Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast on Garrett Morrison.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking a little Master's history with the prolific
Speaker 1: author Kurt Samson. But first, this episode is brought to
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Speaker 1: course headwear. Check it out. So the genesis of this
Speaker 1: episode is an essay that Kurt Sampson, my guest today,
Speaker 1: wrote for Golf Digest during last year's COVID postponed November Masters. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's about the strange experience of being in Augusta during
Speaker 1: the Masters, finding the town very quiet and not going
Speaker 1: to the tournament, and he wonders whether it could be
Speaker 1: the first quote unquote bad Masters since nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: and that props Kurt to mention in the lead of
Speaker 1: this article a book that he wrote about that nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight Masters, which is called The Lost Masters. Some
Speaker 1: of you will know that tournament as the Scorecard Masters,
Speaker 1: where after seventy two holes, Roberto Davi Senzo and Bob
Speaker 1: Goldby were tied, but Davey Senzo signed an increct scorecard,
Speaker 1: so there was no playoff and Golby was named the champion,
Speaker 1: and a lot of fans were pretty angry about it.
Speaker 1: Kurt Sampson's book digs deeply into that Masters and the
Speaker 1: contentxt around it, and I just found it totally fascinating,
Speaker 1: not least because I saw all of these uncanny parallels
Speaker 1: between nineteen sixty eight and twenty twenty. And I'll let
Speaker 1: you find some of those for yourself in the conversation
Speaker 1: that we have here. But for me, the big question
Speaker 1: is this, when the world is in disarray, what role,
Speaker 1: what responsibility even do sports have, and particularly golf, particularly
Speaker 1: the Masters, which so many people treat as an escape
Speaker 1: from modern life. What happens when that promise of escape
Speaker 1: is really put to the test. So with a proper
Speaker 1: Spring Masters coming up next week, I thought it was
Speaker 1: a good time to dig into these issues without further ado.
Speaker 1: Here's Kurt Sampson.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 2: Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida, egg Frida egg
Speaker 2: egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 2: run off with the humport scheme.
Speaker 1: Why don't we just get get right underway? Are you
Speaker 1: ready to get into it?
Speaker 2: Let's rock?
Speaker 1: Okay, all right? So Kurt, you are at the WGC
Speaker 1: match play at Austin Country Club. I understand right now.
Speaker 1: How has that been going.
Speaker 2: I'm actually late breaking news. I am not there. I'm
Speaker 2: in Austin to play in a Hickory golf tournament, the
Speaker 2: Onion Creek Hickory Tournament. We members of the golf's lunatic
Speaker 2: fringe who like to make a hard game harder, play
Speaker 2: with antique golf clubs, and we wear plus fours and
Speaker 2: it's quite a parade.
Speaker 1: What a delightful surprise. So that's going on in Austin
Speaker 1: at the same same time as the match play.
Speaker 2: That's right, had a preliminary thing yesterday and the first
Speaker 2: round of the competition is this morning.
Speaker 1: How long have you been into Hickory golf?
Speaker 2: Quite a long time. A friend in Texas got me
Speaker 2: into it, off and on. I'm very serious about it.
Speaker 2: I'm on the US team in a US versus Europe
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup competition, have been on the US side for
Speaker 2: five or six iterations of that. And if Covid lifts
Speaker 2: were playing in Saint Andrew's in October for the next
Speaker 2: match against those hated Swedes and Brits and Scotts, got
Speaker 2: them this time.
Speaker 1: So what do you like about Hickory golf?
Speaker 2: The modest scale? Really, it does annoy me when the
Speaker 2: TV announcer murmurs, Dustin's got one hundred and eighty four
Speaker 2: yards looks like a little nine, you know, And no,
Speaker 2: that's not the way it's supposed to be. One eighty
Speaker 2: four is a a pretty good four iron. So it's
Speaker 2: it's kind of a reaction against the current game and
Speaker 2: clubheads that are as big as a canned ham, and
Speaker 2: it does salute the history, which is a good thing.
Speaker 2: These guys really do care about the history of this sport.
Speaker 1: What I've heard some people say about hickory golf, Now,
Speaker 1: I haven't played hickory golf very much myself. I have
Speaker 1: some hickory clubs that I've been given by a friend,
Speaker 1: and their amazing objects. Really, I mean, they're they're just beautiful.
Speaker 1: For one thing, I haven't really played like a full
Speaker 1: round with a full set of hickory clubs. But what
Speaker 1: I understand about it is that the walk to your
Speaker 1: next ball, the walk to your next shot, is you
Speaker 1: use the word scale earlier of a different scale. It
Speaker 1: just feels different. The game feels different. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's going quicker. That's That's what I've heard people say,
Speaker 1: is is that kind of what you find?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like playing in Fenway Park versus I don't know,
Speaker 2: but pick some giant open expanse. It's it's this little
Speaker 2: jewel box game and we play. Admittedly, the courses are
Speaker 2: about six thousand yards long, so it's it's it's just
Speaker 2: fun that way. You can really rip a drive. If
Speaker 2: you're over you know to ten to twenty thirty with
Speaker 2: roll you've you know, that's that's muscle time.
Speaker 1: So last year in November, you were at a very
Speaker 1: different kind of golf tournament, the November Garrett. That was
Speaker 1: I'm a professional here. You know you were at the
Speaker 1: November Masters. Tell me about your experience at last year's
Speaker 1: very strange Masters.
Speaker 2: Yes, my essay and golf digest, which I think you read, Garrett,
Speaker 2: was off the course. Because we were all off the course,
Speaker 2: I couldn't gain entry to the grounds. It was a
Speaker 2: weird situation to be there, not why golf in person
Speaker 2: and you know, soaking up that atmosphere, which is so great.
