The Greatest Course That Never Was

by J. Michael Veron

  But that didn’t quell the curiosity rising within me. Just suppose, I thought, this punchinello was telling the truth. If I walked away, I would be turning my back on one of the most fantastic golf stories of the century. The odds, of course, were against that being the case. But I remembered what one of the trial lawyers at Butler & Yates once told me: You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket.

  So, I decided to stay and play. If Moonlight was telling the truth, I had a hundred questions. I didn’t know whether I would eventually discover the answers to them, but I wasn’t in charge of this expedition. It was clear that we were going to do this at Moonlight’s pace, and that I would have to get used to his hairpin turns.

  Chapter 8

  I SAW A lot of Moonlight over the next several weeks. Much of my available time during the weekends was spent sitting on his front porch, drinking Rolling Rock, and trying to hold up my end of our conversations. It wasn’t easy; Moonlight never said anything directly. It was like he had an aversion to declarative sentences.

  I have to admit that he kept me on my toes. My understanding of this odd little man was coming in bits and pieces, often without warning. I had to be careful not to miss something.

  I did manage to unearth some of his background, though. He was born in central Scotland, not far from the Gleneagles resort where his father was the caddie master. He said he began toting bags for the resort’s guests there when he was only ten years old and immediately knew that he wanted to spend his life walking golf courses. His father brought the family to the States in 1932 when he got a job at Pinehurst through Donald Ross, the great golf architect from Dornoch who designed and ran the courses at the North Carolina resort. When the call went out for caddies at the new course that Bob Jones was building at Augusta, a teenaged Seamus McIntyre packed his bags and never looked back.

  As further evidence of his independent streak, Moonlight had always lived alone and appeared to like it that way. Besides, he once told me, at his age his friends were all gone anyway.

  Needless to say, the old man’s peculiar ways sometimes made me question the sanity of what I was doing. The skeptical side of my lawyer’s brain said it was possible that Moonlight’s nickname may have come from his habit of howling at the moon, rather than his ball-finding skills as he claimed. But the truth was that his story had an irresistible pull to it, and I was having a good time listening to his tales about Jones, Stedman, and an assortment of other characters from the early days of golf.

  Moonlight never invited me inside his house. Although the worst part of summer was over, it was still uncomfortably warm on that porch. I could see window units protruding from the side of the house, so I knew he had air-conditioning. However, our relationship was still too fragile for me to invite myself inside.

  Sometimes we would spend as much as three hours talking on the porch. Like most folks his age, he was fond of reminiscing about the past, but never in a way that consciously revealed anything intimate about himself. At the end of some of our chats, I would walk away thinking we had gone backward rather than forward and that I had learned nothing new about Moonlight’s secret.

  I did learn at one point that Moonlight, Chico Carter, and Eddie Eumont were the last three of the prewar caddies who worked at Augusta National. According to Moonlight, the rapid growth and success of the Masters tournament in the early years surprised even Jones and Cliff Roberts, Jones’s confidante and autocratic ruler of Augusta National. Jones had originally conceived of the tournament as a reunion of sorts for his friends throughout the golf world. He scheduled it in the spring as a way of kicking off the golf season. No one associated with the inaugural Augusta National Invitational Tournament (as it was originally called) foresaw it as a major championship.

  Apparently, Jones vastly underestimated his own influence. Virtually no one declined an invitation to compete at his tournament. The best professionals and amateurs of the day began making the trip to Augusta every spring.

  The course had something to do with it, too, but the Augusta National Golf Club in the early years was very different from the way it is now. For one thing, it was not as well groomed then as now. Too, virtually every hole has been tweaked more than once, if not totally rebuilt, to improve its playability. For instance, the par-3 16th hole, which has been the scene of so many great moments in Masters lore, didn’t even have the pond that has sunk Corey Pavin’s Masters hopes more than once. In the beginning, the green was on the other side of a scraggly ditch and wasn’t much to look at.

  In addition, a large part of the tournament’s success can be traced to the way it is structured. For one thing, the field is smaller than it is in other tournaments, which tends to focus more attention on individual players. Invitations are limited to players who have achieved real competitive success. Although space for amateurs in the field has shrunk over the years, a small number of amateur champions still tee it up every year with their professional counterparts.

  In addition to preserving the amateur tradition in golf, Augusta awards its Masters champions a lifetime invitation to compete in the tournament. Thus, long before there was a Senior Tour, the Masters provided a showcase for golf’s legends.

  All of these factors converged in a magical way to lift the Masters to the status of a major championship in a few short years. This was remarkable, because the tournament has never been an official championship of anything. Unlike the other majors, which are either national championships (U.S. Open, British Open) or professional championships (PGA), the Masters has always been nothing more than an invitational tournament staged by a private club. Yet for many, it is without question the best golf tournament in the world.

  According to Moonlight, that was the problem.

  When Jones originally founded the Augusta National Golf Club, he did so with the idea that it would serve as a retreat for him and his friends. One of the reasons Jones retired at the age of 28 after winning the Grand Slam in 1930 was his desire to escape the intense pressures of competition, as well as the weight of the enormous expectations that dogged him every time he entered a tournament.

