Seve Ballesteros celebrates making the winning putt in the 1984 Open Championship. Tony Roberts

By Shane Ryan
There are a couple things you may not know about the 29 Open Championships played at St Andrews since time immemorial. First, it being only the second course ever to host the Open, it wasn’t until the event’s 13th iteration that it came to St Andrews — the first 12 were all at Prestwick.

Second, despite Tom Morris, both Old and Young, being so closely associated with the town and course — Old Tom was the greenskeeper and pro there for 39 years — neither one of them ever won an Open Championship at the course. Those facts provide a microcosm of everything to come later, in the sense that the history of the Open at St Andrews is both long and glorious, but also a little strange.

With that in mind, let’s look at the 15 best Open Championships played at the Old Course.

1885 — Bob Martin, Champion

There is a piece of fake history here that is so good we wish it was real. The story goes that David Ayton Sr was winning the event, and by a considerable margin, when he took an 11 on the Road Hole to blow it and lose by two shots. Unfortunately, it appears this is not true, as accounts later discovered list him as shooting a 6 and 7 there. Seven is still not great, and probably cost him the tournament, but it’s no 11.

1933 — Denny Shute, Champion

The only reason we mention 1933 is for a small detail about Leo Diegel, who had two putts on 18 to join a playoff with eventual champion Shute and Craig Wood. Diegel left his first putt short, and then … he missed the ball. Yes, he literally whiffed on a putt. How this happened is a total mystery, especially for a guy who was a two-time PGA Championship winner. Later reports cast some doubt on whether he actually whiffed, or how long the putt was (accounts indicate between three feet and a tap-in), but the most common story, and the one we have to believe, is that he somehow failed to make contact with the ball.

1876 — Bob Martin, Champion

This was the second Open ever at St Andrews, and it merits mention here as both the weirdest and funniest. This tournament marks one of the strangest circumstances in major golf history, in that one of the players who qualified for a Monday playoff opted not to play. That’s Davie Strath, and the whole thing came about because, in a situation that seems comical when viewed from the present, St Andrews members were allowed to play the course during the Open Championship. That led to congestion, and on the 14th hole in the second round (there were only two rounds back then), Strath hit a member of the public named Hutton, an upholsterer, in the head, and Hutton fell to the ground. That rattled Strath, leading to back-to-back 6s, and after climbing a wall to play a ball on 17 and hitting a spectator on 18, he finished with a 90, tied for the lead with Bob Martin.
However, it came to pass that Strath likely hit up to the 14th green in frustration before Hutton the upholsterer had finished the hole, and there was an official “objection” that could not be decided on Sunday night, which meant that the playoff would be played “under protest” pending the outcome. This enraged Strath, who flat out refused to play, and Martin won the event just by going out by himself. That was Strath’s third runner-up, and the rest of his life was not happy; he fell ill with consumption in 1878, decided to recover in Australia, and died in Melbourne 20 days after landing, likely only 29 years old.

1882 — Bob Ferguson, Champion

This was a big one, since for the first time ever the prize for the winner topped £10, with Ferguson winning £12. This week, the winner will take home £2.1 million. Clearly, 1882 is where professional golf began to spiral out of control into the big-money behemoth that it is today.

1888 — Jack Burns, Champion

The weird thing here? Burns was almost the original Roberto DiVicenzo. Whereas DiVicenzo inadvertently signed for a 66 at the 1966 Masters, costing him a spot in the playoff when he had shot a 65, Jack Burns originally signed for an 87 in the first round when he had shot an 86. He won the tournament by a shot, but only because an R&A member noticed that his scorecard for the first day wasn’t adding up. So what did they do? Well, they changed the 87 to an 86, rather than making him take the 87 the way Augusta did to DiVicenzo. It’s almost too sane! Burns followed his 86 with an 85 and captured his only Open Championship.

Sam Snead holds the claret jug in 1946. New York Times Co

1946 — Sam Snead, Champion

The best detail here is that upon arriving at the course, Snead remarked that “it looks like an old abandoned kinda place,” and the Scottish crowd, as you might imagine, did not particularly like him. Nevertheless, Snead was the best man for the job when the heavy winds hit in the final round, and he out-duelled Johnny Bulla and Bobby Locke to win by four shots as the only player under par. This was his only Open title, and one of just three times he ever played, and it got Snead three-quarters of the way to a career Grand Slam. Unfortunately, despite four second-place finishes, he never won the US Open, making him the Mickelson of his day.

1921 — Jock Hutchison, Champion

There are always amazing little details in history that show how the importance and status of events has changed over time. Here again, as in 1876, we have some playoff drama around one guy not wanting to play. That person was Roger Wethered, an amateur who tied with Jock Hutchison at 296. The problem? He was scheduled to play for his cricket team on the Monday when the 36-hole playoff was scheduled, and cricket was a priority. Apparently, the powers-that-be had to work very hard to convince him to stay and play. In the end, he was probably annoyed that he did, since Hutchison raced out a three-shot lead on the first nine and widened that lead to insurmountable territory by their second round. Hutchison, though born in Scotland, was a US citizen who was credited as the first American champion of the Open. Wethered went on to win the 1923 Amateur Championship, but never came close in the Open again, though his sister Joyce was a star whose swing was admired by Bobby Jones.

1927 — Bobby Jones, Champion

Speaking of Jones, he was back at St Andrews to atone for what he’d done in 1921, when he walked off the course in anger during the third round. He won by six strokes, and this is the start of St Andrews’ reputation for producing truly great champions. He was so beloved after this win that by 1958, he was named a Freeman of the City of St Andrews, becoming only the second American after Benjamin Franklin to receive the honour. (Jack Nicklaus became the third this year.)

1957 — Bobby Locke, Champion

First interesting tidbit: Cary Middlecoff was so maddeningly slow to the British players that they actually filed an official complaint with the R&A. Middlecoff’s total time on the course? Three hours, 18 minutes. How times have changed. Second interesting tidbit: Bobby Locke, playing the final hole, forgot to move his ball marker back after moving it out of the line of his playing partner. It was brought to the R&A’s attention, and, showing the same as they had in 1888, they decided no harm had been done, and issued no penalty.

But the really dramatic thing about the incident is that the man who ratted out Locke was none other than Peter Thomson, his supposed friend. Thomson finished second and may have been hoping for a big penalty that gave him the Claret Jug. Friendship over. It’s especially egregious because Thomson had won the last three Opens.

1960 — Kel Nagle, Champion

Nagle won by a stroke over a hard-charging Arnold Palmer, but the important thing about this tournament, in terms of the history of golf, was Palmer’s mere presence. The fact that he was there at all made a massive impact in the US, and while only four Americans played in 1960 — a typical number — there were 24 a decade later, and that number continued to grow with time. Palmer was the one who changed that, and even though he didn’t win in 1960 (he would in ’61 and ’62), he set the tone for the modern era.

Jack and Barbara Nicklaus celebrate his 1970 Open Championship win. R&A Championships

1970 — Jack Nicklaus, Champion

You knew this one was coming. This was Nicklaus’ second of three Open championships, but it will always be known for Doug Sanders’ missed putt on the 18th hole on Saturday’s final round. Clad in a purple sweater, with three feet to win the Open, Sanders stalked it like a man on a mission. But when he struck the ball, it slid past on the right, and he almost seemed to reach out for it, wanting to take it back and try again. This video should probably come with a content warning:
Nicklaus’ quote after his first victory must have been a real rub-salt-in-the-wounds moment for Sanders: “How lucky can you get? I never expected to be here now. Doug had it all wrapped up on the final hole Saturday. Then he missed that short putt.”
Nicklaus would win again at St. Andrews in 1978, but the best Sanders would ever do in majors was runner-up … four times.

1984 — Seve Ballesteros, Champion

On the 18th hole, Ballesteros didn’t know that Tom Watson was struggling on the 17th, eventually making bogey to open the door for him to win. His short pitch over the Valley of Sin gave him a seven-footer for birdie. Watson lost the lead on 17, and Ballesteros hit the tricky right-to-left putt for birdie, and gave one of the most famous fist-pumps ever:

Watson was now down two strokes, essentially ending the tournament. At 12-under, Ballesteros set an Open record at the Old Course. And it remains a little stunning that for all the great Open champions at St Andrews, Watson never joined the club. This was his best chance.

