar
Juice,1 1/2 doz. oranges
Juice, 1 1/2 doz. lemons
1 bottle Marachino cherries
Make stock with above from 36 - 48 hours before time for serving.
Just prior to serving, add 1 case of Champagne.
(careful with those cherries)
Gene said that the next morning, some
of Augusta National's finest were found asleep on the 18th green,
and some in the deep, deep rough.
Augusta and Ike
My step-dad spoke often about Eisenhower.
By Gene's accounts, Ike was a great guy. Gene would have breakfast
with Ike every morning Ike was in town, at the President's office
above the clubhouse. I have a great framed picture of Gene
and Ike standing together on the course, both holding irons,
all smiles, 1950's era, signed by the general.
There's an interesting discussion in
The Masters about the National's relationship to Ike,
dating to when Ike was President at Columbia. In 1948, Roberts
responded to the General's entreaties to become a member by putting
together a "gang" of the club's top members. Joining
in an excursion to play a round with Ike were Bob Jones, eventual
campaign supporters like Pete Jones, who sent $1 million to
Ike's '52 campaign, and R.W. Woodruff, the Atlanta Coca-Cola
king. This gang grew over the next twelve years, becoming a
mutual support club for the President.
Roberts and Jones had formed Jororoberts,
Inc. after the war to build Coke bottling plants in South America
and elsewhere. Ike's ambassadors in South America provided protection
and helped the Jororoberts plants. And, while Ike was President,
he would often walk the grounds with an open bottle of coke and
a straw. The sports and news reporters who would come to town,
holed up in the Bon Aire, took pictures by the hundreds, free
ads for Coke.
For several years, Vice President Nixon
had wanted to join Ike in Augusta and play the National. Ike
didn't want him there. Evidently, Augusta didn't either, and
even lobbied with Ike to take him off the ticket during the re-election.
According to the book, Tricky Dick pumped Pepsi in his international
travels, pissing off the Coke-heads at Augusta. But Sampson
missed it that Nixon was never invited to the course (more to
come).
The End of an Era
After 15 years at Augusta, Gene had a
falling out with Roberts, after winning a group tournament in
Ireland at St. Andrews. Gene had registered the group as being
from the National; Roberts forced him to return the trophy, and
Gene resigned. It greatly upset Jones, who was in ill-health
at the time. Gene's only consolation was that Jones demanded
an open invitation for Gene to return to play anytime. "Cliff
didn't always fire people, he'd just make it so continuing to
work there became intolerable," Gene was quoted as saying.
He and my mom married a short time later.
Years later, Roberts, mimicking his own
father, shot himself in the head, on the 3rd hole on the Par
Three Course, by Mamie's Lake. He took a drop, as one sports
reporter put it. His ashes were supposedly scattered at the
lake on 15.
When my step-dad passed away after a
horrible brain tumor, in 1990, the last person from his world
to visit him was Arnold Palmer. Sometimes friends avoid people
who are extremely sick. Not Palmer. My family will never forget
Arnie's gracious and beautiful gesture.
Oh Yeah, the "Controversy"
The Augusta Chronicle has been
a thing of beauty to read, with editorials, articles and letters
to the editors taking virulent positions against Martha Burk
that have cast her as a man-hating, abortion-loving hell's ambassador
(and worse). Attitudes similar to when Blacks "got out
of line." The threatened demonstrations attracted an odd
collection of mossbacks and carnival hawkers, especially after
Reverend Jackson announced he was coming to the rescue. It became,
you might say, a tad embarrassing. There were also a lot of
yucks in town about the so-called demonstrations, picked up
by the national press:
"The Elvis impersonator roamed the
weedy field, dropping clunky pick-up lines on feminists in bright
pink T-shirts. A bearded man dressed as a star-spangled nun pranced
around with a stream of television cameras in hot pursuit. And
an angry guy, who calls himself the One Man Klan Group, traded
insults with a big-time sports columnist.
It was a sideshow like nothing they have seen in this staid town,
an often loony display." (Washington Post, 4/12/03).
But, as Christine Brennan of USA Today
put it, "The fact that it has taken 12 years for golf to
move from Shoal Creek to Martha Burk speaks volumes about how
the game of golf really feels about women: Namely, that it's
of course no longer acceptable to discriminate against African-Americans,
but it's still appropriate, and even encouraged in some circles,
to discriminate against women. "
The Alabama Shoal Creek Club situation
was reportedly settled after members opened their doors to a
black executive to defuse a controversy that erupted when the
PGA had been jumpy about bringing a tournament to to the club
a decade ago.