  Even when Jones tried to play a casual round with friends, word would spread quickly and no matter where he was, a crowd would soon appear. Once, while playing the Old Course at St. Andrews on holiday, he was confronted with as many as 5,000 spectators before completing the outward nine.

  But if Jones expected privacy at Augusta National, his little reunion tournament did him in. The Masters captured the public’s fancy in a big way, and Augusta National became perhaps the country’s most prominent golf club. As a result, it became evident by the late 1930s that any appearance by Jones at the club attracted far more attention than he wanted.

  Apparently, neither Jones nor Roberts anticipated that the Masters would have such a profound effect. While other major championships brought the bright glare of the media spotlight on the host club for the week of the event, the eyes of the world moved on after the tournament concluded. Thus, the uproar of a U.S. Open at Baltusrol or Winged Foot would quickly die after the champion was crowned, and the club would then resume its quiet ways until its next turn on the national championship rota—usually ten years or so down the road.

  But the Masters became the only one of golf’s four major championships with a permanent site. As a result, the tournament focused the attention of the golfing world on the same club year after year. This caused Augusta National and the Masters to become inseparable in the public’s mind. Mention of one inevitably required mention of the other, giving the club a kind of cult status, and the scrutiny it received from the golf media became unrelenting.

  Moonlight and I were discussing it one afternoon on his porch. I remember the day well because it was the first time I had bought the beer. I had iced down a case of Rolling Rock in a good size cooler and hauled it onto the front porch from my car when I arrived. I told Moonlight that it was time that I bought a round, so I brought my own.

  We were both on our
fourth or fifth bottle, and the conversation had become much easier. I remember looking directly at Moonlight and saying, “So Jones had to find another course if he wanted some privacy, huh?”

  “Lookin’ back, it was Mr. Sarazen’s 4-wood at 15 in 1935 that changed everything. When that ball rolled into the cup for a double eagle, the media fell in love with the tournament. It just took off from there.”

  I knew he was referring to the shot that earned Gene Sarazen a tie with Craig Wood in the final round of the second Masters tournament. Sarazen defeated Wood the next day in a 36-hole play-off. There is perhaps no more celebrated stroke in the history of golf than Sarazen’s double eagle.

  Moonlight took another swig of beer. “That’s ’bout it, Charley. A few of us went an’ caddied at the new place. Only the ones who could be trusted. We were all sworn to secrecy.”

  Even half-drunk, I found his story difficult to believe. “How do you keep something like that a secret?”

  “Just like ya’ keep most of the details ’bout Augusta National a secret,” he shot back.

  He had a point. Despite being the most intensely scrutinized golf club in the world, the inner workings of Augusta National have always remained largely hidden from view.

  “Okay, you’ve got to tell me. Where is this course?”

  He laughed. “Not so fast, Charley. I’ve got terms, lad.” I noticed then that, the more Moonlight drank, the more evident his accent became.

  “What terms?”

  “My terms,” he said in a suddenly fierce tone. “We gotta do this the right way… my way… or we don’t do it at all.”

  “Okay, then, what are your terms?”

  He had obviously given this some thought. Leaning forward, he said, “First, ya’ only use this information the way I let ya’. Can ya’ agree to that?”

  I could tell from the tone of his voice that his terms were not negotiable. “Agreed.”

  He continued. “Second, neither of us makes any money doin’ this.” He paused and then added by way of explanation, “Makin’ money off a’ this would desecrate Mr. Jones’s memory, an’ I won’t do that no matter how much beer ya’ bring me.”

  I nodded again. “Fair enough.” I raised my bottle as if making a toast. “We’re doing this for golf and golf history.”

  He relaxed. “Ya’ know, I saw what ya’ did for Beau Stedman. That’s kinda what I had in mind.”

  I finished off my beer and opened another. I offered one to Moonlight, but he shook me off. “You’d better be careful,” he said. “You’ve got some drivin’ to do.”

  I put the beer down.

  “Okay, now will you tell me where this new course is located?”

  “Was,” he corrected me.

  I was disappointed.

  “It’s not there anymore?” I asked the question even though I didn’t know where “there” was.

  “No, lad, that’s the sad part. It was a holy piece a’ ground. The site a’ some a’ the greatest golf ever played on the planet. But no one has struck a shot there in a long, long time.”

  “Do you think you can still find it?”

  “Oh, I can find it, that’s for sure. I could find it in my sleep. Ya’ never forget a place like that.”

  I stood up. “Take me to see it.”

  He just laughed. “It’s a long, long way from here. Don’t ya’ remember what I tol’ ya’ ’bout Horace Greeley?”

  Too much beer had made me forget that Augusta National’s secret course was supposedly somewhere out west. Of course, I wasn’t really certain that any of these wonderful stories the old man was telling me had any truth to them at all. If—and it was a big “if”—Augusta had another course, it seemed most likely to me that it would have been on the same grounds as the other course. At the time when Jones and Roberts bought the property in Augusta, it was a nursery called the Fruitlands and consisted of nearly 400 acres—plenty of room for two courses. For all I knew, Moonlight’s talk of a course somewhere else was his way of trying to throw me off the “secret” until he was sure he could trust me. In the meantime, I had no other choice but to play along.

