Golf phenom’s path to the Masters began with skipping rocks in South Georgia
As a toddler, Mason Howell learned to skip rocks across the water of Lake Blackshear near his family’s South Georgia home.
Before he turned four, he was launching stones with plastic golf clubs. Then came wiffle balls in the yard and later his first real set of irons.
Next week, Howell will tee off at the Masters Tournament at Augusta National — a month before graduating high school. The Thomasville resident and University of Georgia signee won last summer’s U.S. Amateur in San Francisco and competed at the U.S. Open in Pennsylvania as the youngest golfer in the field.
Still, when he’s near water, his mother says, Howell looks for rocks to skip.
“As a parent, you see the 18-year-old out there doing it,” Lauren Howell said, “but in your mind, it’s still that little kid, a little 3-year-old.”
In the past year, Mason traveled for tournaments in Singapore, Pebble Beach and Houston, including a PGA Tour event this past week. He chose to remain a student at Brookwood School in Thomas County rather than switch to online classes.
“I couldn’t see myself not attending and seeing my friends walking in the hallway,” Mason said in a phone interview.
Robb and Lauren Howell are familiar with the passion and discipline required for elite athletes. Their oldest, daughter Meg, was a standout swimmer with college scholarship offers who often woke up at 4 a.m. for workouts and logged thousands of yards each day before stepping away from the sport.
The Howells’ philosophy was always the same: Support, never push.
“People used to ask all the time, ‘What do y’all do to make her wake up and go train?’” Robb said. “We didn’t make her do anything. If she wanted to do that, I’d take her. But I’m not making her do it. I’d much rather sleep.”
Mason, his father says, has always been an “old soul.” He often quietly played with toys by himself, content to push trains without making much noise.
Robb figures Mason could have been an elite tennis player. He also played basketball, soccer and football, but there was something about swinging a golf club that captivated him.
Not long after learning to talk, Mason frequently asked his dad to take him to the range. Robb, who took up the sport as an adult, didn’t hate the constant requests.
“It became convenient because I would say to my wife, ‘Look, he wants to go,’” he said. “‘It’s him, not me.’”
Mason parred a hole for the first time at age 5 and started playing local tournaments a year later. By 14, he shot a course-record 59 from the men’s tees at Thomasville’s Glen Arven Country Club.
Bill Connally, the club’s director of golf, has coached Mason for years. He said range time is essential, but Howell’s development has been shaped just as much by playing — daily rounds, traveling to tournaments, seeking out the best competition.
Learning to hit from difficult spots. To stand over birdie putts with people watching. To treat those moments not as challenges, but as opportunities. Connally said that mindset separates good players from great ones.
“Like being behind a tree and seeing how creative you can get,” Mason said. “If you do pull it off, that gives you the confidence that you’ll be able to hit that shot under pressure.”
Finding balance
Howell has tried to hold on to both elite golf and a normal high school life.
He watched his classmates win a state basketball championship. He went to senior prom earlier this month and turned down a Korn Ferry Tour tournament invite so he could attend graduation in May.
“It’s a balance because you don’t want to forego an opportunity,” Lauren said. “But there’s only one high school graduation.”
Mason played Augusta National for the first time in December. He spent two days there alongside his dad and Connally, an experience he says was special because of who he was with. Mason returned earlier this year with his high school coach, Jimmy Gillam, who will caddie for him at the Masters. That trip was more business, scouting tee lines, mapping likely pin locations and taking extra shots on every hole.
“It’s definitely surreal prepping on a golf course like that,” Mason said. “I mean, the beauty of it is unmatched. As good as it looks on TV, I tell you, it looks better through your own two eyes.”
Mason is also qualified for his second U.S. Open and The Open Championship (the British Open) at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England later this year. He’ll join the UGA golf team in the fall. His sister Meg is already in Athens, a student and football nutrition intern.
To remain an amateur and play college golf, Mason can’t accept monetary prizes from professional tournaments he competes in. At UGA, though, he can earn money from NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) deals.
With her son on the verge of all this, Lauren recently sorted through pictures and videos of Mason growing up for presentations around his high school graduation.
Those memories trace where Mason’s pursuit began. Robb and Lauren each said seeing their son play at the Masters became a realistic goal a few years ago. They didn’t expect it to happen this soon, though.
“I would love to say there’s some formula,” Lauren said. “In my experience, the drive and desire that they have comes from within and from the Lord. You can’t force that.”
About the Author
Fletcher Page is Athens bureau chief covering northeast Georgia for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
