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Overview
The four majors are the most exciting and important events of the golfing calendar. The Masters, US Open, The Open and the PGA: these are the tournaments by which we measure players' careers.
In a year of dramatic twists and turns, the majors of 2015 did not disappoint. Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth vied for grand slams and the top spot; Zach Johnson proved that golf isn't just a young man's game; and Jason Day, after so many close calls, finally triumphed in one of the most emotional victories ever witnessed. Finally, after more than a decade of Tiger Woods' domination, golf has entered the era of a new 'big three': Spieth, McIlroy and Day, promising an exciting rivalry at the top of the game that could last for years to come.
Using first-hand insights alongside interviews with the players, Iain Carter provides a fascinating account of golf's most prestigious events, recapping the enthralling action of the year in which a new generation of young stars surged to the fore.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783961887 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Elliott & Thompson |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 270 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Majors 2015
The Thrilling Battle for Golf's Greatest Trophies
By Iain Carter
Elliott and Thompson Limited
Copyright © 2015 Iain CarterAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78396-188-7
CHAPTER 1
The History of the Masters
There's not much to do in Augusta, the day after the Masters. Every year there's a mass exodus from a city that spent the previous week at the centre of the sporting world. Hotel rooms and rental properties are vacated as this otherwise unremarkable stop on Georgia's Interstate 20 returns to normality.
'The Masters is the only reason people know about Augusta,' Scott Michaux, chief sports columnist for the Augusta Chronicle, admits. 'It's the second largest city in Georgia, but by a wide margin to Atlanta. Augusta's identity is wrapped up in the golf tournament, otherwise it's a normal American city. There's nothing that particularly stands out. But there's this golf course. People in the town are fiercely proud of what this tournament is and what it's become.'
Once the Masters has been decided, and that rather desolate April Monday arrives, many of the fans, 'patrons' of the tournament for the previous few days, simply hang around. They idly fill time before heading back to Atlanta or Charlotte for their flights home. There is no chance of venturing back down Magnolia Lane to revisit the Augusta National Golf Club. Once the Masters is done, the gates to the general public are firmly closed.
Without much else to do, some will head to the city's vast shopping mall. If, however, they go in search of Masters memorabilia they will be disappointed. The shirts, caps, umbrellas and sun cream that bear the tournament emblem can only be bought on the premises during the week of the event. Regulars know the score, buying huge quantities of golfing apparel while they can, as well as tee shirts, posters and teddy bears for friends and family. These gifts will be as close as most people get to the fabled tournament. The Augusta National fiercely protects its exclusivity, right down to its official merchandise.
The Augusta National Club wants its tournament to be special in every regard. It wants those with tickets to feel lucky that they are witnessing a unique event. No one, for instance, is allowed a mobile phone on the premises – violation of this rule leads to instant ejection. 'They're very strict, almost to the point that they are extreme,' Michaux says. 'But the nice thing is that it changes the tone and tenor of the event. You are there to pay attention to the people who are putting on the show. They don't have electronic scoreboards, they don't have video screens, they don't have hospitality tents and all those things make it feel like you've gone back in time. It is so perfectly put together. They just don't give a crap that you are going to be there without your cell phone all day. Who else does that? Not even Wimbledon.'
Anyone spotted running will be told to slow down and woe betide anyone with the temerity to walk barefoot or lie down on the immaculate turf. 'Wake up and move along please,' the offender will be told, politely yet firmly, by one of the Pinkerton Guards patrolling the course.
The message is clear. Make the most of your time at the Masters.
Wander around the Augusta Mall on the Monday after the Masters and there is very little to suggest that you are in the vicinity of golf's most glamorous tournament. It takes a keen eye to detect any link at all. You will find one, though, if you visit the restrooms. Walk down the corridor leading to the ground-floor toilets and you may spot a picture of a familiar-looking building. It shows the old farmhouse at the Fruitland Nurseries, a white two-storey building with a vertical lookout popping up from the centre of a symmetrically angled roof. An outdoor staircase leads to an upstairs balcony. Those stairs no longer exist, but this slightly faded photograph unmistakably depicts the building that became the clubhouse at the Augusta National Golf Club.
Built in 1854, it was the home of Dennis Redmond. He created an indigo plantation in the surrounding grounds which yielded berries used to make the blue dye that coloured denim jeans (who would have thought that the origins of the game's most exclusive club would be intertwined with the creation of clothing regarded as unacceptable in so many golfing establishments?).
Redmond soon sold up and the property was bought by a Belgian horticulturist called Prosper Berckmans. He turned the plantation into Fruitland Nurseries and grew a vast array of plants, including hundreds of different varieties of azaleas, dogwood, pears, apples and grapes. The drive that linked the house to the main Washington Road was bordered by an avenue of Magnolia trees. After his death in 1910, however, the business faltered, then failed.
Around this time golf was growing in popularity and it was clear the land would provide a perfect setting for a course. Miami businessman 'Commodore' J. Perry Stoltz planned to take advantage by building both a course and a $2-million hotel, aimed at winter visitors from the north keen to escape the snow and ice of New York and its surrounds. Augusta was becoming a tourist destination, with golf on its menu. 'In those days Florida was a swamp so you didn't go there,' says Michaux. 'People came as far as Augusta where they got the nice weather and they built nice hotels.'