John Daly drives during his 1995 Open win. Jacqueline Duvoisin

1995 — John Daly, Champion

Daly emerged in a four-hole playoff against Constantino Rocca, but for anyone watching this tournament will be remembered for Rocca’s improbably tying putt on the 18th after duffing his pitch, while Daly watched in agony.
It’s hard to tell now what’s more miraculous: Rocca’s putt, or the fact that Daly could somehow recover psychologically in the space of mere minutes to go out and win anyway.

2000 and 2005 — Tiger Woods, Champion

Let’s group these together because they are essentially the same. Neither one was close, but both mattered and were fascinating to watch for the same reason: It was Tiger Woods showing the world, yet again, the dizzying levels of his absurd greatness.

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The post Open Championship 2022: The 15 most intriguing battles for the Claret Jug at St Andrews appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Jones’ granddaughter, Anne Hood Laird, and her husband, Cody, inherited old office files of Jones after Carl Hood, the husband of Jones’ daughter, Mary Ellen, passed away. Cody Laird started digging through the files recently and happened upon a typed letter from Jones to British architect Sir Guy Campbell on Dec. 4, 1930.

That becomes interesting when you consider that Dr. MacKenzie did not sail for Augusta, Ga., from Great Britain until July 4, 1931, after receiving a July 2 letter from Clifford Roberts.

But most notably, in his letter to Campbell in Dec. 1930, Jones inquires whether the British architect “is interested in discussing the possibility of your undertaking the job.” Jones goes on to ask about Campbell’s fee if he’s interested—but to keep the matter “strictly confidential.”

Here’s the entirety of the newly discovered letter from Bobby Jones to Campbell:

Let’s address a couple things.

A) Jones’ letter refers to a “golfing hotel resort development,” which was likely referring to the original plans for Augusta. Roberts clarified the plans in an unrelated letter, describing that the 364-acre Fruitland Nurseries property would be used for the building of two 18-hole courses and winter homes for the members to stay in.

B) After Campbell penned a five-page response letter on Dec. 29 expressing strong interest in Jones’ offer, correspondence seemed to have ended. The Lairds are continuing to dig through files to see what else they can unearth, but it’s unclear why talks ended between Campbell and Jones.

It’s not known why Jones or Roberts did not disclose Jones’ intent to hire Campbell to design Augusta. The uniform consensus from the official disclosures from the club was that MacKenzie was always the first choice.

Perhaps a little presumption came with the stories of Jones being so impressed by Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, Calif., and offering him the job after walking Cypress Point with the Great Doctor in 1929. It seems the timeline is clear, and Campbell was in fact the first one contacted by Jones.

Of course, this new evidence creates many more questions, but it’s an interesting entry into the history of Augusta National.

Sidney Matthew is a golf historian. His full article on this subject is planned to be released in the British Golf Collectors Society Journal “Through the Green” later in 2021.

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The post A newly discovered letter from Bobby Jones reveals he might’ve had a different architect in mind for Augusta National appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Just as with the previous posts, I’ve relied on the knowledge of an able historian to help me navigate this difficult question. My guru on this journey was Laurie Rae, Senior Curator at the R&A. Mr. Rae gave generously of his time to help winnow 148 Opens down to the “best” 15. The wisdom is all his, the perceived errors in ranking all mine. Let’s begin!

15. 1954, Peter Thomson, Royal Birkdale

If there are two historical golfers who merit more attention than they get, they are Peter Thomson and Bobby Locke. Rae didn’t want to use the word “forgotten,” but I will. At least in America, Thomson and Locke don’t get the credit they deserve, possibly because neither took home an American major and possibly because they missed the early peak of televised golf. But for a period in the 1950s, they were dominant at the Open, winning eight of 10 claret jugs between 1949 and 1958. The ’54 Open saw Thomson claim the first of his five, and become the first Australian to capture the championship. He and Locke were among those who fought it out in the final round at Royal Birkdale, and though I couldn’t find footage of Thomson’s sand recovery on 16, I did find this delightful newsreel showing the action of the final holes:

14. 1937, Henry Cotton, Carnoustie

Cotton’s triumph in 1934 was critical because it broke a streak of eight straight American wins, but his victory in ’37 was even more important in that he defeated the entirety of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, all of whom had stuck around to play at Carnoustie after their 8-4 win in late June. Cotton’s brilliant final-round 71 came in torrential conditions, and he later said that it was one of the finest rounds of his career. With that result, he overcame a three-shot 54-hole deficit to defeat among others Byron Nelson. According to Rae, the Englishman’s win “maintained British interest in the championship itself.”

13. 1992, Nick Faldo, Muirfield

Photo by Getty Images

As Rae noted, Faldo was in the prime of his prime, going for his fifth major in six years. He had won the Irish Open, and at the start of this Open, he looked fundamentally unstoppable. He set a 36-hole record, beat his own 54-hole record and came into the final round leading by four shots. It looked like a coronation, but it was not—a miserable stretch from 11 to 14 saw him lose three shots, American John Cook catching him and taking the lead on 16. For Faldo, this “dominant” Open now became about resilience. Pulling himself together, he birdied two of the final four holes and squeaked out a one-shot win—a testament to perseverance and even acceptance in the face of what must have been massive disappointment, and the greatest of his three Opens.

12. 1927, Bobby Jones, Old Course at St. Andrews

Photo by Topical Press Agency

In 1921, a younger, more impetuous Bobby Jones became so angry at his play in the third round at St. Andrews that he tore up his scorecard and withdrew after 11 holes. He then insulted the Old Course, and the St. Andrews press fired back, writing “Master Bobby is just a boy, and an ordinary boy at that.” This, then, was a kind of comeback story, because in the interval, Jones had come to love both the course and the town. And as fate would have it, they loved him back. When he won by six shots, he was carried off the green by a jubilant crowd, and even asked that his trophy be kept in Scotland with the R&A. By 1958, Jones had become just the second American “Freeman of the City” in St. Andrews, an honor he shared with none other than Ben Franklin. At that ceremony, Jones said of the Old Course that, “the more you study it, the more you love it, and the more you love it, the more you study it.”

11. 1953, Ben Hogan, Carnoustie

What do you call it when the greatest golfer of his generation comes over for the first and only time in his life, had just a week to prepare for the links style, improved in every round and won by four strokes? You call it Ben Hogan being Ben Hogan. The win capped an incredible year in major championships that also saw him capture the Masters and U.S. Open. He remains the only golfer to ever win those three events in the same year.

10. 1984, Seve Ballesteros, Old Course at St. Andrews

I’ll be honest: I’m in this one for the little dance Seve did when he sunk his putt on the 72nd hole. But historically, it merits top-10 status for the incredible drama at the end. Tom Watson, heading into the final round tied for the lead, had one of his greatest chances to win what would have been his record-tying sixth Open. With two holes to play, Watson and Seve were tied. Seve had a putt to take the lead on 18, while Watson was struggling to make his par on the road hole. The drama can best be seen starting at the 44:30 mark here:

Seve’s putt instigated a two-shot swing, perhaps one of the most famous in major championship golf, and added his name to the list of legendary winners at the Home of Golf.

9. 1896, Harry Vardon, Muirfield

This was the first of Vardon’s record six Open Championship wins, and though Rae said that every one of them was noteworthy enough to merit inclusion on the list, this one stood out because of how Vardon out-duelled his great rival J.H. Taylor over a 36-hole playoff. While the tournament’s final round came on a Thursday, the playoff wasn’t played until Saturday, since both Vardon and Taylor had to play a different 36-hole tournament on the Friday. Taylor won that one, but Vardon beat him at Muirfield. Taylor would win again, though, and in fact there was a 21-year period where Vardon, Taylor and James Braid won 16 championships between them. “They were the superstars of the Open,” Rae said.

8. 1868, Tom Morris Jr., Prestwick

At the time, Tom Morris Jr. (if you’re wondering, yes, I was slightly disappointed that Rae didn’t call him “Young Tom Morris”) was the youngest player in Open Championship history at 17. Prestwick was a 12-hole course, and the three rounds of the championship were all held on a single day. Morris Jr. set a record when he shot 51 on his first round, which was then bested by his father, who shot a 50 in the second round to take a one-shot lead. In the final round, though, Morris Jr. struck back, carding a 49 to beat his dad by three shots and win his first Open (which came with a massive £6 prize). This was the first of four straight Opens victories for Young Tom. As Rae pointed out, his story is all the more poignant because of his untimely death—Morris Jr. died on Christmas Day 1875 at age 24 from a pulmonary haemorrhage. “There were often very few competitors at this time,” Rae said, “but the golf was no less impressive and the champions no less dominant than they are today.” Morris Jr. remains the youngest Open winner in history, and his father is still the oldest.

