Long before the Masters became what it is today, Augusta National overcame serious financial woes
The fascinating history of Augusta National Golf Club is also a story of what could have been given the club’s ambitious initial plans. David Owen, a long-time New Yorker and Golf Digest writer, is the pre-eminent historian on the club and author of The Making of the Masters. In a Q&A with Golf Digest, Owen explained how the club’s co-founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones created one of golf’s greatest institutions despite tremendous adversity.
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Roberts and Jones had extensive plans for their new club, many of which never panned out. Why?
They started in 1931, which was the worst possible time to start anything, certainly to build a destination golf course. The original idea was they would have 1,800 members. Dues would be $60 a year and would go down eventually when they got enough members. There was going to be a men’s course and a women’s course, tennis courts, riding trails – all the features that Marion Hollins had built into Pasatiempo.
In three years of trying, they sent out thousands of postcards. All you had to do was fill out the other side. The initiation fee was $350 plus tax. Send it in, and you’re a member.
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Who received these invitations?
Pretty much anybody. One of the interesting things that I found in the file cabinets were these huge folders bulging with letters from people saying, “No, thank you, I would not like to be a member of your golf club.” They hired salesmen to travel the country. They bought membership lists from country clubs. In three years, just 76 people joined.
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The original plans included a much larger clubhouse, correct?
Yes, one of their big plans initially was to tear down the house that was on-property, what’s now the famous clubhouse. The only reason it exists today is that the founders didn’t have enough money to tear it down. The plan was to tear it down and build a big southern mansion with big columns in front. There was going to be a vast men’s locker room on one side and a women’s locker room on the other.
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In 1934, the club held the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, now known as the Masters. Did the tournament lift the club out of the precarious financial situation?
Yes, it did. They got a dozen members signed up, which gave them some money. Roberts immediately put all this money back into the club and tournament, which they saw as a lifeline for the club. But it was not an overnight success. They started in 1934, and the field shrank through the 1930s. It was hard to persuade people to come and play in it. It was only in 1939 when it started to really take on a life of its own, and then the world went to war, and they had to shut down.
Stuart Franklin/getty images