Speaker 2: So I kind of wandered around the city asking people
Speaker 2: what the heck they were doing there, why, what they
Speaker 2: thought about all this, and how the lowercase Masters was
Speaker 2: affecting them, And it was kind of fun talking to
Speaker 2: how florists and hostesses out front at a empty restaurant
Speaker 2: and so forth. Surprisingly, I have some friends. I've been
Speaker 2: going there for so long. I know a lot of locals,
Speaker 2: and these friends from North Carolina who came to visit
Speaker 2: a golf pro in fact, and he brought his three
Speaker 2: assistants to not watch the tournament, to sit at a
Speaker 2: friend's house, have some beer gallons of it and watched
Speaker 2: the event, maybe play some cards. So the momentum of
Speaker 2: reunion there was still strong, but I don't know how
Speaker 2: if it was a complete shutdown again this year, it'd
Speaker 2: be damaging for all concerned. I guess they're allowing a
Speaker 2: limited number of spectators.
Speaker 1: You know, in your essay you seem to be capturing
Speaker 1: something about the feel of the town during this very
Speaker 1: you know, kind of almost eerie type of Masters.
Speaker 2: Was that?
Speaker 1: What was that feeling that you were going for?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I achieved it. I guess the disorientation.
Speaker 2: Who was ever gone made a point of going to
Speaker 2: a place for a golf tournament to not watch the
Speaker 2: golf tournament. I can't think of a precedent. So it was.
Speaker 2: It was so odd. Caterers are going broke, and ticket
Speaker 2: brokers and you know, probably quite a bit about the
Speaker 2: economy there, the economy of the thing. The one major
Speaker 2: that stays put things are it's a unique ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Ecosystem either one, I think, but it's very dependent on
Speaker 1: Augusta is very dependent in many ways on the Masters.
Speaker 1: In other words, the town of Augusta.
Speaker 2: That's so true, although I should say since my nose
Speaker 2: is close to the ground there. What with the club
Speaker 2: expanding outward like Germany in nineteen thirty three, there's some
Speaker 2: resentment nobody makes. They're once a year buck for parking
Speaker 2: cars in their yards. Doesn't happen anymore. There's you've seen it,
Speaker 2: one hundred acres of free parking. The prediction by some
Speaker 2: of the cynical locals is that they're even going to
Speaker 2: the club intends to take away their their house rental
Speaker 2: income by having more and more on campus housing at
Speaker 2: at Augusta National. I can see them doing.
Speaker 1: That because that's a big thing, right, is that some
Speaker 1: people rent out their homes for that week and earn,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty good money from from the very wealthy
Speaker 1: PGA tour stars who are who are renting homes.
Speaker 2: As well as the many. There's the Irish Tourist Board.
Speaker 2: There's the I don't know, Toro or USGA or other
Speaker 2: big golf industry types that would come to town, entertain
Speaker 2: a lot and need a big house with that caterer
Speaker 2: and that florist and the cleanup crew and so forth.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting economy there once a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I can hear it a little bit in
Speaker 1: the in the way that you're describing the relationship between
Speaker 1: the course and the town or the club in the town.
Speaker 1: Like many golf writers, you have complex feelings about the Masters.
Speaker 1: Unlike many golf writers, you've actually been willing to write
Speaker 1: about them and talk about them. So I'm curious what
Speaker 1: are your earliest experiences with the Masters? What comes to
Speaker 1: mind when you think of the Masters and your childhood
Speaker 1: if anything?
Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, my childhood. That's it was such a
Speaker 2: big deal. I grew up in the in the northeast
Speaker 2: near Boston, and then later in northern Ohio. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: We just were counting down the minutes until there was
Speaker 2: that little tinkle of piano music or whatever it was
Speaker 2: back then. It's guitar now, but you know, the screen
Speaker 2: would come up and there would be I guess it
Speaker 2: was Pat summerl was the first voice you'd hear, and
Speaker 2: then they do the little, the little There's Frank Glieber
Speaker 2: on sixteen and Vern Lundquist, who is I'm going to
Speaker 2: meet later today. He's handing out an award at this
Speaker 2: at Onion Creek for this Hickory event. So they introduced
Speaker 2: the announcers, and you know, it was, like they say,
Speaker 2: the US the first sign of spring, the first sign
Speaker 2: that golf season was really underway. And I was just
Speaker 2: a kid imitating golf pros Arnie's mannerisms and the way
Speaker 2: Ken Ventury put his golf club on the bag. And
Speaker 2: you know, I even smoked for a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: when I was age twelve, trying to do it Arnie style. Right,
Speaker 2: So a big deal. A Master's has always been huge
Speaker 2: for me. It's probably for you and others listening in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's something akin to a shared
Speaker 1: national experience, which are you know, more and more rare
Speaker 1: these days, right, there's you know, so you know, over
Speaker 1: the years, you know, I mentioned that there's some complexity
Speaker 1: to the way that you have written about the Masters.
Speaker 1: How did your opinion of the Masters as an institution,
Speaker 1: as an American institution evolve over the years and what
Speaker 1: caused it to evolve?
Speaker 2: Well, I think, on the one hand, I haveciated it
Speaker 2: more and more over the years. What they do, the
Speaker 2: Swiss watch way they run the thing. Every other tournament,
Speaker 2: including US Open, seem amateurish to me like they're scratching
Speaker 2: their heads. We need more gallery marshals on whole thirteen,
Speaker 2: or the trash bends are overflowing in the halfway house
Speaker 2: on number four. That's not going to happen at Augusta National.
Speaker 2: Those guys are such prosy. They're fully staffed, anticipate every need,
Speaker 2: extremely polite. But then there was, you know, uneasy. I
Speaker 2: was uneasy about the place. Having done lots of research
Speaker 2: for my book The Masters, and fully understanding who the
Speaker 2: Pinkertons were and their history. I think back then when
Speaker 2: I first started going to the Masters in the late nineties,
Speaker 2: they were not oppressive, but you know, they were like bouncers.
Speaker 2: They let you know that this is not a place
Speaker 2: where you can run between shots if you're following excitedly
Speaker 2: some group. No running, no yelling, no allowed displays. Reminded me.
