Book Review: ‘The Caddie Who Won the Masters’

Editor’s note: Author and golf enthusiast Roland Merullo recently reviewed bestselling author John Coyne’s latest golf novel, The Caddie Won Won the Masters. To learn more about Coyne’s book, visit JohnCoyneBooks.com or Amazon.

By Roland Merullo
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

IN JOHN COYNE’S SPLENDID new golf novel, The Caddie Who Won the Masters, all of the action, from first page to last, takes place at Augusta National Golf Club, site of what is arguably the most famous golf tournament on earth. Because of this, and because of Coyne’s intricate knowledge of the golf course and Masters’ history, Augusta itself shares the spotlight as the book’s main character. For those of us lucky enough to have walked those hallowed grounds, it seems perfectly appropriate that the manicured fairways and slippery greens should leap out of the background of the story and take center stage.

The plot revolves around the other main character, Tim Alexander, an aging amateur who earns a Masters’ appearance by virtue of a victory in the United States Mid-Amateur Championship. Alexander’s relationship with the game is as complex as the undulations of Augusta’s notorious greens: a young phenom, he turned his back on golf in part because of a difficult relationship with a business-obsessed father. Instead of pursuing a golf career, he’s devoted his working life to teaching English at a Midwestern university.

For most golfers an invitation to the Masters is a great honor; for Tim, it’s a kind of torment. His wife is seriously ill, and leaving her to play in a tournament he believes he has no chance of winning only brings up and intensifies his troubled history with the game.

Coyne does a very good job of smoothly bringing together Augusta and Alexander as the main elements in a stew of golf suspense and personal turmoil. As he showed in his other books in the “Caddie” series, The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan, and The Caddie Who Played with Hickory, he demonstrates a knowledge of the game that would be the envy of most golf writers. His understanding of the intricacies of golf is top-shelf, and his command of Augusta history is particularly impressive.

He does a nice job, too, of weaving a list of golf gods into the story—from Clifford Roberts and Bob Jones, who brought the tournament to life, to Ben Hogan, Bobby Locke, Jimmy Demaret and Gene Sarazen, who were winners of the coveted green jacket. These ghosts of Augusta’s past are surreal, on the one hand, but we get enough of their personal story to make them all too human, as well, and Coyne uses them deftly to demonstrate that, behind every golf legend, there is a very human tale.

In fact, though I’m a golf fanatic, what I especially liked about The Caddie Who Won the Masters, was the way the human stories are interleaved with the shot-by-shot recounting of this imaginary tournament. One of Tim’s fellow amateurs, Charlie Smith, is particularly well drawn, and his personal predicament holds up a mirror to Alexander’s own past. I would have liked to see a bit more of Alexander’s wife, and of his children especially, but in order for the book to work as well as it does, Augusta National—with its history of heartbreak and triumph—had to occupy the spotlight.

Coyne is able to let his knowledge of the game and its history serve the story rather than overwhelm it—a trick many golf novelists struggle to accomplish. The novel moves quickly, with no wasted scenes and with just enough surprises to keep the reader pleasantly off balance. For golf aficionados and lovers of the game, it makes for a very enjoyable stroll down Magnolia Lane.

Roland Merullo has published nine novels and three books of non-fiction. He is a passionate golfer, a devoted father, and a lover of good food and wine. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Amanda, and their two daughters. Pay him a visit at RolandMerullo.com.

Book Excerpt: ‘The Caddie Who Won The Masters’

Editor’s note: Three years ago I asked author friend John Coyne if he would be interested in going to the Masters. His response was an enthusiastic yes. He flew south from New York City, I picked him up in Charlotte, and off we went to Augusta, two longtime golf fans making their first pilgrimage to America’s famed cathedral of golf. For John, it was that and something more—research for the third novel in his popular “caddie” series. Today, I’m pleased to offer an excerpt from his just-released golf tale,The Caddie Who Won The Masters.

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © 2011 John Coyne. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

A PLAYER NEVER WINS the Masters on his own, as those of us who follow golf know well enough. But in all honesty, when I look back at my week in Georgia, I don’t know which one of those golfing legends helped me the most. Of course, my caddie played a part—that young kid who showed up out of nowhere to carry my bag. And certainly Kerry had more than her share of influence on how it all turned out.

Golf writers pointed to what occurred on the third round at Amen Corner, saying that was the turning point. Yet the truth is, so much more had happened to me before that afternoon out there at the far end of Augusta National that I can’t say my eagle on 15 was the decisive moment. Even though it was there—on the back side in the third round—were my game turned around in the fading sunlight of moving day, as Saturdays on tour are called, and I came into contention.

In retrospect I know that what transpired up in the Crow’s Nest of the clubhouse before the tournament was more important than any shot I made at Augusta National.

