It seems fitting to reminisce a bit this week about what is considered the most prestigious golf event in the world — the Masters Tournament held annually at the Augusta National Golf Club some 90 miles away.
In 1931, the land, 365 acres consisting of Fruitland Nurseries and an antebellum plantation, was purchased by the partnership of Wall Street financier Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones, then recognized as the greatest golfer of his era. In 1930, Jones had retired from competition and was seeking a golf project to pursue the creation of a worldclass course in his native state. The course design became a collaboration between Jones and English golf course architect Alister MacKenzie.
The course opened formally in January 1933, and tournament play began in March 1934. It was Jones who proposed to name the club Augusta National along with offering a limited national membership. Since its inception, the course has become renowned for its well-manicured, impeccable appearance and is famed for its azaleas, dogwoods, and towering pines. Each hole on the course is named after the tree or shrub with which it has become associated.
By the 1940s, through popular opinion, the Masters Tournament status had evolved through recognition as one of four “major championships” and the only one in which players receive invitations to compete and is held annually at the same location and during the same week each April. The Masters Tournament is widely considered the most popular golf tournament given the challenging course with its natural beauty, the select field of international players, and its traditions. The final round of the Masters is the most watched golf telecast worldwide.
With regard to traditions, Augusta National is a private club accessible to club members and their guests. Membership is strictly by invitation and held at about 300 members at any given time. Every club member receives a green sport coat with the club’s logo on the left breast. Members are required to wear them during tournament week, while no jackets are allowed to be removed from the grounds. Since 1949, the winner of each year’s Masters Tournament has received a green jacket.
That current tournament champion is the only green jacket owner permitted to remove it from the grounds and only for a period of one year.
Some long-standing traditions have evolved over time. For decades, Augusta National Golf Club barred membership to African Americans. “As long as I’m alive,” said co-founder and club chairman Clifford Roberts, “all the golfers will be white and all caddies will be black.” Some forty years later in 1975, Lee Elder became the first black pro to be invited to tournament play. And until 1983, all players in the Masters were required to use the services of an Augusta National club caddie, who by tradition, was always an African-American man. Since that year, players have been allowed the option of bringing their own caddie to the tournament.
So, for nearly 50 years, only Black men caddied the Masters. They worked hard to familiarize themselves with every aspect of the course and became experts at fairway topography and reading the greens, a particular skill among several caddies. Two of the more notables with such expertise were William “Pappy” Stokes, the only caddy to log five Masters wins with four different golfers, and Willie “Pete” Peterson, who carried Jack Nicholas’ bag on five of his six Masters victories. During tournament week, caddies were essentially the golfers’ partners and several could rightly claim some credit for golfers’ victories. Note: contact the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History in Augusta for information about this week’s program entitled “Augusta’s Black Caddies — Men on the Bag.”
A television executive, Ron Townsend, became the first African American to be invited to club membership. By the time he joined in 1990, most of Augusta National’s original caddie corps had all but vanished. The first two female members were admitted in 2012 — former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina businesswoman Darla Moore.
So, now, it’s time to plan your watch party. Stock up on iconic concessions like pimento cheese sandwiches and Arnold Palmers and get ready to enjoy this most renowned and prestigious event — the 89th Masters Tournament, “a tradition unlike any other.”
Peter Wibell Rutledge