Speaker 2: I mean, as I've learned more and more that both
Speaker 2: Cliff Roberts and Bob Jones had military backgrounds at least
Speaker 2: during their wars the Great War and then World War Two.
Speaker 2: For Jones, very much a controlled thing that was nothing
Speaker 2: wrong with it, but seemed rather strict, seemed contributed a
Speaker 2: little to the church like church like atmosphere there, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think that that competence that you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: that ability to really run a golf tournament and do
Speaker 1: it well year in, year out and do all the
Speaker 1: ancillary things better than everybody else, seemingly including the media
Speaker 1: portion of it, the website, the app, the you know,
Speaker 1: all that modern stuff. You think the Masters as an
Speaker 1: old traditional institut wouldn't be very good at it, but
Speaker 1: in fact they're much better at it than everybody else
Speaker 1: and are leading the way on all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So there's there's that real level of competence that you're
Speaker 1: talking about. It seems like that might be part and
Speaker 1: parcel with the less attractive sort of control that those two,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of must go together in a way.
Speaker 2: It could be. Garrett, Yeah, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 2: From repeated, constant not constant, but I go almost every
Speaker 2: year and have great friendships there. I can hardly buy
Speaker 2: a drinker or a dinner there, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: I got to see the Masters and Augusta National more
Speaker 2: from their point of view than from the once a
Speaker 2: year visitor who only goes and watches to them. It
Speaker 2: was Yankees taking over to some degree Yankee influence, the
Speaker 2: corporate influence. It seems to become to them more and
Speaker 2: more controlled by some faceless, powerful people who weren't really
Speaker 2: Augustin's who really weren't getting it that people like to
Speaker 2: park their cars over there, they liked the old freelance style,
Speaker 2: that this was our community golf tournament. It became less
Speaker 2: and less. It has become less and less that and
Speaker 2: more thing in itself. I think you'd agree, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: So just you know, thinking about your lifelong I guess
Speaker 1: relationship with the Masters, how did you get interested in
Speaker 1: writing about the nineteen sixty eight Masters specifically? You wrote
Speaker 1: a book in two thousand and six called The Lost Masters,
Speaker 1: And it came to my attention because I read your
Speaker 1: piece in Golf Digest last year about the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: November Masters, and in the lead of that piece you
Speaker 1: mentioned the sixty eight Masters in your book The Lost
Speaker 1: Masters about it and draw some parallels between those two
Speaker 1: years and those two tournaments. And we can get into
Speaker 1: some of those parallels. But just thinking about the genesis
Speaker 1: of that book and your will to write about that
Speaker 1: particular masters, where did that come from?
Speaker 2: Well, by then, I had already written my book, The Masters,
Speaker 2: an imaginative title, but it was a good book with a.
Speaker 1: Good subtitle too, Can you tell us the subtitle?
Speaker 2: The subtitle was Golf, Money and Power in Augusta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: So I wrote about the town, and the tournament and
Speaker 2: the club, all three, noticing what a sweetheart press the
Speaker 2: institution had had over the years, when seldom has heard
Speaker 2: a discouraging word. I don't know. I write to keep
Speaker 2: myself awake and hopefully entertain a reader and inform him
Speaker 2: or her, although I hardly I don't think I've myself
Speaker 2: his way out there just by writing what I perceived
Speaker 2: to be true facts was possibly slightly controversial. My take
Speaker 2: on this beloved institution for the regarding the sixty eight
Speaker 2: Masters and my book The Loss Masters. I just reflected
Speaker 2: that there had only been one bad tournament. They whiffed
Speaker 2: exactly once, and they've been having tournaments there since nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty four, I think, except for Wars correct. And it
Speaker 2: was so vividly part and parcel of a country that
Speaker 2: was sliding into the abyss, that was feeling like a
Speaker 2: banana republic, so divided and so unhappy and at War.
Speaker 2: My father was a WW two combat vet. And remember
Speaker 2: my brother coming home from his first year at Ohio
Speaker 2: State and his formerly crew cut second son now had
Speaker 2: blonde hair down to his shoulders and a mustache. Pops
Speaker 2: hit the roof, and you know, meanwhile, you know, he's
Speaker 2: seeing Vietnam War protests on TV and here comes his
Speaker 2: son looking like that. It was things like that I
Speaker 2: think happened in lots of households. Nineteen sixty eight was
Speaker 2: a very bad year and a very bad year for
Speaker 2: the masters.
Speaker 1: Could you say a little more about what was happening
Speaker 1: in America in April nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: From memory a couple of things that shockingly there was
Speaker 2: that freaking North Koreans hijack one of our ships sailing
Speaker 2: according to US in international waters, the Pueblo, and they
Speaker 2: hold the captain and crew for publicity and propaganda purposes
Speaker 2: for a long time. And it was tortuous, it seemed wrong,
Speaker 2: and it seemed like our diplomacy and power were so
Speaker 2: defanged that we couldn't do anything about it. So we
Speaker 2: had to live with this every day. It was like
Speaker 2: the hostages hostage situation. Years later Vietnam War, of course,
Speaker 2: and some of the leaders in our country saying we
Speaker 2: shouldn't be there. So I was sixteen and I didn't
Speaker 2: know which way to go. Where's my father, who was
Speaker 2: my country right or wrong? And my brother who got
Speaker 2: to smell tear gas near the campus. Then the assassinations.