  “If we went there, do you think we could walk the course or has some shopping center or office building been built over it?”

  He shook his head. “I dunno. It’s been years since I was there. But we do need to go. There’s things there ya’ need to see, Charley.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “The most beautiful land you’ve ever seen, for one thing. I pray to God it hasn’t been spoiled.”

  He looked off in the distance as if imagining himself back there. When he spoke again, he said, “There’s so much to tell ya’, Charley. So many wonderful things happened there. It was as if the good Lord blessed that place for golf like no other.”

  I could tell he was dead serious. So I asked him, “In what way was it blessed?”

  “The people who came there were some a’ the most fabulous characters you’d ever meet. An’ the golf—why, it was magnificent. An’ then there was the course. If ya’ think the course at the National is somethin’, ya’ should’ve seen this one.”

  A broad smile appeared across his face. He laughed. It was obvious he was remembering something very funny. “We had some great times there. There must’ve been somethin’ in the air. A stranger bunch a’ folks there never was, but I loved each one of ’em.”

  “Sounds to me like you have some stories to tell.”

  He laughed again. “Ah, yes, Charley, I do have lots a’ stories to tell ya’. ’Bout some a’ the greatest matches ever played, includin’ one that nearly changed the course a’ history.”

  I couldn’t imagine a place more exciting than the one Moonlight was describing. But it was hard for me to believe that such a place could have existed in secret. “How come no one knows about this but you?”

  “’Cause just ’bout everyone else is dead. Besides, anyone who ever went there wouldn’t’ve given up the secret if ya’ tortured him. It was that special.”

  “It sounds like a helluva story,” I told him.

  He smiled and winked at me. “It is that, Charley, as ya’ say, a helluva story. An’ it’s a story I want ya’ to tell the world before it dies with me.”

  I realized that this would be no simple project. “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “There’s only one way,” he said evenly. “We’ve gotta go there. You’ve gotta walk the course.” He paused and then added as a smile spread across his face, “More than that, you’ve gotta play the course.”

  Another hairpin turn. “But you said that the course no longer exists. And for all you know, the land may be paved over with a highway or parking lot.”

  The little man gave me the kind of look a bishop would give an unbeliever. “We’ll find a way, lad, make no mistake ’bout it. You’re gonna play that course. I’ve gotta do a loop there one last time. It’s the only way to make ya’ see an’ feel what it was like.”

  From the way he talked, I suspected Moonlight had already booked our starting time.

  Chapter 9

  NOTHING WAS EASY with Moonlight. Even planning to travel together required negotiation.

  In the first place, he wanted to keep the location of the course a secret until we got there. His idea was that we would drive across country by car. Still playing along with the notion that Moonlight’s secret course was somewhere out west, I had to tell him that there was no way I could spend that much time away from work. As it was, I felt uneasy taking time off so soon after starting the job. One of the things I liked best about Butler & Yates was that it didn’t pressure new associates with quotas for billable hours like some of the megafirms that had tried to recruit me out of law school. The emphasis there was on learning how to be a good lawyer, not on churning files.

  Still, I knew that taking a vacation in my first few months on the job wasn’t the best way to impress the partners at the firm. So I told Moonlight that we would have to fly to wherever his secre
t course happened to be and that, in order to purchase tickets at a fare that I could afford, I had to know in advance where we were going. Besides being the truth, it was a good way to call his bluff.

  He wanted to argue about it. “I tol’ ya’ we were goin’ to do this my way. We’ll drive there, an’ you’ll know where the course is when we arrive.”

  “Moonlight, I just don’t have the time. By all rights, I shouldn’t have any vacation time coming yet. I just can’t be gone that long.”

  He grunted. “Ya’ can’t get a feel for the country when ya’ climb into one a’ those steel birds an’ get whooshed away.”

  I was getting a little outdone by all this when it dawned on me. I looked at him and asked, “Moonlight, are you afraid of flying?”

  “You’re damned right I am.”

  I laughed.

  “It ain’t funny,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. But that’s the first thing I’ve seen you afraid of.” I tried to reassure him. “Look, your chances of dying in an airplane are less than in a car. The statistics have shown that year after year. Flying is easy. We’ll get you something to calm your nerves.”

  “I dunno,” he said uneasily.

  I half-plead with him and half-scolded him. “Look, we don’t have any choice. It would take us three or four days each way to drive out west. That would leave us no time at all to look the place over.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Are ya’ sure ya’ can gimme somethin’?”

  “I promise. The flight will be the easiest part of the entire trip. Just tell me, where do we fly to?”

  He still didn’t want to tell me exactly where the course was located. “If ya’ get me to San Francisco, I can find it from there.”

  After scouring the Internet, I was able to locate two cheap fares for a round trip flight from Atlanta to San Francisco, and I reserved a rental car for our arrival. We were set to leave in two weeks.