Masters Mood Setter: Shooie's Gulch Edition

David Owen's Making Of The Masters remains a startling look into the founding of Augusta National. Startling because, like so many of the best things in golf, the details reveal just how much happened by accident or circumstance.

In this Loop post he points out that the old gulch crossing the first fairway was filled in and paid for by a wretched golfer who couldn't clear it, member Clarence Schoo. He was sent an invoice by Chairman Clifford Roberts, who had his own motive for filling in the gulch: erecting a permanent media center.

With the current media center headed for possible relocation in a move that will mean not a thing to the millions who watch the Masters, Owen's item resonates just a bit more to the select few who call it an office for the week. As does his observation that the old photo reveals many of the writers nursing a beer as they filed. No wonder they were so good. They dressed better too.

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.