Speaker 2: The big thing in terms of that Masters was seven
Speaker 2: days eight days before the first round, Martin Luther King
Speaker 2: Junior was assassinated in Memphis, and city or not the city,
Speaker 2: the entire country went into lockdown. There was a day
Speaker 2: of mourning on the Sunday of the Greater Greensboro Open,
Speaker 2: I think was the event before the Masters, So that golf,
Speaker 2: you know, is so trivial in the big picture, but
Speaker 2: important to us. Golf got extended. That tournament finished on
Speaker 2: a Monday. Crowds at Augusta were tiny and quiet. Everybody
Speaker 2: was chastened. I think it was a weird atmosphere. And then,
Speaker 2: you know, as I wrote, and I think it's true,
Speaker 2: we were probably looking for a pick me up from
Speaker 2: the Masters that it had always delivered, and instead we
Speaker 2: get another bomber. It was just a terrible finish there
Speaker 2: with you know, a parallel between our government being clueless
Speaker 2: and not powerful like it had been in the face
Speaker 2: of changing crazy circumstances. We the Augusta National people, they whiffed,
Speaker 2: they blew it. It was a horrible result of bad
Speaker 2: a difficult situation that could have been could have been
Speaker 2: not nearly so bad that could I think it really
Speaker 2: could have been resolved in five minutes and then they
Speaker 2: could have had a playoff. But we'll talk about what
Speaker 2: actually happened in a moment.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could set that up with some of the
Speaker 1: some of the characters who are involved. Put some people
Speaker 1: on the stage here. You know, first of all, we
Speaker 1: have that old guard at Augusta, the legends of that club,
Speaker 1: including Bobby Jones. So where is Bobby Jones at in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Eight, Poor Bobby critically ill with serringo mailia. I believe
Speaker 2: it's pronounced this terrible wasting neurological disease he had that
Speaker 2: attacks the spine and made him brittle as a leaf,
Speaker 2: and he was wheelchair bound by nineteen sixty eight, had
Speaker 2: a cath that are in permanently. And then you know
Speaker 2: he was got the flu there at home in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: But he was looking for rejuvenation like everybody else. So
Speaker 2: he had told the chauffeur that we're going anyway. So
Speaker 2: he and I think missus for a while at least
Speaker 2: made the annual drive east to Augusta. So there's Bobby
Speaker 2: in his cabin with the flu and very ill.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and to be clear, here's an American legend,
Speaker 1: right here is the and the representative of the Masters,
Speaker 1: at least publicly, and he and he is ailing quite
Speaker 1: severely at this point in nineteen sixty eight, which has
Speaker 1: some sort of symbolic resonances about, you know, how the
Speaker 1: tournament's doing.
Speaker 2: Right, and then at the end in its way and
Speaker 2: one telling the result came down to what decision made
Speaker 2: by him? Right, this guy who's what some small portion
Speaker 2: of the man he had been. I can't tell you
Speaker 2: for sure there was mental decline, but from what he wrote,
Speaker 2: he was just so miserable. I just don't think he
Speaker 2: could have been as sharp as he had been.
Speaker 1: So alongside Bobby Jones and the leadership of Augusta National
Speaker 1: was Clifford Roberts, also an older man at this point,
Speaker 1: and you know, in the last what ten years of
Speaker 1: his life I suppose by nineteen sixty eight, So tell
Speaker 1: me about Clifford Roberts. You know who was he and
Speaker 1: who was he? By nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Cliff had been a major. Came from poor circumstances, but
Speaker 2: worked his way up through hard work and guile, with
Speaker 2: not giving every detail. He finds himself a stockbroker with
Speaker 2: a great clientele in New York. And he was the
Speaker 2: organizer of the club the first one hundred members. This
Speaker 2: is almost exactly correct. Of the first one hundred members,
Speaker 2: ninety nine or ninety eight were from New York City
Speaker 2: and the other two were Bob Jones and his father.
Speaker 2: So Augusta National was a New York social club all
Speaker 2: the way for a number of years. That's what it was.
Speaker 2: And Cliff was the dictator, a benign dictator, benevolent or not,
Speaker 2: depending on your point of view. Very quirky, using quirks.
Speaker 2: I think Steve Melnick was described. Remember Steve, who was
Speaker 2: a good golfer, one of USAM and was an announcer.
Speaker 2: He described a conversation with Cliff Roberts, who had such
Speaker 2: broad spaces between his words that you weren't sure you
Speaker 2: were still in a conversation with the guy. So that
Speaker 2: was Cliff, and Cliff had declared by then by sixty
Speaker 2: eight that Bob Jones isn't going to do the Butler
Speaker 2: Cabin Meet the New Champion ceremony anymore. The year before
Speaker 2: he drooled a bit and he looked like hell, I mean,
Speaker 2: no other way to put it. The poor guy was terminal,
Speaker 2: I mean no insult to him in that, so that
Speaker 2: the power dynamic had changed completely. It was Bob Jones
Speaker 2: was now had was just ceremonial and it was all Cliff.
Speaker 1: So two main players, obviously in this drama, two main golfers.
Speaker 1: We have Bob Golby and we have Roberto Davi Senzo.
Speaker 1: And I believe your book actually taught me how to
Speaker 1: pronounce his name. Is that is that right? That I
Speaker 1: get that?
Speaker 2: That is? I had Roberto say it over and over
Speaker 2: that I want to get this down. It's the Brits
Speaker 2: called him.
Speaker 1: Vicenzo, Vicenzo. That's what I've heard a lot without.
Speaker 2: The day in between and the American Ish Dave d
Speaker 2: Visenzo or something he had for him.
Speaker 1: It was day da Visenzo and the v the visa.
Speaker 1: You getting all those valels right is actually kind of tricky,
Speaker 1: But maybe we can start with Bob Goldby this this
Speaker 1: book taught me a lot about who Bob Golby is,
Speaker 1: and in fact he is. He is still kicking around.
Speaker 1: So Bob Goldby, what kind of a character was he?
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: I grew up ultimate around Firestone Country Club, which was
Speaker 2: really a hive of professional golf because there was this
Speaker 2: thing filmed in the fall called the CBS Golf Classic,
Speaker 2: which was two versus two format that they'd play all winter.