7. 1972, Lee Trevino, Muirfield

In terms of the greatest shots in Open history, Trevino’s chip on 17 on Sunday ranks near the top. He had bungled the par 5 up to that point, and had hole out for par while Tony Jacklin, tied for the lead, had a 15-footer for birdie. It looked very much like Jacklin would head to the final hole with at least a one-shot edge. “I really felt, on the 17th, like I’d broken him,” Jacklin would later say. But in one of the great feats of match-play-within-stroke-play golf, Trevino turned the tables. Watch it play out, including Jacklin’s subsequent putts, starting at the 3:45 mark:

For Jacklin, who had watched Trevino hole out twice the day before, the loss was unbearable. Later, he said, “I was never the same again after that. I didn’t ever get my head around it—it definitely knocked the stuffing out of me somehow.” Jacklin had already won the Open in 1969, luckily, and would go on to transform the European Ryder Cup team as its captain, but what shows the emotional swings of better than that moment, which gave Trevino his second straight claret jug?

6. 1961, Arnold Palmer, Royal Troon

Photo by Bob Thomas

The impact here was more wide-ranging than any drama on the course, in which Palmer beat Dai Rees by a shot. What really mattered was that Palmer was the first American champion since Hogan in 1953, and his win did more to increase the status of the Open in America than anything before. According to Rae, a figure as beloved as Palmer, who believed so much in the history and importance of the Open as the oldest of the majors—this was his second trip over, having finished runner-up in ’60—and who wanted to win it so badly, fundamentally changed how the tournament was viewed in the eyes of American professionals. Many had stopped making the trip due to travel concerns, the low prize money and various other reasons. Palmer’s victory completely changed the perception. You can see it in the results—the long American dry spell was over, and in the 60 Opens that started with his win, Americans have won more than half. In his unique way, Palmer made it matter again.

5. 1970, Jack Nicklaus, Old Course at St. Andrews

It seems like the great ones always manage to get a win at St. Andrews, and for Nicklaus, this was the first of two. Interestingly, Doug Sanders only needed a par on the 18th hole to pull out the victory, but he missed a three-foot putt after being distracted by something in his eye line. Despite Sanders’s disappointment, he battled hard in the 18-hole playoff. It came down to the 18th hole, when Nicklaus took off his yellow sweater and hit one of the most famous shots of his career—a drive that actually flew over the green, travelling about 360 yards in total.

He chipped close from there, made his birdie putt and beat Sanders by one. At the end of this video, you can see Nicklaus, thrilled beyond self-control when his winning putt caught the right and edge and fell, actually threw his putter in the air, which nearly managed to hit Sanders as it fell.

4. 2016, Henrik Stenson, Royal Troon

“Some of the finest links golf you’d ever seen,” Rae said, and really, what more needs adding to this incredible fight between Stenson and Mickelson? It ended with Mickelson cooling off, just slightly, but Stenson never did, tying Johnny Miller’s major record (for a winner) with a final-round 63, and set a cumulative Open record with his 72-hole score in relation to par of 20 under. In many ways, it was also the best possible result—Mickelson had already won his Open in 2013, and Stenson was a player who deserved a major, but was starting to look like he might never get one. To win the Open, as a European, felt appropriate, and secured Stenson’s legacy. Plus, there was that record-setting final putt:

3. 2000, Tiger Woods, Old Course at St. Andrews

It seems like every major has its quintessential Transcendent Tiger year, in which the GOAT demolishes the field in ways that defy belief. The Masters in 1997, the U.S. Open in 2000, and maybe, at a stretch, the 2006 PGA. For the Open Championship, it was back in the greatest year of his great career, 2000. This was the “Millennium Open,” at the most famous course in the world, and 239,000 spectators watched him post a then-Open record 19 under, beating his nearest opponent by eight strokes and securing the career Grand Slam at the age of 24, the youngest to achieve the feat. Rae reminded me of an incredible facet of his performance: In 72 holes of superb course management, he didn’t find a single bunker. Remarkable anywhere, but especially at St. Andrews. And it’s also worth remembering that coming on the heels of his crushing Pebble Beach win, it legitimately seemed like Tiger might never lose again. This was a kind of dominance we’d never seen before, and haven’t since.

hoto by JONATHAN UTZ

2. 2019, Shane Lowry, Royal Portrush

Call it recency bias, and in fact I implied as much to Rae when he ranked it second on his list. I made a small note to adjust the ranking later—the privileges of a writer/dictator—but the more I thought about his argument, the more sense it made. The Open, more than any other major, is about history, and the significance of holding the first Open in Northern Ireland since 1951 is about as historical as it gets. In the interlude, that country fell into decades of religious and political conflict, and the symbolism of the R&A returning to Royal Portrush was enormous. To pull off a safe event, embraced by the people, and for an Irish golfer to win … well, it didn’t matter that the final day lacked drama. “It made your heartbeat quicker to witness it,” Rae told me, and in the end, I agree with him—the historical importance is unmatched.

1. Tom Watson, 1977, Turnberry

Students of the game knew No. 1 without having to scroll down, or else would have been enraged to find anything else in the top spot. “The Duel in the Sun” between Watson and Jack Nicklaus was simply one of the greatest golf spectacles ever, and one that, to quote Rae, “will forever be spoken about.” It was about the great rivalry between the two men, it was about the sportsmanship on display, and, of course, it was about the golf. “It went beyond natural chronology,” Rae said. “It was legendary.”

Watson, 27, and Nicklaus, 37, matched each other score for score in the first three rounds at Turnberry, hosting the Open for the first time, pulling away together where by the end, they were 10 shots better than anyone else in the field. In the closing stretch, where Watson birdied four of the final six holes for the dramatic victory, but perhaps it’s best summarized by a quote from that final-round Saturday, when Watson turned to Nicklaus and said, “this is what it’s all about isn’t it?”

“You bet it is,” Nicklaus replied.

The post The 15 best Open Championships, ranked appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The Coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our latest instalment of “Did you know?”

In 2019 the Augusta National Golf Club launched the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. But it’s not the only time a tournament other than the Masters was played on the hallowed Georgia property.

In 1937 and 1938, Augusta National served as host for the PGA Seniors’ Championship. The tournament, which debuted in 1937, was brought to Augusta National by co-founder Bobby Jones, who thought the event would be a platform to honour the pioneers who came before him. Jones asked the club’s board of governors to alter its bylaws to allow another tournament to be played at Augusta National.

“They all feel as I do, that they are glad to make an exception to an established policy in order to make a gesture of appreciation to those members of your association who have contributed much to golf in this country,” Jones said.

It was supposed to be more of a celebration rather than a competitive tournament. There was a practice round and three 54-hole tournaments, divided by ages groups: 50-54, 55-59 and 60-plus. Jock Hutchison won the inaugural Senior PGA over 36 other players with a seven-over 223, while Fred McLeod won the rain-shortened 1938 event in an 18-hole playoff over Otto Hackbarth, after Hackbarth three-putted the 17th and 18th in regulation. (Related note: “Hackbarthed” should be the new term for “three-jack.”).

The tournament moved to warmer confines in 1939, but the spirit of the Senior PGA was brought back with the introduction of the Honorary Starters in 1963, with Hutchison and McLeod serving as the ceremonial strikers.

The post Did You Know: Augusta National has hosted another major appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The Coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our latest installment of “Did you know?”

By Joel Beall
Forget the “the shot heard ’round the world,” the Golden Bear coming out of hibernation or the chip that didn’t go in until it did. The biggest thing that’s happened to Augusta National’s second nine is switching it from the first.

That’s right, golf’s most famous back was once a front.

Although architect Alister Mackenzie mapped out the course as its currently presented, for reasons that remain unknown he decided to flip the nines during construction. Mackenzie’s switch served as the layout when the club opened, and was the routing for the first Masters Tournament in 1934.

However, co-founders Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts decided to return to the original conception. The changed was noted by the Augusta Chronicle in November 1934:

“It was also announced that the order of play over the course will be changed this year, with the back nine holes and the front nine reversed. Under the new plans, No. 10 hole will become No. 1 and the old No. 1 will be No. 10. The change was decided, officials said, because the first nine holes are more difficult to play than the last nine, and playing the easier holes first will give players an opportunity to warm up before reaching the intricate problems of the difficult holes.

