Even if you aren’t a golfer, you might know that one of the biggest tournaments every year is called the Masters.
The tournament was first held in 1934 on a golf course that was co-designed by Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur golfer ever, and Alister MacKenzie, one of the greatest golf course architects of all time. The course, in Augusta, Georgia, was built on land that had once been a plant nursery.
Good bones, one might say, for growing grass and magnolia trees and thousands upon thousands of azaleas. In fact the 13th hole there is named “Azalea.” Every hole is named for a tree or a plant, from “Tea Olive” (#1) all the way to “Holly” (#18). But the azaleas are what those fortunate enough to attend the tournament talk about.
Ticket holders are known as “patrons.” There are rules for the patrons, and those include “no running on course property.” No cell phones or electronics, and no cameras are also part of that.
Currently it is the toughest ticket in sports. Tougher than a Superbowl or a World Series or even The Kentucky Derby. It’s almost as hard to get into as a spectator as it is to get into as a player!
Does all that make it sound like Augusta National Golf Club is just a little hoity-toity? Would you imagine that their membership, which certainly includes some very amazing people, and is available by invitation only, is just a little stuck-up?
A lot of people — even people in the world of golf — seem to have that idea. From where I sit, they’re wrong.
Along came Helene
In late September, 2024, the storm that became Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. From September 24 through September 29, it wreaked destruction and havoc from Florida through Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
The Georgia part included the city of Augusta, population just under 200,000 and home to the Masters golf tournament. Augusta National Golf Club, like everything else in the area, sustained a great deal of damage. They lost several hundred trees, had a lot of flooding, and other kinds of damage to the course. Could they be ready for a world class golf tournament by April?
That was an important question, but it was not the most important question for the chairman of the club or the other members. They were more concerned about helping the town.
Personally I had thought almost nothing about that, but then again I live in Arizona. I have friends and colleagues that were directly impacted by Helene, and my focus was on them. The Masters didn’t even enter my mind at the time.
This week — Masters week — I listened to Chairman Fred Ridley in a press conference. After his opening remarks, the first question was, “How were you able to restore this golf course to perfection after the hurricane?”
He answered factually if briefly, then said something like, “What I really want to talk about is how our staff helped others, and how proud I am of them.” He noted that many of their 250 employees themselves had damage done to their homes and their cars, but that they rallied for the town first and foremost. Now that is doing good.
A little money, a lot of help
Most of the members of Augusta National do not live in Augusta. It is the nature of a “National” golf club that a majority of the members live in locales across the nation. But the employees are almost all local all year round.
It is also well known that the Masters brings a lot of money into the town of Augusta every year. Hotels are full, restaurants are full, and a lot of shopping gets done. How many people show up for the Masters? About 200,000 and they generate $120,000,000 in revenue for the town. Every year. The town, I’m sure, counts on it. Helene threatened it all. Augusta National Golf Club would survive if a year had to be missed, but the town would feel it.
And so the club pledged $10 million to the Hurricane Helene Recovery Fund, with half of that going specifically to community relief.
In Augusta there is an organization called the HUB for Community Innovation. It was formed primarily to help residents in neighborhoods that had suffered “from decades of disinvestment” and to “provide essential resources to uplift these historic communities.”
Augusta National Golf Club is private, and by that I mean it is a private golf club but also that it is very private about its involvement in almost anything it does. I’m pretty sure they keep secrets better than most government agencies around the world.
They get involved, but they do it behind the scenes. With Hurricane Helene relief they emerged into the public eye, bringing considerable resources to bear on helping everyone they could.
And they did massive good.
What can we learn from all of that?
Many of us are fairly sure of our opinions about this, that, and the other. One popular opinion is to see a lot of wealthy people spending a lot of money to belong to a golf club they only get to use rarely, then look down on them for it. We think they are wasting their money, as if we never waste ours.
Of course most people who waste money eventually run out of the stuff, and these people haven’t. Just sayin’.
It is a reality of life that the wealthy and privileged get beat up a lot in the press. We all want (at some level) to be wealthy, but as long as we can’t we can at least poke them a little.
But here’s what I say about that particular group of wealthy people who are the members at Augusta National Golf Club: they do good.
Not only do they put on the best golf tournament in the world (in every sense of that phrase), they are great citizens of a town where they don’t even live. They might even be called “masters” of good.
Do good. It’s in you.