So when I put into place the bits and pieces of my time in Georgia, as if they were some sort of mythological mystery, all I can say for certain is that my life began to subtly shift the moment I stepped off the Washington Avenue bus at the front gate of Augusta National Golf Club on the Sunday afternoon before the opening round. I realize now I wasn’t in control of my own destiny that week, but, of course, others who have played the Masters have also said as much.

I do know that on that first day I looked more like a forty-year-old caddie than a player, standing there at the bus stop with a suitcase in one hand and my clubs slung over my shoulder. I was a wrinkled, unshaven mess, wearing baggy pants, beat-up New Balances and a golf cap jerked down on my uncombed, thick, salt-and-pepper hair. Anyone who was watching—though no one was—would’ve taken me for one of those old-time loopers who travel from club to club hoping to grab a bag and earn a few bucks to buy another bottle of booze. What separated me from the caddie yard were my sticks. One glance in my bag would have told any player that even if I wasn’t first class, at least the clubs were.

I stepped across the wide street and said hello to the uniformed Securitas guards standing in front of the white-brick gatehouse. I told them my name—Timothy Jack Alexander—and that I had come to play.

Cars filled with players, officials, reporters, and members of Augusta National were slipping by me at the entrance. The cars slowed, the people inside presented credentials, then they were waved ahead. The sleek automobiles rode smoothly under the speckled sunlight filtering through the canopy of those ancient magnolia trees that stretch from the gates up the famous drive to the white-columned plantation manor house.

I showed the guard my invitation. Every year, the winner of the U.S. Mid-Amateur is offered a chance to play in the Masters, and having won the tournament, this was my year. The letter was signed by Billy Payne himself, the chairman of Augusta National.

Next the guard wanted me to prove that I was really Timothy Jack Alexander. I showed him my Southern Illinois University faculty ID, with the mug shot of me looking as if I had just played thirty-six holes on a hot August afternoon.

“Would you like a lift to the clubhouse, sir?” he offered, comprehending now that I wasn’t a crazy old guy trying to crash the gates.

I shook my head, saying I wanted to walk onto the famous Augusta golf course. It was for sentimental reasons, I explained, but still the guard frowned. Who’d ever heard of a Masters qualifier wanting to walk down Magnolia Lane?

I thanked the guard, swung my bag onto my shoulder and, on foot, followed the limousines through the iron gates of Augusta National, the citadel of golf in America. I knew it was the home of legends. What I never dreamed was what the legends would mean to me.

Bestselling author John Coyne has written more than 25 books of fiction and nonfiction. To learn more about John’s new golf novel, The Caddie Who Won the Masters, visit JohnCoyneBooks.com or Amazon.

George S. May, Hero of American Golf (Conclusion)

Between 1941 and 1958, some of the greatest golf tournaments in America were staged just west of Chicago at Tam O’Shanter Country Club in Niles, Illinois. The man behind them was the country club owner and tournament organizer, George S. May. Golf Magazine would name May one of the “100 Heroes of American Golf.” And Senior Golfer magazine said of May, he “singlehandedly lifted golf to prominence.”

Following is the conclusion of a two-part story on May. You can read Part 1 here.

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

GEORGE MAY’S GREATEST MOMENT in golf came in July 1953 when The Tam O’Shanter World Championship became the first golf tournament to be nationally televised. By now, the winner’s share of the tournament had grown to $25,000, an amount higher than the total purse of every other professional tournament.

Fledgling network ABC became interested in the event because of the large prize and offered to do a one-hour broadcast of the final round if May paid $32,000. May understood the publicity value of televising the tournament, both in terms of the people watching and the print coverage of the broadcast.

(Photo: John Coyne)

It is said that an estimated one million people watched as a single camera located above the grandstand on the 18th green followed the conclusion of the tournament. There were only ten minutes left in the broadcast when golfer Lew Worsham, trailing by one shot, made a 115-yard eagle to win the tournament and the $25,000. It was great television and immediately showed the potential for golf on the medium. Not to be upstaged, May stepped onto the green to announce that the first-place prize for the 1954 tournament would be doubled to $50,000, plus the winner would also have the opportunity to play 50 exhibitions to promote his consulting company at $1,000 each.

Following in May’s footsteps, the U.S. Open was nationally televised for the first time in 1954 and the Masters in 1956.

The end of professional golf’s association with May would come a few years later, in 1958, when he refused to meet the PGA’s demands for even more money. So furious was he at professional golfers, he put a sign outside the club’s main entrance banning any PGA pros from coming on the grounds.

May continued to operate Tam O’Shanter Country Club until his death in 1962. His widow eventually sold the property to a developer in the late 1960s. Today, a few of the old holes are still part of the public course run by the town of Niles, and George May lives on in the memory of those who were lucky enough to be around when he turned golf into a television sport.