Speaker 2: They taped them in the fall, and my father, bless
Speaker 2: his heart, would say to me. He'd look at me
Speaker 2: at breakfast and say, you have anything big at school today,
Speaker 2: and I'd always say no, And he would play hooky
Speaker 2: and I would play hooky, and we would go a
Speaker 2: lot to watch the taping of the CBS Golf Classic,
Speaker 2: So you know, I was intimate with Bob Goldbi's game
Speaker 2: as well as you know, twenty other guys. And there
Speaker 2: was also the Tour event, and there was also the
Speaker 2: World Series of Golf, which was the four major winners.
Speaker 2: Enough about Firestone, Goldby what a guy? I mean? Also
Speaker 2: from a book, he was America's football Here I was
Speaker 2: in a bar with him and the and it sounds
Speaker 2: like a made up scene, but some guy recognizes him
Speaker 2: and said, you remember that passed you through in fifty
Speaker 2: six to beat East Saint Louis and Bob, you know,
Speaker 2: Good Nations, and that was a good game for me,
Speaker 2: you know. I think we won by two touchdowns or something.
Speaker 2: He was a high school football hero sports, a very
Speaker 2: good athlete who eventually sort of grudgingly came to golf,
Speaker 2: and he brought up sort of football players style to
Speaker 2: the game. He played mad and divot Scarett. That guy
Speaker 2: gouged the turfit Firestone like I was expecting the superintendent
Speaker 2: to come around to protest, like a right handed uppercut.
Speaker 2: Imagine that as a golf swing. That was Bob's style.
Speaker 2: Very straightforward guy. Two years in the military I think
Speaker 2: affected him. He was the hard ass. Guys like Tony
Speaker 2: Jacqueline and others just coming to play here from overseas
Speaker 2: were not welcomed by Bob Goldby and his friends. He
Speaker 2: was the guy who would tell the rookie tuck in
Speaker 2: your shirt or you need a haircut, so we don't
Speaker 2: like this out here. He was that guy, and they
Speaker 2: kept putting him in charge of things. He was don January.
Speaker 2: What did he say, He's a good thinker and a doer.
Speaker 1: He was a key ended up being a key player
Speaker 1: in the formation of the PGA Tour or the modern
Speaker 1: PGA Tour in sixty eight I suppose it was late
Speaker 1: sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people younger than us don't know that PGA Tour
Speaker 2: broke away and it was quite painful and lots of anger.
Speaker 2: The tour broke away from PGA of America, and Goldbi
Speaker 2: would have been one of the leaders.
Speaker 1: You describe this sort of group of players who idolized
Speaker 1: Ben Hogan and liked to hang out with Sam Snead
Speaker 1: and Goldbie. I guess was one of those players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little Click. There were just a couple of them.
Speaker 2: I think Doug Ford was another. Goldbi was very palatable
Speaker 2: to Hogan, and Goldby took a knee to Ben Hogan
Speaker 2: treasured each practice around that they they played at the
Speaker 2: same time. Goldby was in the Snead Click played lots
Speaker 2: of golf with with Sam and Bob amusingly told me
Speaker 2: that about the differences between playing with the two different
Speaker 2: guys who were stylistically and temperamentally so different. But Goldby,
Speaker 2: you know, he fit in. He was a very good
Speaker 2: player and respectful to his uh.
Speaker 1: These two elders, Roberto, Davis, Senzo, tell me about tell
Speaker 1: me about this man. I don't know where. I don't
Speaker 1: know where you start. But what a legend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we should say Sam Snead and Kathy Wentworth.
Speaker 2: You can just go to Blaze's. Roberto is the winning
Speaker 2: as golfer of all time. He won more tournaments, professional tournaments.
Speaker 2: How big they were always you know, you could argue
Speaker 2: that about Sneed's record too, but they were. Does it
Speaker 2: count when he wins the Switzerland Open and the Portugal
Speaker 2: Open and the Spanish Open. Yes? I think Roberto was
Speaker 2: a world traveler and his game traveled. He put more
Speaker 2: time in a DC three than a pilot, I guess.
Speaker 2: Just a lovable guy. Always, always was unassuming. I'd love
Speaker 2: this about him too, almost always, And he did it
Speaker 2: at Augusta. On the first tee, he would throw a
Speaker 2: ball down and hit it. He wanted to hit a
Speaker 2: driver or a brassy off the deck to start the day. Nice,
Speaker 2: really good player, very strong, short swing, kind of a
Speaker 2: beak like nose, bald, unassuming, very very nice man. When
Speaker 2: he won the nineteen sixty seven British Open, it was
Speaker 2: his first and what would turn out to be his
Speaker 2: only major. Was it unleashed lots of warm feeling for him,
Speaker 2: you know, at last Roberto is one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he was. He was loved. I've seen clips
Speaker 1: of that of that open that that he won, and
Speaker 1: the crowd seems thrilled. It's almost like, yeah, an Englishman
Speaker 1: or a Scotsman has won. It's you know, he was.
Speaker 1: Roberto was was really widely loved, and including in America.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ben Wright told me he was interviewing Jack at
Speaker 2: the time, Nicholas. Of course, Roberto hold out for the win,
Speaker 2: and Jack had tears in his eyes, along with many
Speaker 2: other people there. So Goldie wouldn't get that. Goldby was respected,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't loved like Roberto was.
Speaker 1: Fast forwarding to the tournament, the sixty eight Masters, there's
Speaker 1: all this stuff going on in America, some profoundly hard
Speaker 1: things going on for Americans. The Masters is supposed to
Speaker 1: be this escape, as I think it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: every year, but especially in nineteen sixty eight, and in
Speaker 1: fact especially last year in twenty twenty. It was supposed
Speaker 1: to be this moment when we could just think about
Speaker 1: something else for a change. The tournament plays out, but
Speaker 1: really the important things happen late on Sunday. Gary Player
Speaker 1: was in the lead at the beginning of the day,
Speaker 1: but Golby and Davey Senzo. Golbie I believe, was one back,
Speaker 1: Daviy Senzo was two back, and they end up tied.