The Golf Club that hosts the Masters does good
Even if you aren’t a golfer, you might know that one of the biggest tournaments every year is called the Masters.
The tournament was first held in 1934 on a golf course that was co-designed by Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur golfer ever, and Alister MacKenzie, one of the greatest golf course architects of all time. The course, in Augusta, Georgia, was built on land that had once been a plant nursery.
Good bones, one might say, for growing grass and magnolia trees and thousands upon thousands of azaleas. In fact the 13th hole there is named “Azalea.” Every hole is named for a tree or a plant, from “Tea Olive” (#1) all the way to “Holly” (#18). But the azaleas are what those fortunate enough to attend the tournament talk about.
Ticket holders are known as “patrons.” There are rules for the patrons, and those include “no running on course property.” No cell phones or electronics, and no cameras are also part of that.
Currently it is the toughest ticket in sports. Tougher than a Superbowl or a World Series or even The Kentucky Derby. It’s almost as hard to get into as a spectator as it is to get into as a player!
Does all that make it sound like Augusta National Golf Club is just a little hoity-toity? Would you imagine that their membership, which certainly includes some very amazing people, and is available by invitation only, is just a little stuck-up?
A lot of people — even people in the world of golf — seem to have that idea. From where I sit, they’re wrong.
Along came Helene
In late September, 2024, the storm that became Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. From September 24 through September 29, it wreaked destruction and havoc from Florida through Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
The Georgia part included the city of Augusta, population just under 200,000 and home to the Masters golf tournament. Augusta National Golf Club, like everything else in the area, sustained a great deal of damage. They lost several hundred trees, had a lot of flooding, and other kinds of damage to the course. Could they be ready for a world class golf tournament by April?
That was an important question, but it was not the most important question for the chairman of the club or the other members. They were more concerned about helping the town.
Personally I had thought almost nothing about that, but then again I live in Arizona. I have friends and colleagues that were directly impacted by Helene, and my focus was on them. The Masters didn’t even enter my mind at the time.
This week — Masters week — I listened to Chairman Fred Ridley in a press conference. After his opening remarks, the first question was, “How were you able to restore this golf course to perfection after the hurricane?”
He answered factually if briefly, then said something like, “What I really want to talk about is how our staff helped others, and how proud I am of them.” He noted that many of their 250 employees themselves had damage done to their homes and their cars, but that they rallied for the town first and foremost. Now that is doing good.
A little money, a lot of help
Most of the members of Augusta National do not live in Augusta. It is the nature of a “National” golf club that a majority of the members live in locales across the nation. But the employees are almost all local all year round.
It is also well known that the Masters brings a lot of money into the town of Augusta every year. Hotels are full, restaurants are full, and a lot of shopping gets done. How many people show up for the Masters? About 200,000 and they generate $120,000,000 in revenue for the town. Every year. The town, I’m sure, counts on it. Helene threatened it all. Augusta National Golf Club would survive if a year had to be missed, but the town would feel it.
And so the club pledged $10 million to the Hurricane Helene Recovery Fund, with half of that going specifically to community relief.
In Augusta there is an organization called the HUB for Community Innovation. It was formed primarily to help residents in neighborhoods that had suffered “from decades of disinvestment” and to “provide essential resources to uplift these historic communities.”
Augusta National Golf Club is private, and by that I mean it is a private golf club but also that it is very private about its involvement in almost anything it does. I’m pretty sure they keep secrets better than most government agencies around the world.
They get involved, but they do it behind the scenes. With Hurricane Helene relief they emerged into the public eye, bringing considerable resources to bear on helping everyone they could.
And they did massive good.
What can we learn from all of that?
Many of us are fairly sure of our opinions about this, that, and the other. One popular opinion is to see a lot of wealthy people spending a lot of money to belong to a golf club they only get to use rarely, then look down on them for it. We think they are wasting their money, as if we never waste ours.
Of course most people who waste money eventually run out of the stuff, and these people haven’t. Just sayin’.
It is a reality of life that the wealthy and privileged get beat up a lot in the press. We all want (at some level) to be wealthy, but as long as we can’t we can at least poke them a little.
But here’s what I say about that particular group of wealthy people who are the members at Augusta National Golf Club: they do good.
Not only do they put on the best golf tournament in the world (in every sense of that phrase), they are great citizens of a town where they don’t even live. They might even be called “masters” of good.
Do good. It’s in you.
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