The connection between the Augusta Club's
gender and racial policies is real. The club's relationship
to African Americans was, as might be expected, right out of
Gone with the Wind.
For most of its history, Blacks had to
enter the "big" house from the rear. In the thirties,
the members would dress up and watch barbaric, club-sponsored
"battle royales" at the Bon Aire, boxing free-for-alls
involving six young Blacks who were blindfolded and let loose
at each other in the ring, often with one arm tied behind their
back. One young man who competed was James Brown, who had grown
up in the "Terry", a rough black neighborhood, according
to Sampson. Still a big yuck?
Later, Lee Elder broke through the "Magnolia
Curtain" and started playing in the 1970s, and the first
African-American to join the club did so only in 1990. A short
time later, Tiger won his first jacket.
There's Clubs..and
then there's Clubs
Augusta is no Shoal Creek.
It is more like the Bohemian Grove, which
Newsweek once described as the world's most prestigious summer
camp. "The fiercely guarded, 2,700 acre retreat is the
country extension of San Francisco's all-male ultra-exclusive
Bohemian Club to which every Republican President since Herbert
Hoover has belonged. With its high-powered clientele, coveted
privacy and cabalistic rituals, the Bohemian Grove has prompted
considerable suspicion."
So, who is the typical member of Augusta?
Most of Bobby Jones' Atlanta friends left the scene long ago,
as Jones became more disabled, and the more "worldly"
corporate leaders recruited by Roberts eventually took over.
Jones' good old boys might even feel out of place today.
USA Today
recently exposed the long-secret membership list, pregnant with
CEO and corporate members. The 300 members-average age 72-- are
worth hundreds of billions. The National "Club" includes
a sizable clavern from Wall Street that was recently fined $1.4
billion for having defrauded billions of dollars in the new corporate
corruption scandals, hurting millions of Americans over the last
couple of years. It includes a large contingent of oil company
executives, and a number of members of the industrial-military
complex (that so discomforted Ike).
There's revolving-door government figures
like the current Treasury Secretary, whose previous employer--CSX-was
a deadbeat on tens of millions in taxes owed. Former Reaganite
George Shultz's employer, Bechtel, was intimately implicated
in oil business with Saddam and Iraq, pre-war, and, along with
Halliburton, just won massive contracts for post-war rebuilding
and oil industry management. Corporate CEOs from firms that
have been guilty of industrial accidents on a huge scale (remember
Bhopal?), pollution, human rights violations, labor law abuses,
and so on. Real sweethearts.
If some rich gal wants to be part of
this gang of high-jinx-playing geriatric playboys, so that she,
too, can get drunk, piss on the azaleas and pass out on the lawn;
so that she, too, can hang out 'till the wee hours playing cards
and real world monopoly ("I'll take Tajikistan"); so
that she, too, can sell her wares like Woodruff, then, more power
to her. A giant step towards women's equality? Maybe, maybe not.
But it sure would be fun to watch. And if the National is more
of a "corporation" than a club, as Burk attests, then
it's time to open the doors.
As The Masters pointed out, privacy
at golf clubs is a uniquely American obsession. At St. Andrews,
anyone can play. Why not Augusta?
And, a second question that begs to be
asked would Bobby Jones and Ike feel as though they still "belong"?
Dick Gets the Big
Invite
As I heard it around the kitchen table,
Ike finally gave in, and Nixon flew down to join him. Ike pointedly
informed Nixon to be on the tee at 7 AM. As the morning came,
Ike, my step-dad, the gang and the Secret Service, etc., arrived
at the first tee. Waiting a few minutes only, Ike looked around,
saw no Nixon, and ordered the column to move forward, like Patton
through Normandy. Ike played quickly, if sloppily, as was his
habit. Finishing the first nine, Ike sent someone to the clubhouse
to see if Nixon was waiting to join the group. Still no Dick.
WHERE THE HELL?.
As they rounded the second nine, Gene
and Ike and the rest walked to the clubhouse. The VP was sitting
in a wrought iron chair under a magnolia tree, wearing sunglasses.
He was nursing a hangover. Ike was furious. Nixon was never
invited back.
Thomas Croft
is Director of the Heartland
Network. Visit for further information. He can be reached
at: t.w.croft@worldnet.att.net
Copyright T.W. Croft , 2003
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