Speaker 1: Their scores are the same score at least at the
Speaker 1: end of the round. Maybe you could tell me what
Speaker 1: happens from there, and maybe start with what the scorecards
Speaker 1: signing setup was behind the eighteenth green at the time.
Speaker 2: Of first I'll say how emotional the day was, although
Speaker 2: the leading men like Player Palmer Nicholas weren't involved at
Speaker 2: the end. Here is Roberto and it's his birthday and
Speaker 2: he hits his driver off the ground on one in
Speaker 2: a nine iron right in the hole, and people are
Speaker 2: singing happy birthday to Roberto. When he comes to each green,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's making birdies and he waves and
Speaker 2: he was affable. Goldbie's playing great too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's at this point it's almost like
Speaker 1: the promise of what the Masters could be in this
Speaker 1: year was being fulfilled. That that moment on number one
Speaker 1: with Roberto holding out and everybody's singing happy yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very exciting, and there was a third
Speaker 2: guy in the mix, just this very vivid figure. To me,
Speaker 2: I watched him play a lot. Bert Yancy, the West
Speaker 2: Point dropout, who was a manic depressive and who was
Speaker 2: so obsessed by the Masters. He made molds of each
Speaker 2: green and he kept them under his bed, and Augusta,
Speaker 2: I guess, brought him out. He palpate the surface to
Speaker 2: maybe get a better feeling of how to read the
Speaker 2: putt from above the hole. On number eight or whatever
Speaker 2: it was, he I can't remember, shot sixty five or
Speaker 2: sixty six the last day, and it was he was
Speaker 2: Captain a Hab and that was his wail there, lived
Speaker 2: to win the Masters and didn't quite do it. To
Speaker 2: cut more to the key moment on National TV, Roberto
Speaker 2: made a great birdie on seventeen. His playing partner Tommy
Speaker 2: Aaron wrote four on the card, and I don't blame Aaron.
Speaker 2: Mistakes happened. If you played in tournaments, you know, you
Speaker 2: put down the wrong score sometimes and you check at
Speaker 2: the end. So he wrote down the four. Roberto makes
Speaker 2: a hard breaking bogie on eighteen, and it looks like
Speaker 2: he is going to lose By one or time, maybe
Speaker 2: up in the air, pretty informal checkout procedure there at Augusta.
Speaker 2: Then a little umbrella table and a couple of chairs
Speaker 2: right by the green with the fans around you. And
Speaker 2: Roberto had done had been paired with Goldbi, interestingly the
Speaker 2: day before, and Goldby said, well, he just doesn't check
Speaker 2: his card. He especially that that day after that final
Speaker 2: round seventy second hole bogie where you know, just had
Speaker 2: his head in his hands and he looked at it
Speaker 2: blankly and signed and then he was off signed it
Speaker 2: with the four correct score, but a wrong number on
Speaker 2: the whole. Here is where I should say rulings had
Speaker 2: been made at Augusta in the Masters in the past,
Speaker 2: that we're not letter of the law, USGA, RNA rules.
Speaker 2: The Masters is a thing unto itself. It's not PGA
Speaker 2: Tour or PJ of America or any of the other
Speaker 2: big organizations. They could and did let equity prevail. And
Speaker 2: I point out some different examples, one involving tau Finsterwalden,
Speaker 2: a couple with Arnold Palmer. So Roberto gets up and
Speaker 2: he signed an incorrect scorecard. Equity says, you know, with
Speaker 2: this level of confusion and administrative lack of oversight. Maybe
Speaker 2: we could call him back and let him take credit
Speaker 2: for the three that we all knew he made, and
Speaker 2: it became an emergency. Within three minutes, Roberto had wandered off.
Speaker 2: I think they wanted him in the Butler cabin to
Speaker 2: be the runner up or possibly the new Masters champ,
Speaker 2: depending on what happened in the final few holes, and
Speaker 2: then Goldby finishes and it looks like there's a tie.
Speaker 2: But then Summer All doing his very first anchor job.
Speaker 2: He's got a vamp for about fifteen minutes, and you know,
Speaker 2: you couldn't tell what the heck was going on when
Speaker 2: you were watching it on TV. Finally, after about halfway
Speaker 2: through that, I think he used the words there seems
Speaker 2: to be a problem with Roberto's scorecard, and you know,
Speaker 2: cooler heads did not prevail. They took it to Jones.
Speaker 2: Since Jones would have been watching on TV. I don't
Speaker 2: think he had ever met Roberto, and who was decided
Speaker 2: with Ike Granger, who was the USJA guy, the rules
Speaker 2: guy in charge, and Jones and whoever else was in
Speaker 2: the room that yes, we're going to make him take
Speaker 2: the score. He didn't actually have, and instead of there
Speaker 2: being a playoff tomorrow, we have a new champion, mister Goldby,
Speaker 2: and a disconsolate, weeping runner up in Roberto.
Speaker 1: So so many directions we could take from this. It
Speaker 1: is an incredible piece of television. First of all, if
Speaker 1: if people haven't watched the video that is available on
Speaker 1: YouTube through the Master's channel of that final day broadcast,
Speaker 1: go watch it because it's pretty incredible how it plays out,
Speaker 1: and the sort of palpable confusion that hangs over the
Speaker 1: last minutes of that broadcast, from the moment that Summer
Speaker 1: all seems to realize what's going on, or somebody in
Speaker 1: his headset is telling him what's going on, to the
Speaker 1: Butler Cabin ceremony, which is tremendously awkward, not made any
Speaker 1: less so by the fact that Clifford Roberts, as a
Speaker 1: public facing figure, was simply not up to that moment.
Speaker 2: No, no, he wasn't, never was, and the awkwardness piled up.
