The Loop

Masters Countdown: Augusta National's worst golfer ever?

March 17, 2015

Here's what Augusta National's first green looked like during the first Masters, when the hole was still the tenth. That bunker was really more of a waste area. It was later removed, and a different bunker was added closer to the green:

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During the club's early years, a small creek ran across the first fairway, at the bottom of the hill, less than a hundred yards from the tee. The carry over the ditch was so short that few players noticed, but a member named Clarence J. Schoo drove into it so often that it came to be known as Schooie's Gulch. Schoo was the founder and president of a boxboard manufacturing company in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company doesn't exist anymore, but Schoo's name is preserved in the Schoo Science Center at Springfield College, of which he and his wife were benefactors.

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At Augusta National one day, Schoo topped yet another drive into Schooie's Gulch, and told Clifford Roberts, the club's co-founder and chairman, "I wish you'd fill in that damn ditch." Roberts did, during the summer of 1951 -- and sent the bill to Schoo. Or so the story goes. In truth, the ditch had always been a maintenance problem. Roberts also wanted to replace the club's old Masters press tent, which really was a tent, with a Quonset hut. The new building was going to go to the right of the first fairway, near where the big scoreboard is today, and the ditch was in the way. The photo below shows the inside of the Quonset hut in the early 1950s. The sportswriters' laptops look strange, but their beer cans and cigarettes are recognizable:

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Schoo did pay for part of the alteration, but he did so gladly, and he almost certainly wasn't surprised when he opened his bill. He and Roberts were close friends, He was also one of the most popular members, and he later served as one of the club's vice presidents. Here's a note that another popular member, former President Eisenhower, sent him after Schoo had missed Eisenhower's birthday party:

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Schoo was such a poor golfer that when he one day made a natural birdie Roberts decided that he should be paid the same cash pot that ordinarily went to a golfer who made a hole-in-one, on the theory that Schooie was never going to come closer. Another time, while Schoo was playing the seventh hole in a foursome that also included Roberts and Eisenhower,he hit a drive that traveled just a few yards, into a clump of pampas grass to the left of the tee. He said, "Well, in all the years I've been playing here, that's the first time I've done that." That summer, the grounds crew cut back the pampas grass and found many balls with his name imprinted on them. On another occasion, Schoo said with exasperation that he must be the worst golfer in the club. His caddie, who had been around long enough to hear stories but not long enough to recognize faces, said, "No, sir. The worst golfer in this club is Mr. Schoo."