Augusta residents were thrilled at the prospect of the flamboyant Stoltz investing in the area. He was already famous for his highly successful Fleetwood Hotel in Miami. Had Stoltz succeeded with his hotel project, though, the Augusta National and the Masters would never have come about. Nor would the traditional clubhouse still be standing. It was slated for demolition once the hotel had been built, and in 1925 work on the foundations of a new building began. Fate took a hand, however. Stoltz's showcase hotel was flattened by the great Miami hurricane of September 1926, which ripped through the city and killed 300 people. Stoltz was left bankrupt and his hotel plans collapsed.
The site went back on the market and two friends with contrasting backgrounds but a shared dream came into the picture – Clifford Roberts, a financial broker of humble origins, and Robert Tyre Jones Jr, from Atlanta, Georgia.
Jones's stage name was Bobby. To his friends, he was Bob. To fans, he was golfing royalty. He held the distinction of being the only man to simultaneously hold The Open and US Open titles along with the Amateur Championship and its American equivalent. That was in 1930 and, at the time, it constituted golf's grand slam. A lawyer by trade, Jones never turned professional, although he was certainly good enough.
Roberts hailed from Iowa, born in 1894 on a farm owned by his mother's parents. He was the second of five children and had a happy, itinerant childhood. His father, Charles, was often away pursuing small- time business opportunities. As Roberts said: 'My father always was interested in seeing what was on the other side of the next hill.' His mother, Rebecca, struggled with depression as she tried to raise the family amid haphazard finances. The young Clifford proved streetwise, entrepreneurial and hard-working. He had regular jobs from the age of 12 and left school early. He was also prone to getting in trouble, and not just the occasional fist fights. On his way to Sunday school in October 1910, the 16-year-old realised he had forgotten his gloves. He returned home, ignited a kerosene lamp and accidentally dropped the lighted match. The house burned down. Almost the only item that was saved was the family piano that his father Charles dragged from the smouldering ruins. Clifford's life as an adult began there and then.
He promised his mother he would make up for his negligence. Aside from helping on the family's failing farm, he took a variety of jobs assisting his father and working as a clerk in a dry goods firm. Within three years, though, Rebecca Roberts had committed suicide, firing a shotgun to her chest just three days after her 44th birthday. She wrote farewell letters to each member of the family. To Clifford, as David Owen quotes in his book The Making of the Masters, she wrote: 'Dear Clifford, I write to beg you not to grieve but be a man in time of trial. Papa will need you. Be a sober upright son & all will be well. I know Ma [Rebecca's mother] wants you to come to her. Love Mama.'
In the years that followed Roberts became a menswear salesman, travelling across the Midwest. The family moved to Kansas City and his father remarried. Roberts was earning just over a dollar a month plus commissions and was doing well enough to send funds home. Nevertheless these were hardly auspicious circumstances for someone who would eventually become the joint founder of golf's most exclusive club.
Roberts felt he could make his fortune in New York and landed a job with the Oklahoma-Wyoming Oil Company in 1918. Almost immediately, he was called up for national service and became a private in the Signal Corps at Camp Hancock, in a place called Augusta in the state of Georgia. He had never been there before.
After serving in France, he was discharged in 1919. He threw himself back into business in New York and Chicago although he found neither city paved with greenbacks. He became the principal in Roberts and Co and started to make modest returns as a financial negotiator and stock and bond broker. He made $70,000 in 1929, by far his most successful year. His timing, though, proved disastrous. Roberts invested much of his money in securities. In October came the Wall Street Crash. It always seemed to be a case of one step forward, two steps back.
Roberts' social life, however, was proving more fruitful. Keen to get in with a burgeoning and seemingly affluent golfing set, Roberts joined Knollwood Country Club in New York's Westchester County. He attended an exhibition match featuring the game's biggest luminary – Bobby Jones. 'Each time I saw Bob or read his public comments, I respected and liked him more,' Roberts wrote in his book about the Augusta National Club. 'I watched part of the final of the 1926 USGA Amateur Championship at Baltusrol, in New Jersey, in which George Von Elm defeated Jones 2 and 1. Shortly afterwards, I was one of some half-dozen who were having a drink with the loser and trying to think of something comforting to say to him.'
Here lie the roots of the relationship that yielded the Masters.
A mutual friend ran the Bon Air-Vanderbilt hotel in Augusta and after his time in the army Roberts had occasionally returned for winter golf holidays. The train link from New York was good and the weather invariably fine. Jones, meanwhile, had often spoken of his desire to build a championship course in the South, away from Atlanta where he struggled to find privacy. Roberts was a self-confessed 'hero-worshipper' and no one fitted the bill for his affections better than Bobby Jones. His air of humility and charm added to the attraction. The shared dream of creating a leading golf course, and the prospect of working with such a preeminent sporting figure, was enticing.