John Coyne is the author of The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan and The Caddie Who Played with Hickory. His next book, coming this spring, is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

George S. May, Hero of American Golf

Between 1941 and 1958, some of the greatest golf tournaments in America were staged just west of Chicago at Tam O’Shanter Country Club in Niles, Illinois. The man behind them was the country club owner and tournament organizer, George S. May. Golf Magazine would name May one of the “100 Heroes of American Golf.” And Senior Golfer magazine said of May, he “singlehandedly lifted golf to prominence.”

Here, in short form, is the story of May and his tournament and what he did for American golf in the Forties and Fifties. It begins with a club house fire in April of 1936 at Tam O’Shanter.

By John Coyne
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

GEORGE MAY HAD BEEN a member of Tam O’Shanter for over a decade and, after a devastating fire, he rallied with other members and rebuilt and remodeled the club house. Then, two years later, on July 4, 1938, the waters of the north branch of the Chicago River, which wound through the course, rose to flood stage and completely inundated the grounds and the new club house. It was then that May stepped in and took over the ownership and management of the country club.

May was a management consultant who started his business in 1925, operating out of one room of his Chicago north side apartment. Within two years he owned a building on North Shore Drive. By 1940 he employed more than 400 people and had offices in fifteen cities.

(Photo: John Coyne)

Between 1938 and 1941, May invested $500,000 in Tam O’Shanter. He was determined that the place would operate the same as any other business. May set up two corporations to operate the country club. With 80 members he formed Tam O’Shanter, Inc. holding onto 84% of the stock for himself. Next he leased the property for 50 years to the Tam O’Shanter Country Club. Meanwhile, he made himself president of both the corporation and the club.

In an article written by the great golf writer, Charles Bartlett of the Chicago Tribune, published in April, 1940, May said, “There’s no reason why a golf club should not be run successfully if it is treated as a business. You have to spend money to make money, and that is going to be our plan at Tam O’Shanter.”

May did just that. The new clubhouse had five bars, a dining room for 200 guests, and 602 lockers, 346 for men, 192 for women, and another 64 in a separate section for trade and fraternal tournaments. He next built an 80’x 35’ swimming pool; a playground for children; four tennis courts; paved parking for 254 cars, and a new caddie house. Turning to the course, May built back tees on five holes, lengthening the course from 6,395 to 6,680 yards. He built seven steel and concrete bridges across the branch of the Chicago River and raised five greens, including the short third hole, about 135 yards long, making it one of the toughest tests in Chicagoland.

Hosting the Chicago Open

Once his club house and course were ready, May turned to staging tournaments. The first was in 1940, the Chicago Open. It was being held for only the third time, and the first time on a single 18 hole course. Previously, it had been hosted by Medinah and Olympia Fields, both of which have more than one course.

This three-day tournament of four rounds drew the finest players of the age, many of whom played out the Chicago area: John Revolta, Evanston; Chick Evans, Edgewater; Tommy Armour of Medinah; Harry Cooper, Northmoor; Dick Metz, Horton Smith and Lloyd Mangrum, all from Oak Park.

Also in the field, where first prize was $1,500, with total prize money of $5,000, were Ben Hogan, Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Johnny Bulla, Gene Sarazen, and Jimmy Demaret.

The Tam Chicago Open was won that year by local pro Dick Metz. Johnny Revolta of Evanston finished second. Third was Ben Hogan and amateur and golf writer, Jim Ferrier of Australia, who had a 66 in his first round. (In a personal note: deep in the pack that first round was Charles “Red” Dennison, of Midlothian Country Club who shot 75. “Red” was the pro at Midlothian when I first started to caddie at the club in the mid-forties.)

Following the Chicago Open, May would make his move to dominate tournament golf in America. He announced that Tam would hold its first annual Tam O’Shanter Open in 1941. Prize money would be $15,000, making it the largest purse in professional golf. (Three other events had prize money of $10,000: Miami, Los Angeles, and New Orleans.)

But for George May, this prize money was just a beginning. The best was yet to come.

The conclusion of this story will appear next Friday.

John Coyne is the author of The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan and The Caddie Who Played with Hickory. His next book, coming this spring, is The Caddie Who Won the Masters. Learn more at John Coyne Books.

Afternoon Tea With Gary Player

SINCE GARY PLAYER TURNED 75 on Monday, I thought I should share a story about the Hall of Famer and one of the Big Three along with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

The problem is, I don’t have a Gary Player story. I haven’t met golf’s first globetrotter. I have seen him play on a few occasions. Author friend John Coyne had a terrific Player story, though. He told it to me when we attended the 2008 Masters and watched Player walk up one of Augusta’s fairways.