Speaker 2: They felt so bad for Roberto, even though that to
Speaker 2: my point of view, they hadn't treated him well. Arnold
Speaker 2: or Jack couldn't have walked away and they and the
Speaker 2: mistake would have been allowed to stand. In my opinion.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine them denying a green jacket to Arnie
Speaker 2: because of a clerical error. I mean, we golfers, we
Speaker 2: get it. I mean, we're very strict with ourselves and
Speaker 2: about our rules. But as I was saying, equity had
Speaker 2: prevailed and fairness had prevailed in the past, and it
Speaker 2: could have in this case at any rate, it's always
Speaker 2: the player who suffers, and never the administrators. They can
Speaker 2: just say sorry about that. Roberto, so I was saying,
Speaker 2: they piled up the awkwardness by inviting him to dinner
Speaker 2: that night. As you may know, you win the Masters,
Speaker 2: it's protocol for you to have dinner with the members
Speaker 2: at the club that night. They invited the runner up too. Oh,
Speaker 2: and nobody knew what to say. They made a sort
Speaker 2: of second champion take home trophy for Roberto. It was
Speaker 2: very through the looking glass, the only bad Masters ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, in our collective memory in golf,
Speaker 1: if I if there's such a thing, it seems to
Speaker 1: me that the story of this sixty eight Masters, of
Speaker 1: its ending, the scorecard incident that we've sort of focused on.
Speaker 1: Roberto made a mistake, and poor Roberto, we feel sorry
Speaker 1: for him because he's such a sympathetic figure. And gold By, well,
Speaker 1: well he won it, but a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: remember that. And we can talk about the treatment that
Speaker 1: Golby received from the public afterwards, which was horrible, and
Speaker 1: he certainly didn't get to enjoy what a champion of
Speaker 1: the Masters typically gets to enjoy. But I feel like
Speaker 1: we don't remember that that Augusta National Golf Club, that
Speaker 1: Cliff Roberts, or that Bobby Jones might have any culpability
Speaker 1: in this incident. I feel like what we remember is
Speaker 1: that a rule was broken. This is golf, It had
Speaker 1: to be this way, which, come to think of it,
Speaker 1: is part of the myth making of Master's history. Right.
Speaker 1: That is a very friendly to Augusta National Golf Club
Speaker 1: way to remember these incidents. But what you're bringing to
Speaker 1: the surface here is a different decision could have been made,
Speaker 1: and in fact that the players got a raw deal here.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to sign fault anywhere, it would
Speaker 1: have to be to the administrators of the tournament.
Speaker 2: That was pretty much where I came down. I know
Speaker 2: that's not a gospel that reasonable people can disagree and
Speaker 2: do and did rules or rules idea, and you know,
Speaker 2: It's part of what makes golf different from other sports.
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, I played basketball, and if I
Speaker 2: stepped out of bounds and the REP didn't see it
Speaker 2: and I had the ball, I would never stop games.
Speaker 2: Mister you missed that I was out of bounds. The
Speaker 2: other team gets the ball. Football, you know, wide receiver
Speaker 2: pushes off or something, and then catches a pass. He's
Speaker 2: not going to say, well, well, we're not going to
Speaker 2: take that was ten yards because I actually breached a rule.
Speaker 2: Golf's different. You call penalties on yourself. You could cheat
Speaker 2: a hundred times around really, but no you don't. That's
Speaker 2: just Jones was famous for saying he didn't cheat for
Speaker 2: the same reason he didn't rob Banks. The aftermath was
Speaker 2: so bizarre. Goldbie was blamed. People were saying and writing
Speaker 2: that he cheated Roberto, although he wasn't even in the
Speaker 2: same group. It was impossible. He got death threats, he
Speaker 2: got horrible letters. He came back as a defending champion
Speaker 2: year later, and he got booed. Holy mackerel booing the
Speaker 2: defending champion. Meanwhile, Roberto got all the sympathy he won
Speaker 2: the next turn on the tour. He was very much
Speaker 2: in demand. He said it was the best thing that
Speaker 2: ever happened to him. In a way. He suggested a
Speaker 2: way for Goldby to have settled the whole thing, which
Speaker 2: would have been to say what it was the title
Speaker 2: of the last chapter. No kiero la copa. I don't
Speaker 2: want those I don't want the trophy. We tied. We're
Speaker 2: playing off tomorrow. I asked Goldby about that. He said
Speaker 2: he didn't consider it. The rules were strict and black
Speaker 2: and white, and they were adhered to. He wasn't embarrassed
Speaker 2: about the way he won, but he's privately very bitter
Speaker 2: about the negativity that surrounded him.
Speaker 1: Understandably, Uh, do you think the Do you think the
Speaker 1: public was ready to be mad at somebody and that
Speaker 1: Bob Goldby was a convenient target for that anger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, LBJ and Bob Goldby. I guess back then, Bob,
Speaker 2: as I I pointed out earlier, I think he played
Speaker 2: the game mad. He was not a fuzzy teddy bear
Speaker 2: like Roberto was. Bob glowered. You had block like face,
Speaker 2: very handsome man, but geometric, and he fired a lot
Speaker 2: of caddies, played a very intense style. Yeah, he was
Speaker 2: set up. He was in position to be the symbolic
Speaker 2: bad guy in this drama.
Speaker 1: So overall, what kinds of connections do you see between
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight and twenty twenty. When you were writing
Speaker 1: that essay last year from the November Masters, what made
Speaker 1: you include a reference to this tournament in the lead
Speaker 1: of your piece.
Speaker 2: Well, I was saying about, you know, since I've written
Speaker 2: a book about the only bad Masters. Not that the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty version was bad, but I think, as we're
Speaker 2: finding from watching basketball and other sports, football without fans,
Speaker 2: the air is out of the there's no jam, there's nothing.
