MASTERS PREVIEW
tion fee was $350 plus tax. Send it in, and you’re a member. Who received these invitations? Pretty much anybody. One of the in- teresting things that I found in the file cabinets were these huge folders bulg- ing with letters from people saying, “No, thank you, I would not like to be a mem- ber of your golf club.” They hired sales- men to travel the country. They bought membership lists from country clubs. In three years, just 76 people joined. The original plans included a much larger clubhouse, correct? Yes, one of their big plans initially was to tear down the house that was on prop- erty, what’s now the famous clubhouse. The only reason it exists today is that the founders didn’t have enough money to tear it down. The plan was to tear it down and build a big southern mansion with big columns in front. There was go- ing to be a vast men’s locker room on one side and a women’s locker room on the other. In 1934, the club held the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, now known as the Masters. Did the tournament lift the club out of the precarious financial situation? Yes, it did. They got a dozen members signed up, which gave them some mon- ey. Roberts immediately put all this money back into the club and tourna- ment, which they saw as a lifeline for the club. But it was not an overnight suc- cess. They started in 1934, and the field shrank through the 1930s. It was hard to persuade people to come and play in it. It was only in 1939 when it started to really take on a life of its own, and then the world went to war, and they had to shut down.
Roberts and Jones had extensive plans for their new club, many of which never panned out. Why? They started in 1931, which was the worst possible time to start anything, certainly to build a destination golf course. The original idea was they would have 1 800 members. Dues would be $60 a year and would go down even- tually when they got enough members. There was going to be a men’s course and a women’s course, tennis courts, riding trails – all the features that Mar- ion Hollins had built into Pasatiempo. In three years of trying, they sent out thousands of postcards. All you had to do was fill out the other side. The initia-
The Club That Almost Never Was Long before the Masters became what it is today, Augusta National overcame serious financial woes BY DREW POWELL T he fascinating history of Au- gusta National Golf Club is also a story of what could have been given the club’s ambi- tious initial plans. David Owen, a long- time New Yorker and Golf Digest writer, is the preeminent historian on the club and author of “The Making of the Mas- ters.” In a Q&A, Owen explained how the club’s co-founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones created one of golf’s greatest institutions despite tremen- dous adversity.
With a Golf Digest+ membership, you get access to the best in golf, including unlimited golfdigest.com articles, our equipment Hot List, 17,000+ course reviews, our complete archive of every story since 1950, exclusive newsletters and much more. Membership starts at just $1.99 per month. Sign up today at golfdigest.com/plus. in November-December 1937. This was the inaugural PGA Seniors’ Championship. The winner was Jock Hutchison, a former Scot who won the 1921 Open at St Andrews. The tournament returned the next year when it was won by another Scot, Fred McLeod. In 1939, the event moved to Florida. In 1963, Hutchison and McLeod became the first “honorary starters” of the Masters. It is now the Senior PGA Championship, one of the five majors on the Champions Tour. BIRTH OF PGA SENIORS The first ever senior national championship was held at Augusta National
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MARCH/APRIL 2025
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