“It was stated that decision to reverse the order of play on the course was reached at a conference in New York by Clifford Roberts, executive secretary of the club, Grantland Rice and other officials.”

What facilitated the move? Roberts wrote in “The Story of the Augusta National Golf Club” that weather—specifically, frost—was the catalyst.

“The change was made because we learned through experience that play could begin earlier after a frost on what is now the first nine, due to its being on higher ground,” Roberts noted. “The switch was made in time for the fall season club opening (in 1934).”

The move paid immediate dividends: Gene Sarazen’s double eagle, arguably the most famous shot in the sport’s history, happened at the 1935 Masters. And, at the risk of embellishment, the past 85 years have been kind on the decision as well.

The post Did You Know: Augusta National’s nines were once reversed appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Peter Thomson joined the Golf Digest staff as a contributing editor in 1986. At the time, I wrote in the editor’s letter: “Thomson is best known to America as a player, but internationally he is recognised as an architect, writer, administrator and statesman. He once ran for Parliament in his native Australia and was narrowly defeated. He is credited with founding the Far Eastern tournament circuit, ranging from India to Japan. He is unique in the sport, a reader of hardcover books, kind of an outdoor intellectual.”

After winning a tour event, it would be common to see him accept the trophy, then go into the press tent and roll a piece of paper into a typewriter carriage, and rap out a report on the final round as the golf correspondent to far-flung newspapers. He was the rarest of athletes who didn’t just talk his stories into a tape recorder to be cleaned up by a ghostwriter; like Bobby Jones, Thomson laboured over his own syntax. Trying to entice the five-time British Open champion to write a column for Golf Digest, I invited him to our offices in Connecticut, and we went to lunch down the road on this beautiful fall day at a typical New England restaurant called the Red Barn. In a private, wood-panelled room, we had an animated discussion about a wide range of potential topics.

What clinched it for me was one sentence. I asked his opinion of Jack Nicklaus’ design work. Jack was the No. 1 architect at the time with Pete Dye 1a, and their influence reshaped modern architecture worldwide. “Nicklaus courses,” Thomson said, parsing his words, “are like Jack himself—grim and humourless, with sharp edges.” Even if you didn’t agree with his assessment, you had to recognise the mind of a columnist who would stir and shake our readers.

Following is the first column he wrote for Golf Digest, in February 1987. It refers to a statement made by Jack Renner, who played the PGA Tour from 1977-’88. Known for exceptionally straight driving, Renner had his most historic moment come in the scorer’s tent leading the 1983 Sony Open in Hawaii by a shot over Isao Aoki, who proceeded to hole out his 120-yard wedge on the last hole for an eagle to win. Renner’s good humour at the time demonstrated a sense of perspective for the game that endeared him to Thomson. Jack, now 63, lives in San Diego. Peter continued to travel the world, design courses and offer incisive commentary until his death at age 88 in 2018— Jerry Tarde

You don’t have to be a weatherman to notice a change in the climate. Just read Jack Renner’s quote about the U.S. Open course at Shinnecock Hills last year.

“I’ll tell you what’s great about Shinnecock,” he said. “No railroad ties and no greens in the middle of lakes. There are choices here, options. The modern golf course removes strategy and options from the game of golf. It’s a defensive game. You just try to keep away from trouble. Here there are three or four ways to play most holes.”

Peter Thomson, 82, five-time British Open champion
(Photo by J.D. Cuban)

Does this mean what I think it does? Have railroad ties and greens in lakes had their day? Passed out of fashion like Bermuda shorts and fins on Cadillacs? Are the cold, grey skies of depressing winter giving way to warmer days of celebration and good fun? I, for one, hope so.

The truth is, the TPC at Sawgrass and courses of that ilk are hell to play. Such courses were designed and built for the amusement of spectators, not for the pleasure of playing. They were born in commercialism as part of Commissioner Deane Beman’s bold plan to make the PGA Tour self-sufficient by the staging of tour events in its own stadiums. Built into these arenas are the features that make for colourful television—the horror stretches of water and wilderness, railroad ties and savage sawgrass, areas within it might be hoped a front-runner will come to grief to the sniggers of the multitudes watching from the high mounds. The mixture of these patterns makes for the photogenic aspect that magazines and calendars lap up, the reflection of green grass and trees in calm, blue water. (Out West you can even have snowcapped mountains mirrored in the hazards.) It sells a load of real estate but has little to do with golf and, more often than not, gets in the way.

What we are seeing in these courses are not practical innovations, but distortions of dimensions—not works of art but caricatures.

The whole sorry business stems on the one hand from the silly attempt to keep winning scores up at around par for four rounds, about 288. Winning scores in the early 1900s were near the 300 mark, but they steadily declined with the advancement in clubs and balls and the tremendous improvement in course maintenance.

To Thomson, TPC Sawgrass represented golf courses built for TV viewers instead of golfers. A contrast would be Royal Melbourne (above) in his native Australia. (Photo by Carlos Amoedo).

Winners of major championships, in this day and age, should crack the 270 mark, but for some nonsensical reason the game’s authorities decided that scores should hold at the par mark. To counter low scores came the mucking about with the course, distorting its length and width, and the conversion of nonhazard areas into “penalty zones.” The result of this misguided policy is the present-day competition for the most outrageous and bizarre.

On the other hand is the modern axiom that a golf course will sell real estate, and that the more notorious the course, the higher the surrounding land prices. The trick for the developer, as devised through his architect, is to build something that is photogenically stunning, however impractical, extravagant or absurd. Never mind the golfer, that most gullible of all citizens. “Just get us into the colour magazines” seems to be the working theory.

The effect of this kind of marketing is to lead the game of golf down the garden path. By pounding out the message endlessly that golf is a gambit of tortures, and that it is somehow plebeian to play an entire round of golf with one ball, commercialism is doing a great harm to a noble sport.

These trends have been raging now for two decades or more. The consumer has had precious little say in the matter. The free market has not been in effect, he has been caught up in a mad competition of propaganda.

Yet there is a ray of hope. There are signs of a change of season as a few brave professionals like Jack Renner are beginning to speak their minds. But the little man should be heard from, too. Not the land speculator or investor, but the golfer who loves the game.

As for me, when I first took to journalism, my kind but stern mentor laid down the principle that if grandmother couldn’t understand what I was writing about, it was a lousy piece of composition. If my grandma can’t play it, it has to be a lousy course.

The post PETER THOMSON: Looking for golf courses my grandmother would love appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Charles Price
This is a new series on the 70th anniversary of Golf Digest commemorating the best literature we’ve ever published. Each entry includes an introduction that celebrates the author or puts the story in context.

The late Charles Price had the raspy look and voice of the Burgess Meredith character in the “Rocky” movies, but the man had style. He could toss a double-breasted blazer over a silk shirt and a pair of linen trousers and, with an ever-present cigarette at his fingertips, give a perfect impression of Fred Astaire on his way to pick up Grace Kelly. He had style on a golf course and at the typewriter. He was a low-handicapper with a sweetly crisp swing, reliably shooting in the low 70s. And he liked to hang out at good places; he was the official Writer-in-Residence at various times at Hilton Head, the Old Course Hotel and, in his final days, Pinehurst. He liked to complain how expensive it was in St. Andrews, even though his lavish room was comped. “Charley, it wouldn’t be so expensive if you didn’t order your cigarettes and scotches by room service,” I told him. He was the first guy I knew who owned an Acura car, when it was introduced in the image of Japanese luxury and mechanics. He said they named the model after him: Legend.

Charley was the founding editor of Golf Magazine in 1959; a frequent companion of Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen; correspondent for Newsweek and Cosmopolitan; golf historian whose books included The Complete Golfer, Golfer-at-Large and A Golf Story: Bobby Jones, Augusta National and The Masters Tournament; and a monthly columnist for Golf Digest in the early 1980s through his death in 1994. His writing had an ageless quality. He liked to remind me to avoid allusions to modern culture: “How people popularly put things today may already be on the way out. In 1956, the most popular lyric in America was ‘Some enchanted evening.’ Six months later it was ‘You ain’t nothing but a hound dog.’”

The piece I’ve selected for this collection is a wonderful exposition of his philosophy of writing in three rings. As he once told our staff, “Everything must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In writing they must interconnect, like the three rings of logic. The first ring is your proposition: What the hell is this piece all about? The second ring contains the proof of the proposition. The third ring draws a conclusion from the proof. The trick, though, is to make the third ring interconnect with the first somehow. Thus the reader is reminded of whatever it was you were trying to prove.”