Speaker 2: The excitement is muted at best. No fault of Augusta
Speaker 2: National or the Masters. Of course Dustin Johnson's golf was exciting,
Speaker 2: but the tournament wasn't You got to have those yells
Speaker 2: out there and the echoes and so forth. I guess
Speaker 2: that was maybe the twenty twenty was the second worst Masters,
Speaker 2: but second by many miles. Still, you know, meticulously run
Speaker 2: and a worthy champion and so forth, but you know,
Speaker 2: a victim of COVID and lack of fans and not pleasing. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: I didn't feel uplifted by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was muted, and Dustin Johnson is a very
Speaker 1: sympathetic champion. I think, you know, has become even more
Speaker 1: so as he's gotten older, and I was happy to
Speaker 1: see him win. But there there has been something very
Speaker 1: different about sports in general, including golf, in the past year.
Speaker 1: And I mean there's the obvious part of it, which
Speaker 1: is that there haven't been any fans, and and that
Speaker 1: that electricity that comes from the presence of fans is
Speaker 1: certainly missing from the broadcasts and the events themselves. But
Speaker 1: it seems like when we were in that period last
Speaker 1: year of about two months or so March April, a
Speaker 1: little bit of May where there were no sports and
Speaker 1: you know, really no live sports were on TV. We
Speaker 1: didn't really have anything. Everybody got excited about a documentary
Speaker 1: about Michael Jordan because there is sort of so desperate
Speaker 1: for something, and I think that people assumed that when
Speaker 1: sports came back, oh man, won't it be great? Want
Speaker 1: to be a wonderful distraction from all of this and that,
Speaker 1: and that's really how people assume that sports should operate
Speaker 1: a distraction from what's going on in the world. And
Speaker 1: the Masters might be the ultimate example of it, because
Speaker 1: what is more different from the real world than this
Speaker 1: kind of magical, little green bubble.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. Yes, yeah, it is a little eten,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And yet that idea of sports as a distraction
Speaker 1: or an escape seems to fail at key moments. You know,
Speaker 1: it failed at the nineteen sixty eight Masters. That it
Speaker 1: may it may be it may have been failing for
Speaker 1: the past year or so. So do you think that
Speaker 1: maybe sports as a distraction, sports is an escape, that
Speaker 1: that's maybe not the right idea about sports? Is there
Speaker 1: another way for us to view them? Or do we
Speaker 1: have to evolve our thinking about that? In some way?
Speaker 2: You saved the toughest question for the end, didn't you
Speaker 2: get I'm sorry, I don't that's a thinker. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a sports watching and still playing to some degree,
Speaker 2: at least with golf so much a part of who
Speaker 2: I am. Heck, I've been writing about sports for thirty
Speaker 2: one something years. Geez, I'm getting old. It still seems vital.
Speaker 2: It'll take a while of pandemics for me to start
Speaker 2: looking elsewhere, to classical music or skateboarding or something. I
Speaker 2: don't know where I'll go without a good show of
Speaker 2: the NBA Finals or MLB playoffs. And golf. I don't
Speaker 2: want to think about it, and I'm sorry you brought
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: So we're not going to look into the abyss quite yet.
Speaker 1: So you have a number of wonderful books. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that many listeners are familiar with them. But what's your
Speaker 1: most recent book.
Speaker 2: The most recent came out after Tiger's stunning win in
Speaker 2: the twenty nineteen Masters. Instant nostalgia for that, and A
Speaker 2: had another Tiger bio. It's called Roaring Back, The Fall
Speaker 2: and Rise of Tiger Woods, and it sold well. It's
Speaker 2: a good book. I hope people will bye bye bye. Seriously,
Speaker 2: it was a fun tournament to think about again, that
Speaker 2: mind blowing combination of failure by five out of the
Speaker 2: six best players in the world. I think it was
Speaker 2: who dunked the ball on number twelve in the final round, Kepka, Fena, Poulter, Molinari,
Speaker 2: Molinari most of all, who had the lead and looked
Speaker 2: like a timex that would never stop ticking. He'd been
Speaker 2: kicking Tiger's ass for a couple of years and this
Speaker 2: looked like another example, and he just cracked and Tiger
Speaker 2: was there. Tiger played smarter and better the last seven holes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something we haven't talked about so far with
Speaker 1: regards to the twenty twenty Masters, and it's the the
Speaker 1: odd feeling around. It had been immediately preceded by the
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen Masters, one of the most glorious editions of
Speaker 1: the tournament ever.
Speaker 2: Nuts. As you know Tiger, it's always been popular. But
Speaker 2: after his you know, various outside the ropes difficulties, his
Speaker 2: reputation had sunk quite a bit. And then he won
Speaker 2: the twenty eighteen Tour Championship. The kids ran out as
Speaker 2: they as they do, and there was great love and
Speaker 2: amazing outpouring rediscovery of how great Tiger is, I think,
Speaker 2: how emotionally involved people are. And then here it happens
Speaker 2: again in April. It was vivid.
Speaker 1: Can you mention any topic that you might be working
Speaker 1: on right now for a book.
Speaker 2: I have a proposal. I think it's we're about to
Speaker 2: sell it. I'll be cryptic. It's about the first great
Speaker 2: American golfer. He won two US Opens And you don't
Speaker 2: know his name, huh, Unless you know, you could amaze
Speaker 2: me by telling me who that was. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: Francis we met.
Speaker 1: That was the first name that came to mind, but
Speaker 1: I was assuming that you were talking about somebody different.
Speaker 2: So yes, yeah, this is a deep dive and a
Speaker 2: very hidden story. It's time to tell it.
Speaker 1: Wonderful Okay, well, thank you, Kert, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It was great, Garrett, thanks for having me on. I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it too.
Speaker 1: Kurt Sampson is the author of Roaring Back, The Fall
Speaker 1: and Rise of Tiger Woods, The Masters, Golf, Money and
Speaker 1: Power in Augusta, Georgia, The Lost Masters, Grace and Disgrace
Speaker 1: in sixty eight, and many other books. If you've been
Speaker 1: enjoying the Friday Podcast, please leave a rating and review
Speaker 1: in Apple Podcasts or whatever you use. That really does
Speaker 1: help us out. Thanks for listening.