Augusta, Texas

Doug Stutsman

Description

Augusta, Texas, goes inside the ropes and into the lives of the ten Masters Champions from the Lone Star State. From Ben Hogan to Ben Crenshaw to Jordan Spieth, Doug Stutsman has uncovered intimate details about how Texans have shaped the history of golf’s most coveted major championship. 

At the 1958 Masters Tournament, a bridge dedication ceremony was held to honor Hogan and his childhood rival, Byron Nelson. Augusta National co-founder Bobby Jones served as master of ceremonies, and although his health left him unable to rise, Jones announced, “We’ve tried to dedicate these bridges to two men who have meant as much to this tournament as any two men ever have.”

 

Nelson was the first Texan to taste triumph at the fourth annual Masters, while nine others—most recently Scottie Scheffler in 2022—have followed the trail that Lord Byron paved. 

 

Ten winners; fifteen jackets. More than any other state. More than any foreign country.

 

Moments after capturing the 1984 Masters, Ben Crenshaw called Brent “Bubs” Buckman, his roommate from the University of Texas.“What was that like?” Buckman asked. “Walking up eighteen, knowing you had won the Masters.”

 

“Bubs,” Crenshaw said. “The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.”

 

Nearly forty years later, Stutsman asked Crenshaw to reflect on his first win at Augusta National.

 

“The hair on my neck is still standing straight up,” Gentle Ben said.

Sujets

• Sport
• Autres sports
• Golf
• Recreation
• Sports

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 11 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977209450
• Langue: English

Extrait

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Augusta, Texas All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2023 Doug Stutsman v6.0
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-0945-0
Cover Photo © 2023 www.gettyimages.com . All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For Texas.
Was Jimmy a man of faith? Did he practice religion? Yes, most certainly. Oh, he never went to church, but he lived the essence of Christianity. He loved his neighbor.

Father Larry Connelly at Jimmy Demaret’s memorial service on January 6, 1984.
Masters Champions from the Lone Star State