Along with Herbert Warren Wind and Dan Jenkins, Charley might be considered the third player in American golf writing’s Great Triumvirate. His monthly columns were lessons in how to write. This one originally was published in Golf Digest in April 1991. Once you’ve read it, it’s unforgettable. —Jerry Tarde

By 1968 Bobby Jones’ health had slipped from the terrible to the abysmal. His eyes were bloodshot from the spinal disease he had endured for 20 years, his arms atrophied to the size of a schoolgirl’s, his ankles so swollen by body fluids they spilled over the edges of his shoes. This was a man who could once effortlessly drive a golf ball a sixth of a mile.

Still, he had not lost the humor with which he viewed so many things, often at his own expense. Confined to a wheelchair all day, he had to be put into and taken out of bed by a male nurse, who was the size of a linebacker. “He handles me like a flapjack,” Bob said by way of complimenting the man when he introduced us. Then he chuckled. Bob laughed a lot, although never out loud, and he laughed during his last days mostly to put people at their ease, especially strangers. Meeting him then for the first time could be a shock, and Bob knew it. But he insisted on shaking hands with everybody, painful as it had to be, excruciating if his hand were squeezed. But it was part of the price he insisted on paying for having been Bobby Jones, the one and only.

Having covered the Masters for 20 years, I had become his companion during it by a choice that was as much his as mine. Those years became the most fulfilling of the 44 I have been writing about golf. I’ve never written about them, and don’t know why. In looking back, that period in his life seems as towering as the Grand Slam.

For 10 years we had been collaborating on a number of writing chores. Since I then covered the tournament for Newsweek and wrote a column elsewhere that appeared only monthly, I had the time to act as his legman. He had long been unable to watch the Masters even from a golf cart, and his son, Bob III, was on the course most of the day as an official. I became somebody who could bring younger players and foreign writers to him, someone with whom he could pass off a casual observation about the tournament on TV without fear of explaining himself, someone he could share lunch with now that he no longer would eat where people could watch him.

We would sit at a card table next to a window in his cottage that overlooked the 10th tee. A curtain prevented spectators from looking in but allowed Bob to peer out. He had the same thing for lunch almost every day. First there’d be a couple of dry martinis, which he drank with relish but scolded himself for. “I shouldn’t be drinking these,” he said to me one day. “They don’t mix with my medicine.” The martinis would be followed by a hamburger, in part because he liked hamburgers but mainly because he could no longer cut meat and disliked anyone cutting it for him, so gnarled had his fingers become.

Bob smoked more than two packs of cigarettes a day, sometimes in chain fashion, and they were lined on the card table in neat rows for him, each in a holder so he would not accidently burn himself. An elegant lighter, covered in leather, sat ready. All he had to do was push down a lever that any child could. But even that was becoming an effort. So, with as much nonchalance as I could devise, I’d pull out a cigarette of my own, thereby giving me the excuse to light his.

He had been a man who never looked as though he needed help, even when he was dying, and it was part of Bob’s magnificence that disablement evoked admiration more than pity. Those cigarettes were actually a token of his will to live, not the other way around. One day he left me speechless after I lighted one for him. “I’ve got to give these things up,” he said. “They’re bad for me.”

Charley Price

I had long known what was wrong with Bob, and he asked me not to write about it while he was still alive. “People think I’ve got arthritis,” he said. “Let’s let it go at that.”

Actually, he had what is known as syringomyelia—pronounced sir-ring-go-my-ale-ee-ah—an extremely rare disease of the central nervous system. It took eight years to diagnose. Researching it, I found neurosurgeons who had never even seen a case. “And I guess,” one told me, “that I’ve treated 20 cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

Syringomyelia is a disease you are born with, although it is not hereditary and does not manifest itself until much later in life. Bob had been 46 when his symptoms first appeared. His right leg began to pain him, then the right arm. Eventually, he lost the use of both legs. For a while he got around on elbow crutches, then a “walker” and finally a wheelchair. Then his whole body began to waste away. Even in that condition he went to law offices in Atlanta every day he could, chiefly to keep from vegetating. The disease had no effect on his mind. Indeed, the complex nature of it is such that it doesn’t kill you, as it didn’t Bob. Clinically, he died from an aneurysm, but actually from the exhaustion of just trying to stay alive. “If I’d known it was going to be this easy,” he told Jean Marshall, his secretary, days before he died, “I’d have gone a long time ago.”

Bob and I first collaborated in 1959, when he agreed to rewrite some old instructional articles for Golf Magazine, of which I was the first editor. Three years later he wrote the introduction to a history I had written with his help, which by itself has been widely quoted, especially his line about golfers sometimes being “the dogged victims of inexorable fate.”

Augusta National
“He had been a man who never looked as though he needed help, even when he was dying,” Price wrote of Jones, “and it was part of Bob’s magnificence that disablement evoked admiration more than pity.”

A few years later another book of mine had been dedicated to him, and we had talked about golf at such length and in such detail that I suggested he put together a book from his old newspaper columns and magazine articles. He had written hundreds, not a word of them ghosted. Bob was reluctant, what with his flagging energies, but I convinced him it had to be done. People would be interested in what he had to say about golf a century after he was gone, or long after every other golfer’s thoughts had left the public yawning. His ideas were so eloquent, so down to earth, so free of technicalisms. He agreed when I volunteered to collect them, cut out what was dated, and dovetail the rest into logical order. These were words Bob himself hadn’t read for 30 years or more.

Like a lot of people who are good at it, Bob did not like to write, only to have written. Notwithstanding, he threw himself into the project. My manuscript was retyped by Mrs. Marshall into triple-spaced pages so Bob could mark between the lines any changes he wanted, which he did with a ballpoint pen inserted into a rubber ball he could grip with his crippled fingers.

Sitting with me across from his desk in Atlanta, he’d study every word, pushing each page aside only after he was sure of what he wanted to leave to posterity. I’d note the changes, all the while finding excuses to light his cigarettes. When he was finished, I’d take the changes back to New York, where I lived, while he pondered what was still to be done. The whole process took almost a year. Bob was the most honestly modest golf champion ever. But he was well aware of, and conscientious about, his unique role in the game’s history.

The book became Bobby Jones on Golf (Doubleday & Co., 1966) and I was pleased to learn from Mrs. Marshall that work on it had given Bob a new purpose in life. For the first time in years he was doing something creative and constructive, something only he could do, of which the Grand Slam is just a monument.

At this stage in our friendship, it had become apparent that Bob was passing some sort of torch to me. I was a writer, and I represented the generation immediately after his. He wanted to leave somebody behind who could straighten out the facts of his life if they had to be, as O.B. Keeler did when Bob was at the peak of his career. Bob not only seldom reminisced, he disliked to.

We were joined once in his cottage by two former U.S. Open champions from his era. Bob did all the listening, and I could see he was getting restless. Finally, he made an announcement. “I wonder if you fellows would excuse us,” he said. “Charley and I have something to discuss that can’t wait.” Minutes went by after they left. I had to come out and ask him what it was he wanted to discuss. “Oh, nothing,” he said. “I just can’t stand sitting around talking about ancient history.”

Yet he would with me, all day long, with the Masters Tournament taking place just outside his window. Armed with his confidence in me, I approached him about doing a film on his life, concentrating on the Grand Slam, the drama of which had never been explained to my satisfaction. He was reluctant, as I knew he would be. But I pointed out the inevitable. If he didn’t do the film, somebody else would eventually, disarticulating it with the sort of hyperbole he hated and which he made such an effort to avoid in his own accounts.

So he agreed. Somehow word got out before we had hardly begun, and we were approached by potential producers, one of whom conferred with us in Atlanta. But the project never got much further. Bob became too exhausted to continue. He never came back to the Masters and died in December 1971.

I was abroad at the time. When I got home, there was a package from Bob’s office for me. In it was that lighter with which I had lit so many of his cigarettes, trying to circumvent his pride. There was a note from him, typed by Mrs. Marshall but signed by Bob in his scrawl. “You weren’t fooling me a bit,” it said.

The post The last days of Bobby Jones appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
PEBBLE BEACH — When he tees in the second round of match play at the 118th U.S. Amateur, Jackson Van Paris will attempt to accomplish something that only Bobby Jones is believed to have done. And that was more than 100 years ago.