The pair visited the site of the Fruitland Nurseries in 1931 and Roberts was immediately struck by the lines of magnolias on the avenue that led to the farmhouse. They could see the potential for a fine golf course, while a group of local businessmen recognised the opportunity presented by such a facility to draw visitors to the area. A leasehold company that included Roberts and Jones's wealthy father, was set up to acquire 365 acres of land for $15,000, taking on around $60,000 of debt in the process. The company, Fruitland Manor Corporation, then leased around half of the land to the prospective new golf club, which was now actively seeking members.
Several names for the new club were mooted, with Georgia-National the front-runner. Eventually Augusta-National (with the hyphen later dropped) prevailed.
Roberts and Jones envisaged a membership of 1,800, paying an entrance fee of $350 and subscriptions of $60 a year. Those numbers were never achieved – today, the club has around 300 members. They planned two 18-hole courses, with the second layout to be added once the membership had passed 1,000. There would be tennis courts, outdoor squash courts, housing, a new clubhouse and, potentially, a hotel. The old Redmond farmhouse would be torn down because it would be too small to serve as a clubhouse.
Roberts set about attracting enough members to make the plan financially viable. But the economic depression rendered that impossible. Fewer than 100 signed up in the first couple of years. Most came from New York, attracted by the charismatic Jones. The most successful recruiter, though, was a nationally renowned sportswriter named Grantland Rice who was a member of the fledgling club's organisation committee.
Nowadays it is extraordinary to think that such an exclusive club was desperate to attract members. Roberts sent out thousands of unsolicited, unsuccessful invitations as he sought to tap into the enthusiasm for the game prevailing in the 1930s. Only the contributions of a small handful of wealthy men, including Singer Sewing Machine heir Alfred Severin Bourne, kept the club alive in those early years. They provided five-year loans at a six per cent interest rate. The debts were never repaid.
Course construction began in February 1932 but the plans for a grand clubhouse and a second layout were shelved. Three years earlier, Jones had played at a brand new layout in California. It was his first look at Cypress Point and he loved it. He also played in Santa Cruz and was similarly impressed. Both courses were designed by Dr Alister MacKenzie, an English physician of Scottish heritage. Jones determined that MacKenzie was the architect he needed. The man Roberts referred to as 'Doc' came up with the design and the building work progressed at astonishing speed despite the ongoing financial difficulties.
MacKenzie would never be properly rewarded for what became one of the greatest courses in the world. His initial fee of $10,000 was halved and by late 1932, when the course had been in play for several months, he had received only $2,000. This didn't even come close to covering his expenses. David Owen quotes a letter written by MacKenzie on Boxing Day that year that revealed his dire circumstances: 'I'm at the end of my tether, no one has paid me a cent since last June, we have mortgaged everything we have and not yet been able to pay the nursing expenses of my wife's operation ... Can you possibly let me have, at any rate, five hundred dollars to keep us out of the poor house?'
Eventually Roberts agreed to issue two short-term notes for $1,000 with a nominal rate of six per cent. He reasoned that MacKenzie could sell the notes to realise some cash but warned that he would have no chance of finding a buyer for them in Augusta. The locals would know that the notes were worthless, since the club was already defaulting on payments for items as mundane as toilet rolls. MacKenzie died a poor man in 1934 at the age of 63 and never saw his masterpiece come to fruition. He hadn't seen the Augusta National for two years before his death. On his final visit, the grass hadn't yet been planted.
Despite all the problems, the course was clearly of the highest quality. The United States Golf Association's tournament committee chairman was Prescott S. Bush, whose second child George would become President of the United States. He played the course and raised the notion of it staging the 1934 US Open. It would have been the first time America's national championship had been played in a Southern State and the idea appealed to Jones. However, the proposal never materialised. This was a big blow. Without staging a prestigious event, Augusta National had little chance of surviving.
So Roberts came up with the idea of staging their own private tournament and it was included in the PGA's list of events for 1934, to be played on 22–25 March. For it to succeed, Roberts had to convince Jones to play, but the latter was reluctant. He was aware that he would have a vital role in attracting the biggest stars of the day, but that if he invited his friends to compete, he would be expected to play as well. He had retired from competition in 1930 and his game was rusty. Roberts was able to convince him, however, and made sure there would be no about-turn by announcing officially: 'Bobby Jones has agreed to make this tournament the one exception to his rule against further participation in tournament golf. He does this with the thought of helping to establish a new golfing event that it is hoped may assume the proportion of an important tournament.'
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Majors 2015 by Iain Carter. Copyright © 2015 Iain Carter. Excerpted by permission of Elliott and Thompson Limited.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Padraig Harrington,Introduction,
1. The History of the Masters,
2. In Search of the Slam,
3. April at Augusta,
4. US Open Breaks New Ground,
5. Figuring Out Chambers Bay,
6. US Open As It Happened,
7. Golf's Oldest Championship,
8. Open Contenders,
9. The Five-Day Major,
10. Preparing for the PGA,
11. The PGA's Fitting Finale,
Epilogue,
Acknowledgements,
Index,