Byron Nelson 1937, 1942
Ralph Guldahl 1939
Jimmy Demaret 1940, 1947, 1950
Ben Hogan 1951, 1953
Jackie Burke, Jr. 1956
Charles Coody 1971
Ben Crenshaw 1984, 1995
Jordan Spieth 2015
Patrick Reed 2018
Scottie Scheffler 2022
Table of Contents
Introduction
One: Nelson
Two: Nelson/Hogan
Three: Demaret
Four: Demaret
Five: Crenshaw
Six: Crenshaw
Seven: Crenshaw
Eight: Crenshaw
Nine: Tom Kite
Ten: Burke, Jr.
Eleven: Burke, Jr.
Twelve: Hogan
Thirteen: Hogan
Fourteen: Coody
Fifteen: Guldahl
Sixteen: Spieth
Seventeen: Spieth
Eighteen: Spieth/Crenshaw
Nineteen: Reed
Conclusion: Crenshaw/Spieth
Epilogue: Spieth
Introduction
John Fields jabbed into a link of Texas barbecue sausage as Turnpike Troubadours echoed through U.T. Golf Club.
Off with a girl. Off to the city.
Off on a wing and a chance.
It was June 2022 and the Texas golf coach was nursing three hours of sleep. He had spent the day prior at Naperville Country Club, walked thirty-six at the Western Junior Amateur, and after four resets at Chicago O’Hare International the wheels met Austin at 2:30 a.m.
"I lost half a life on Southwest Airlines," said Fields, sipping Diet Coke from styrofoam.
Fields combed his black iPhone and slid it my direction. The coach had mentioned his boss, athletic director Chris Del Conte, and how the A.D. coined the phrase "brand enhancing" for U.T. golfers. Five days earlier, rising senior Travis Vick had finished Low Amateur at the United States Open in Brookline, Massachusetts. Two months earlier Jordan Spieth captured the R.B.C. Heritage in Hilton Head. A week before Jordan, Scottie Scheffler became the tenth Masters Champion from the Lone Star State.
"He calls it brand enhancing because there’s no financial aspect attached to it," Fields explained. "I say that’s true, but if you were paying for that type of marketing there is a value attached."
Andy, our waiter, replenished the Diet Coke and told Fields to choose a side. "Your friend got mac-and-cheese. Want some too, Coach?"
"Just more sausage," Fields said.
I thought back to my last encounter with Fields. It was April 2, 2022, when I left the Press Building at Augusta National Golf Club to watch Texas compete across town. As the round concluded, I walked with Fields toward a flight of stairs at Forest Hills Golf Course and asked about Scottie Scheffler. In eight days Scottie would leave Augusta in green, but this was April 2 and the focus remained on his elevation to World No. 1. "Did you see this coming?" I asked.
Scottie had spent four years in Austin with his best on-course results coming freshman year. He went back-to-back at the Western Intercollegiate and Big 12 Championship and clipped par twenty-one times. Then his trophy case famined for three seasons.
When Scheffler arrived at Texas in 2014 he moved into a six-bedroom house on Willbert Road, one mile west of campus. The fall semester proved arduous, as the lanky, loathes-to-lose teen admitted to feeling lost as he balanced school with homesickness and a split with Meredith Scudder. His parents, Diane and Scott, fretted that Scottie hadn’t been accepted into the McCombs School of Business.
The McCombs School of Business … we’ll get there in a minute.
Scottie’s first collegiate event was at Olympia Fields, where he shot seventy-eight, seventy-one, seventy-nine, and Texas finished fourteenth of fifteen teams, edging the University of Connecticut by a stroke. But that was September, and by late April, Scottie was foreshadowing glimpses of rapid elevation.
Texas listed a starting five of two freshmen (Scottie, Doug Ghim), two sophomores (Gavin Hall, Beau Hossler), and senior Kramer Hickok. The rudimentary Longhorns began the year ranked thirteenth but climbed to No. 2 by April. At the 2015 Big 12 Championship at Southern Hills, forty-four of forty-five competitors finished above par, while Scottie left Tulsa with hardware and ranked the layout the finest he had ever played.
Scheffler and Gavin Hall moved from Willbert Road that summer into a two bedroom apartment at The Quarters on West Campus. Gavin, a New Yorker, qualified for the U.S. Open as a high school senior and shared Scottie’s passion for hoops. They lettered in high school, and during the recruiting process, Fields commissioned a court to be built behind the U.T. Golf Club performance center. Hall switched his commitment from UCLA; Scottie pledged to Austin over Stanford.
Gavin admired Scottie’s ability to elevate, whether it be golf, ping-pong, or basketball, while envying how the Highland Park kid could flip when home. "I have a hard time parking it on the couch but Scottie could go on a run. We’re talking four, five hours," Gavin Hall said. "I was always amazed by that. Envious how he could totally shut it down for an entire afternoon. The game can consume you, and I had a hard time turning it off. Scottie didn’t."
Scheffler, a rising sophomore, spent the summer of 2015 grinding in the Dallas heat-box with envisions of the United States Amateur. Then, on August 17, 2015, the foundation crumbled. Scottie birdied the par-five opening hole, but as he walked toward the second tee, the Chicago skies opened, temperature dipped, and his six-foot three-inch frame seized. He shot seventy-nine, seventy-three, missed advancing to match-play by nine and mangled his back in the process.
Weeks became months and the injury wouldn’t heal. Pain that centralized in the back had migrated into the hips, and Scottie had digressed from U.T.’s line two as a freshman to fourth the following spring. And still, three semesters into college, he was without an academic major.
The McCombs School of Business … we’ll get there in a minute.
Eighteen months crawled by, but near the end of Scottie’s junior season, the spine unlocked. The hips freed. And wearing a navy hat with the State of Texas flag center-stitched, Scottie needed four playoff holes at sectional qualifying in Westerville, Ohio, to advance to the 2017 United States Open. And that’s when Coach Fields, standing at the Augusta University Invitational, answered the question: "Did you see this coming?"
Fields thought in silence as he grazed a palm over his white mustache. He brought up June 14, 2017. It was Tuesday’s practice round at Erin Hills and the coach and his wife, Pearl, had been invited by the Scheffler family. On the par-five seventh, located near the center of the Wisconsin design, Fields and Scott Scheffler marched the fescue as Scottie played a friendly with defending champion Dustin Johnson.
The previous two years had tested Scottie’s resolve, his patience, and gifted a regular taste of defeat. It had been twenty-six months since his last individual victory (outside of a one-day event at East Lake), while an NCAA team title would forever elude him.
Reality may not have sunk in for Scottie but it was weighing on Scott, who asked Fields, "Do you think he’ll make it out here?"
The coach peered away from the father, locking in on Scottie and Dustin. Fields focused on the amateur’s demeanor, the calmness of his strides. Then he sized up Scottie’s physique. Dustin was an inch taller with a man’s beard and bulging chest, but Scottie looked the part. Fields told Scott, "Look at him walk down that fairway with Dustin. He fits out here. He’ll have a career."

Reese Rowling’s name is etched in block letters above Gate 28-A at Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium.
Reese was a hard-luck geologist, a 1951 graduate of Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy, and claimed the energy business was America’s last treasure hunt. Prior to logging a well, Reece would pull his son tight, posing for a photo with Robert. "This is our last poor day," the father told his son as the camera clicked.
In 1983, the energy business spiraled. Tana Oil & Gas, the Rowling’s small independent, was spinning four-thousand rigs but withered to a thousand in six months. Tana Oil had leased a prospect in Hidalgo County, a wedge from the Mexico border, that Robert swore fruitful. But after touting the property two-dozen times, no corporation bit. The lease neared expiration when Robert obligated seventeen wells with hopes of covering cost. Instead, black gold spilt from the dirt, and six years later, the now massive independent wanted out at $300 million.
Texaco Corporation offered half a billion.
As an apt businessman, Robert Rowling was advised to acquire three Lone Star traits: Dance a two-step. Aim a shotgun. Hit a golf ball. Bob became respectable at each, and after reinvesting oil profits into Omni Hotels, Augusta National Golf Club eventually noticed.
Scottie made three trips to Augusta during his time at Texas. The first came February 2016, a biting Georgia day, when Coach Fields turned