Van Paris is a precocious, wafer-thin 14-year-old from Pinehurst, N.C. His mother, Jana, says that Jackson has yet to grow into his very large feet, even though he is almost 6-foot-2. Already he has committed to play college golf at Vanderbilt, and his brown cap displayed the familiar “V” in the center of a star that represents the Vandy logo. He makes a pronounced sway into his downswing, which gives him some necessary power without diminishing his accuracy.

He doesn’t seem to be nervous, even though he admitted feeling jittery coming down the stretch in his first-round match at Pebble Beach Golf Links against Dylan Perry of Australia.

And then all he did on the iconic par-5 18th is chip in for a birdie for a 1-up victory.

As far as anyone could tell, Van Paris is the second-youngest contestant to win a match in the U.S. Amateur, trailing only Jones, who made his debut in the 1916 championship at Merion. Jones was 14 years, 5 months and 19 days when he defeated 1906 champion Eben Byers in the first round. Jones reached the quarterfinals before losing to Robert Gardner, the defending champion, but he would go on to win nine USGA titles, including five U.S. Amateur crowns.

RELATED: Junior phenom’s U.S. Amateur bid ends with unusual rules issue

Van Paris, who turns 15 in exactly one week, is the youngest to win a match since the match-play bracket was expanded to 64 players. And he did it with a seeming calm that belied his youth. After blowing a 2-up lead, he gathered himself for a critical shot just off the back-left side of the 18th green and executed a tidy 54-degree wedge perfectly, nipping the ball off the turf and holing out from 20 feet. When his ball caught the right edge and settled in the cup, he pumped his fist in elation.

“It’s pretty incredible,” said the youngster, who carried his own bag for 36 holes of stroke-play qualifying and for Wednesday’s match against Perry, 23, runner-up at the 2017 British Amateur. “To win a match and to play well out here is crazy because I know how many great players there have been before me.”

Van Paris’ opponent in the round of 32 is Mason Overstreet of Kingfisher, Okla., who advanced with a 1-up decision over Cameron Sisk of El Cajon, Calif.

Though he never trailed in the match, Van Paris had to weather a difficult stretch on a brilliant sunny and crisp day on the Monterey Peninsula. After winning the 11th and 12th holes, the first with a 10-foot birdie putt and the second with a par, he lost the next two. He bogeyed the 13th after a poor driven—“Maybe the worst drive of my life,” he said of the 230-yard bunt—and then he had to concede the par-5 14th when he pushed his 2-iron second shot right and found that his ball caromed off a tree and out of bounds.

“Kind of a bad break, but I didn’t deserve much better after that shot,” Van Paris said. “I was not happy there. Gave two back after I got 2 up, and we tied the first 10 holes of the day, so I kind of feel like I didn’t gain much ground.”

He erased all those feelings, and the nerves that caused him to strike too boldly his 105-yard approach to the green at Pebble’s home hole, with one final magical shot. When Perry missed a tying 12-foot putt, Van Paris celebrated a victory he’d been dreaming about since he navigated the 36-hole qualifier, in which he posted three-over 146, making him the 48th seed.

“He’s always been special. He’s always had a knack for the moment,” Todd Van Paris, Jackson’s father, said of the youngest of his three children. “I told his mom, ‘He just needs to do something special here.’ When I saw him take the flagstick out of the hole, I said, ‘OK, here we go. He wants to chip this in.’ And, obviously, that’s what he did. What a way to finish.”

Should he triumph today, Van Paris would match Jones’ win total from 1916. Two wins put Jones into the quarterfinals because of the 32-man match-play setup at the time. Van Paris needs three wins to reach that stage (the Round of 16 is played overnight). If he succeeds, then he’ll nudge aside, at least in one distinction, the greatest amateur in golf history.

The post U.S. Amateur participant becomes youngest player to win a match in more than 100 years appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
History, without anyone there to chronicle it, is myth without a byline. It recalls that famous old thought experiment, that if a loblolly pine falls at Augusta National and no one is there to hear it …

Bobby Jones understood this explicitly. He acknowledged the importance of the press with his preface in the book, The Bobby Jones Story, by Grantland Rice, from the writings of O.B. Keeler, an Atlanta sportswriter who chronicled all things Jones.

“To gain any sort of fame it isn’t enough to do the job. There must be someone to spread the news,” Jones wrote, his homage to Keeler’s work.

How Masters news is spread has changed radically from the first Augusta National Invitation Tournament in 1934, when sportswriters, via Western Union operators on site, filed stories that were readied for print on Linotype machines and weren’t read until the following morning or evening. Newspapers virtually had a monopoly on the dissemination of news then.

What hasn’t changed is Augusta National’s commitment to media and how it contributes to the Masters, based on Jones’ recognition of its importance. The club even erected a working monument to it, a palatial new media center, or Press Building as it’s called, that opened at last year’s Masters.

“We had a very simple goal,” Billy Payne, Augusta National’s chairman at the time, said in a news conference. “To build for you the finest working environment in all of sport, not just in golf, to create a facility that not only expedites and enhances the creation of your work product, but one that acknowledges your long-term importance to the success of the Masters.

“We are fully aware that over the decades, the magic of your words, the pictures literally painted by your compelling narratives, are largely responsible for the universal reverence and appeal of the Masters.”

The metamorphosis of how the public has followed the tournament over those decades correlates to the Masters’ own transformation. In 1934, it was held at what then was an outpost, 145 miles from Atlanta and accessed via a two-lane road. Today, it represents the center of the golf universe, accessed from anywhere in the world via the information superhighway.

Here’s how it got there:

Augusta National Clifford Roberts (second from left) and Bobby Jones both recognized that the success of their new golf club hinged to a great degree on media exposure.

1934
The Great Depression was neither a good time to open a private club nor to attempt to launch a golf tournament, yet Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts did both. They lobbied to bring the U.S. Open to Augusta National, fully aware that doing so would double as a membership drive that would help with their sagging bottom line. The United States Golf Association, however, declined, so Jones and Roberts chose to start their own tournament, the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, which debuted in 1934.

Jones was convinced to come out of retirement to play one tournament as an inducement to pique interest. They, too, had a valuable asset in Grantland Rice, the most prominent sportswriter in the country, who was a founding member at Augusta National. In an effort to get the media on board, Rice’s idea was to convince baseball writers heading north via train at the end of spring training in Florida to make a stop at Augusta to cover Jones’ return to competition.

It apparently worked, at least according to Rice. “Eighteen thousand more words were telegraphed from the Augusta battlefield than the last United States Open at Chicago sent spinning over the wires,” Rice wrote in American Golfer, the magazine he edited.

The first Augusta National Invitation had a radio audience, too—CBS Radio broadcast it nationally, with a then-notable golf dignitary at the mic.

“It was the sort of tournament Mr. Herbert H. Ramsay, former president of the United States Golf Association, who also put on a swell job of broadcasting, pronounced it one of the greatest golf shows he had ever seen,” Rice wrote.

1935
Yet it was the 1935 Augusta National Invitation that began the Masters’ ascent toward major-championship status. It was the year that Gene Sarazen holed his 3-wood second shot at the par-5 15th in the final round, erasing a two-stroke deficit that allowed him to win in a playoff.

Again, it was almost exclusively incumbent on newspapers to inform the populace about the tournament and Sarazen’s miraculous shot, and Rice, among the most widely read sportswriters in the country, called it “the shot heard ’round the world.” It was a phrase that helped give the tournament a boost toward acceptance as a bona fide competition.

Rice wrote in American Golfer: “The second Augusta National tournament was a sure tip that this tournament will now take its place among the most important of the year in golf. The presence of Bobby Jones gave it the initial start it needed. Now it will ride on its own …”

Augusta National
Gene Sarazen’s double eagle and subsequent victory in 1935 was the first Masters moment that commanded national attention.

1939
Newspapers again used their influence to elevate the tournament in the hierarchy of golf. From the outset, Roberts and Rice preferred the tournament be called the Masters, but Jones was opposed. Hence it was known as the Augusta National Invitation, though Rice had called it the Masters in his reportage in 1934. By 1939, it officially became known as the Masters.

“As for how the name Masters came into being, no one is really sure,” Dan Jenkins wrote in Sports Illustrated. “Jones liked to give both Grantland Rice and his friend Clifford Roberts the credit, but in any case he once said, revealing his subtle humor, ‘I must admit that the name was rather born of immodesty.’ ”

Augusta National
In the days before television, Masters coverage was primarily the domain of newspaper reporters, many of whom stopped at Augusta on their way home from covering spring training.