It’s 1969. You’re traveling through South Africa and decide to pick up the phone book and find the listing for Gary Player. There it is. You call and the South African golf great and five-time major winner (at that time) invites you over for tea. No kidding, that’s how it happened.

Here’s the story in John’s words:

I interviewed Gary years ago at his home in South Africa when I was visiting all the countries I hadn’t seen when I was with the Peace Corps. Gary invited me to his farm for tea one Sunday afternoon.

His father was there, a retired mine worker, as well as his step-mother. Gary’s wife was playing in a golf tournament. She, too, was a fine player, a South African women’s champ.

Gary had designed his ranch home so that each room was a collection of items he had picked up from around the world. For example, he had a Western Room full of saddles, horse gear, and wild west paintings from America. There was a Spanish Room, as well as an Asia Room.

In the doorways of his kids’ rooms he had a bar installed so that his boys (Vivienne and Gary have six children) could do one or two chin-ups entering and leaving their bedrooms. It is not for nothing that Gary is nicknamed Mr. Fitness. (He is also called the Black Knight for his history of always wearing black when playing tournaments.)

Gary was a poor kid who lost his mother when he was 8 or so, and started to play golf at 14 when his father took out a loan to buy him a set of golf clubs that he could play with. His father worked in the gold mines of South Africa. Gary had a brother who is a famous environmentalist.

Gary only finished secondary school and then turned pro. His father wrote a letter to Bobby Jones more than 50 years ago asking him to invite young Gary to the Masters, saying how great his son was, and it worked!

When I visited Gary back in 1969, he kept talking about the “winds of change” coming to South Africa as he led me around the farm and introduced me to his African workers, all of whom he knew by name. I was there, of course, during the apartheid years. It took over 20 years before apartheid finally ended in South Africa.

Player later said his views about apartheid began to change as he traveled the world. Nonetheless, many assumed that he supported the system. He had said so in his book in the mid 1960s.

At the 1969 PGA Championship in Dayton, Ohio, someone threw water in Player’s face. At the 1971 U.S. Open at Merion, he received death threats. That same year, Player invited Lee Elder to play in the South African PGA Championship in Johannesburg. It was the first integrated golf tournament in South Africa’s history.

In 2004, Charlie Sifford, the first black man inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, asked Player to handle the introduction. In his speech, Sifford called Player “my man forever.” A product of a racist system, it seems to me that Player had a genuine conversion.

Gary Player was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. He has 165 professional wins, including 24 PGA Tour victories and nine majors.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Images: Keith Allison/Flickr)

The Caddie Who Writes Golf Novels

ONE OF THE JOYS of having a golf blog is the opportunity to meet (whether online or in person) people who share a love for the game. I’ve been fortunate to connect with all types of folks in the golf world, including authors such as John Coyne. Occasionally, these new acquaintances become friends. That is certainly the case with John.

John wrote me an email a few years ago about Ben Hogan, and since then we’ve corresponded, talked on the phone and met up a few times at places such as the Masters, United States Golf Association and, last night, New York City. On a weeklong business trip, I came in from New Jersey and John traveled from his home in Westchester County. We met at the clock at Grand Central Station and headed to the Algonquin Hotel for a glass of wine, then on to a nearby Indian restaurant for a leisurely dinner.

(Photo: John Coyne)

I better explain the title of this piece. John is a longtime writer and novelist who started out in the horror genre, in which he enjoyed commercial success and cranked out more books than some people read. Yet in recent years he delved into one of his first loves: golf. There are few golf novelists, but that didn’t prevent him from starting a series of caddie novels: The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan and The Caddie Who Played with Hickory. Both were published by St. Martin’s Press (Thomas Dunne Books). Another caddie novel is on the way.

As a former caddie at Midlothian Country Club in Chicago, John knows his subject well. Both of his published novels are set at Midlothian, where John worked as a caddie for many years. I learned at dinner that John became the caddie master at Midlothian when he was 15 and oversaw 400 caddies. They ranged in age from young kids to old men. Imagine that!

John’s job at Midlothian gave him an indispensable education. First, he learned a lot about golf. Second, he observed the many differences between the privileged set and working class that are detectable in country club life. (John came from a working class family.) Third, his job at Midlothian allowed him to complete college.

Another thing I realize each time I encounter John is that we both share a deep appreciation of golf history. And, as he reminded me last night, so does his brother. The name Ed Furgol came up—his brother once caddied for Furgol—and we laughed. Who but the two of us (and maybe a handful of others) would remember or know of Ed Furgol?

It’s always good to have golf friends. But a golf friend who knows of Ed Furgol is a rare friend, indeed.

−The Armchair Golfer