1946-’47
When the war ended and the club was preparing for the Masters to resume in 1946, Roberts already was looking ahead to televising the tournament, though the medium was still in its infancy.

“I don’t suppose anyone will be ready to do anything in the way of television,” Roberts wrote in 1946, “but if they can by next April, I will naturally want to hear about it.”

CBS had not renewed its Masters radio contract, and when NBC stepped into the void, it also received the rights to televise the tournament. In the run-up to the ’47 Masters, however, NBC declined to televise it. It wasn’t until 1954 that a golf tournament, the U.S. Open at Baltusrol, was televised live nationally, by NBC, further piquing Roberts’ interest

1953
The print media bid adieu to the press tent and moved into a Quonset hut that was “tucked behind shrubs on the first fairway with long wooden tables where Herbert Warren Wind and company typed away and occasionally had to get everything off the floor when heavy rains flooded through the front door,” Scott Michaux of the Augusta Chronicle wrote.

The first Masters telecast featured cameras on holes 15 through 18.

1956
NBC by now was televising the U.S. Open, but was disinterested in airing the Masters and chose to end its association with the tournament. CBS immediately came aboard with the first of what now is 63 consecutive years working with a one-year contract.

CBS had six cameras there, on four holes, the 15th through 18th, and the tournament aired for a half-hour on Friday and one hour on Saturday and Sunday.

“The first Masters broadcast was uneven in the extreme … but it was a hit with golf fans,” David Owen wrote in his book, The Making of the Masters: Clifford Roberts, Augusta National, and Golf’s Most Prestigious Tournament. It had an estimated 10 million viewers. “[A]nd Roberts later learned that in the grill rooms of golf clubs all over the country, groups of golfers had gathered to catch glimpses of the action and of the course.”

1957
Augusta National’s television committee suggested in the wake of the tournament that an effort should be made to show the 12th hole and 13th green, the “most picturesque part of our golf course,” it said, according to a story by Owen in Golf Digest. CBS declined.

Irony alert: Augusta National in later years took incessant grief from viewers and media for stubbornly refusing to televise the front nine, yet initially it was the club arguing for expanding coverage.

1958
The Masters’ tradition of “limited commercial interruptions” that continues to this day began with the 1958 telecast, when American Express came aboard as its first sponsor. “The average golf fan takes his golf pretty seriously,” Roberts wrote. “Nothing but extreme annoyance could result from untimely, too long or too frequent commercials.”

Arguably no figure other than Roberts or Jones was more important in elevating the Masters to its current status than Frank Chirkinian (right) of CBS, who introduced the concept of scoring in relation to par.

1960
Frank Chirkinian had begun producing CBS’ Masters telecasts the year before and his impact was immediate. In 1960, he introduced scoring as we follow it today, in relation to par, rather than total strokes. Here was his explanation:

“The first year we did the Masters was 1959, and it was maddening,” he told Loran Smith of Athens Online. “The scores were posted with cumulative scores. When a player finished a hole and his cumulative score at that point was 215, that was what went up on the scoreboard. You might have one player with 215 in a playing group and the other player’s cumulative score might be 240. Nobody knew what was going on.”

1966
Roberts, according to Owen’s book, had been lobbying CBS for years to broadcast the Masters in color and was even tempted to abandon the network over its objections. Finally, CBS acquiesced. A year later, the inimitable Dan Jenkins, in Sports Illustrated, wrote, “And the whole scene was awash in color, Augusta-CBS color, which, of course, is better than the less vivid hues of God, though perhaps not as good as NBC’s.”

Related: Bob Goalby, a controversial Masters winner, finds peace 50 years later

1973
CBS anchor Jack Whitaker, who Clifford Roberts reportedly banned after the 1966 broadcast for having referred to the crowd at Augusta National as “a mob,” returned to the CBS team, working the 16th hole. “Whitaker recalls that Roberts greeted him warmly and said, ‘Young man, we are very fortunate that you are here,’ ” Owen wrote. Whitaker remained on the telecasts until he left for ABC in 1981.

That was the year, incidentally, CBS finally showed the 12th hole—16 years after the Masters television committee had suggested that CBS show it.

Augusta National
Television coverage of the Masters expanded to include the back nine, but the tournament held out on showing more for several years.

1982
The Masters became the first major championship to receive live coverage on cable television, with USA Network providing first and second-round coverage, two hours each day.

Remarkable to think now that at one point on Sunday in 1986, CBS producers weren’t convinced Jack Nicklaus was worthy of coverage.

1986
When CBS’ telecast of the final round began, Jack Nicklaus was not a factor. Obviously, there was no Internet then, no way to check scores or to know anything going on other than what CBS was showing and executive producer Frank Chirkinian had no interest in showing Nicklaus. It was more than 24 minutes into the telecast when CBS showed him for the first time, another 15 minutes or so before showing him the second time.

Chris Millard recounted in Golf Digest how the exchange between Chirkinian and his young associate director Lance Barrow went down:

“The protégé felt compelled to advise his boss of Nicklaus’ stirring. Feeding the cantankerous Chirkinian tidbits was like feeding a shark—things could go badly—but Barrow pressed ahead. Barrow was seated only a few feet to Chirkinian’s left in the sun-starved production truck, lit by the blue haze of some 60 television monitors. ‘Frank,’ said Barrow, ‘we’ve got Nicklaus with a birdie at nine.’

“Predictably, the boss was dismissive. ‘I don’t need him,’ Chirkinian snapped. Nicklaus proceeded to birdie No. 10 with a 25-foot bomb. The husky, intrepid Barrow, nicknamed ‘Buddha’ by Chirkinian, again tapped his boss on the leg. ‘We’ve got Nicklaus with a birdie at 10, Frank.’

“‘I don’t need him,’ growled Chirkinian. ‘Quit telling me about Jack! Nicklaus means nothing in this golf tournament!’

“When Nicklaus birdied the 11th hole, Barrow again summoned his nerve. He gently tapped his mentor on the leg and said, ‘Frank, uh, I know that Jack means nothing to this golf tournament, but he just birdied 11 … and he’s two off the lead.’

“Chirkinian glanced at Barrow and said, ‘Cue it up, Buddha.’”

CBS did show the birdie at 10, on tape. “Earlier, Jack Nicklaus for birdie to go four-under par,” CBS’ Bob Murphy said. When the putt dropped, Murphy exclaimed, “and the Bear, the Bear is stalking.”

And the rest is broadcast history, including Verne Lundquist’s simple, but enduring call when Nicklaus holed a birdie putt at 17 to take the outright lead: “Yessir!”

Meanwhile, Jenkins in Golf Digest summed up the collective angst among the writers in the Quonset hut afterwards: “On that final afternoon of the Masters Tournament, Nicklaus’ deeds were so unexpectedly heroic, dramatic and historic, the taking of his sixth green jacket would certainly rank as the biggest golf story since Jones’ Grand Slam of 1930. That Sunday night, writers from all corners of the globe were last seen sitting limply at their machines, muttering, ‘It’s too big for me.’ ”

Augusta National
The Media Center at the Masters that stood from 1990 through the 2016 tournament.

1990
The media finally moved out of the Quonset hut and into a state-of-the-art building, featuring amphitheater seating that looked down upon a massive scoreboard. It was an estimated five times the size of the 3,200-square-foot Quonset hut.

1996
Masters.org (now Masters.com) debuted with a simple homepage, featuring portals to a leader board, players, the course and news.

1997
Tiger Woods, 21, ushered in a new era of domination and viewer/reader interest with his 12-stroke victory. An estimated 43 million viewers were watching the final round.

Howard Manly of the Boston Globe provided a revealing example of the appeal Tiger had even on those who had never watched golf before:

“For as long as he can remember, Eugene Rivers has gone to church on Sundays, morning, noon, and night. And since he has been Rev. Rivers, at a Pentecostal church in Dorchester, that practice has continued.

“That is, until last Sunday, when he dashed out of an afternoon dinner fellowship with his congregation to watch Tiger Woods on television in the Masters. ‘I have never watched golf in my entire life,’ said Rev. Rivers, 47. ‘It’s such a sleepy little game and could probably put insomniacs to sleep. But Tiger is the reason to watch golf now. He has given me a reason.’ ”

Woods’ win in 1997 drew 43 million viewers for the final round.

1998
The year marked the end of Jackson Stephens’ reign as the chairman of Augusta National during which he had grappled with the media over his refusal to allow front-nine television coverage of the Masters leaders. In one such memorable exchange, in response to when it might happen, he explained, “progress is slow.”

Why?

“Well, progress is slow because we don’t want it to happen,” he replied.

His most memorable rejoinder, however, was in response to having been asked what was intended to be a gotcha question. “Do you watch the Super Bowl?”

“Fourth quarter,” Stephens said.

2002
Hootie Johnson, who succeeded Stephens as the chairman of Augusta National, acquiesced to the ongoing plea to show the leaders play the full 18 holes, extending CBS’ final-round coverage on Sunday by 90 minutes.

“To see the leaders from the first shot on, every step of the way, is going to be very special,” CBS anchor Jim Nantz said.

The change in attitude was brought about by the 2000 Masters, when a rain delay in the third round prohibited the leaders from teeing off until CBS had already come on the air.

“The network had coverage of every shot until darkness suspended play with Vijay Singh and David Duval on the 15th hole,” the Associated Press wrote. “It proved to be pivotal toward getting more coverage this year.

“ ‘Part of the reason the club feels comfortable now with 18-hole coverage was because the coverage that Saturday was so positive,’ CBS Sports president Sean McManus said.”

It was a welcome concession by Augusta National. Tiger Woods won the Masters for the second straight year, defeating Retief Goosen by three.

Getty Images
Protests over Augusta National’s membership policies led the club to make the bold decision to conduct the tournament telecast without commercial sponsors in 2003 and 2004.

2003-’04
The Masters’ telecasts had no commercials, its response to the Martha Burk controversy over Augusta National having no women members. It did so to protect its three sponsors, IBM, CitiGroup and Coca-Cola, from having to endure pressure from women’s groups.

“This year’s telecast will be conducted by the Masters Tournament,” Augusta chairman Hootie Johnson said in a statement. “We appreciate everything our media sponsors have done for us, but under the circumstances, we think it is important to take this step.”

2006
“Amen Corner Live” debuted at Masters.org in conjunction with CBS Sportsline, offering 22 hours over four days of live coverage of the 11th, 12th and 13th holes.

“The importance and use of the Internet continues to grow, and we think this is another service to our patrons,” Hootie Johnson said. “The ability to see live action at Amen Corner is something very special.”

Johnson and Augusta National were on the Internet broadband wagon. By April 6, 2006, the day the Masters began, 42 percent of adults had home high-speed broadband, according to Pew Research Center, and “Amen Corner Live” was an instant hit. CBS Sports reported more than 1.3 million video streams in the first two days and that the average time spent viewing “Amen Corner Live” was more than 52 minutes per visit.

Previously, the website offered live coverage of the sixth and 12th holes, but only during practice rounds.

2007
Wireless internet was introduced to the press building, ordinarily a welcome development for writers. But it malfunctioned during the first round on Thursday. Golf World’s timeline the next day read:

“Workers finish the overnight task of installing more than 300 DSL lines in the press room. The previous day the press room’s wireless Internet access went on the fritz, leaving scribes from around the world scrambling to file stories on deadline.”

Only Augusta National would attempt and succeed having every seat in a large media building hard-wired for Internet overnight.

Andrew Redington
The Masters Par 3 contest, once limited to in-person spectators, was opened to television audiences under chairman Hootie Johnson.

2008
ESPN took over from USA Network in providing Thursday and Friday television coverage, as well as the Par 3 Contest on Wednesday.

Masters.org, meanwhile, added “15 & 16 Live,” website coverage of the 15th and 16th holes to go along with “Amen Corner Live.”

2009
A Masters iPhone app was introduced, featuring live streaming.

AFP
Woods’ press conference at the 2010 Masters, his first session with reporters since his sex scandal, was broadcast live on multiple networks.

2010
At 2 p.m. on April 5, Tiger Woods strode into the interview room in the press center at Augusta National for his first news conference post-scandal. Among those televising the news conference live were ESPN Golf Channel,, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, as well as live-streamed on the Internet.

Woods’ first round of competitive golf following his off-course scandal attracted an estimated 4.94 million viewers on ESPN, the largest golf audience ever on cable, eclipsing the previous record of 4.8 million viewers for the 2008 U.S. Open playoff between Woods and Rocco Mediate on ESPN.

Related: New Tiger Woods book paints a complex picture

2011
Augusta National’s latest offering in technology was an iPad app, $1.99 in Apple’s App Store, “basically a scaled-down version of its website, Masters.com, with one notable exception: The iPad app will feature the ESPN (Thursday and Friday) and CBS (Saturday and Sunday) telecasts. We think,” Golf Digest wrote.

“The app itself shows in its Live Channels lineup ‘TV Broadcast’ each day of the tournament. The App Store says ‘Saturday and Sunday’s live CBS simulcast,’ and does not mention the Thursday and Friday broadcasts on ESPN.”

2013
The Masters continued to improve its website and apps, to the point that a television was not necessary to know precisely what was happening. New York Times media columnist David Carr noted this, writing, “The Masters app, which let me omnisciently check the leader board, scan for my own highlights and toggle between specific groups or holes, sucked me in. I barely looked up at the television … as I programmed my version of the Masters. There I was, staring at the device on my lap, looking at a bright future—no cable, no commercials, no bundle required.”

Keeping with the tournament’s desire to endlessly innovate, the Masters’ digital assortment of apps and live streams have become excellent ways to follow the tournament.

2016
The Masters became the first live event broadcast in the U.S. in 4K Ultra High Definition. “It’ll be golf’s biggest show, the 2016 Masters Tournament,” Wired.com’s Tim Moynihan wrote. “And because 4K content involves a wider color gamut in addition to all those extra pixels, the winner’s jacket will never look so green or so sharp. You’ll likely be able to see crumbs from pimento cheese sandwiches on faces deep in the crowd.”

High-definition cameras were first used on a limited bases in 2001. By 2007, it had 100 percent HD coverage of the course.

Televising in 4K Ultra High-Def was another technological leap forward for a club that otherwise has a reputation for stubbornly clinging to tradition.

2018
Augusta National will continue to confound us in various ways, as it has done in the past. One such example were its website choices of featured groups in 2013. Neither of the two featured groups in the first round featured Tiger Woods. One offered Peter Hanson, Charl Schwartzel and Webb Simpson, the other K.J. Choi, Zach Johnson and Graeme McDowell.

But its quirks notwithstanding, the Masters again will be televised to more than 200 countries and territories, which, depending on who’s counting, is pretty much all of them. And another 350 journalists from around the world will fill every seat in the new Press Building, all in the name of fulfilling Bobby Jones’ notion, that there must be someone to spread the news.

The post The Masters has evolved, and so has how we’ve watched it appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

'67 Champions dinner pic.twitter.com/pN4fHV5TOu

— David Poulton PGA (@doglegpar3) August 24, 2017

As the defending champ, Nicklaus would have had the honoor of picking the menu. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like dinner has been served yet, so we don’t know what he went with, but judging by the feast he selected for the 1987 Champions Dinner, we’re guessing the guys ate well that night:

30 years since I last hosted the Champions Dinner at #themasters. I look forward to reconnecting with champions, old and young, this evening pic.twitter.com/S7Ssqqvr29

— Jack Nicklaus (@jacknicklaus) April 4, 2017

Back to the photo, how about that top table of Augusta National Golf Club co-founders Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts sitting with Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, and Arnold Palmer with Gary Player and Byron Nelson flanking them? That’s some serious star power.

There were also some great replies to the photo. CBS Sports’ Grant Boone seems to nail it when it comes to identifying everyone at this gathering:

Harmon, Wood, Keiser, Sarazen, Burke, Sam, Byron, Ben, Roberts, Jack, Jones, Arnie, Gary, Middlecoff, Demaret, Wall, Ford, Guldahl, Picard?

— Grant Boone (@grantboone) August 25, 2017

Someone points out one of the green jacket winners (it appears to be Craig Wood) has stayed up past his bedtime:

Did anyone check on this guy during dinner pic.twitter.com/h7aLoRS6ot

— Nick smith (@smith99_nick) August 25, 2017

And another person points out Arnie appears to be having a pretty good time:

Bob Jones. Gotta love that Mr. Palmer has at least three drinks going at once. pic.twitter.com/ngcech0FTc

— Richard (@_RichardCox_) August 25, 2017

The green jacket gang will convene again in April when Sergio Garcia gets to play host for the first time. To those fortunate enough to be in attendance, make sure you keep your eyes open when Sergio snaps a group selfie.

The post How many Masters winners can you identify in this fascinating photo from the 1967 Champions Dinner? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.