We drove in Wednesday on what just last year was a city street, but is now an Augusta National Golf Club access road. The public part of the road had been rerouted, a little white guard station went up on the original route and the club now controlled a valuable new swatch of land on its western flank.
We entered the media room, the cavernous workplace for those who spread the Masters myth. The one scheduled to be replaced a year from now by another on the far side of the 18-acre practice range that opened six years ago to rave reviews.
Never mind the distance from the course, club officials tell us. You’ll be able to get from your laptop to the first tee in a minute, they promise. No details yet, but given that this is Augusta National, the imagination ran riot. Human pneumatic tubes? Underground bullet train? Beam me to the clubhouse, Scotty?
We gathered in the interview room for the annual dance with the man overseeing all this, a news conference in which tradition dictates that no direct question shall ever be directly answered.
And there was 68-year-old Billy Payne proudly talking about the Masters’ ever-expanding digital platform and a bold foray into broadcasting Amen Corner in 4K High-Def.
This is the 10th Masters in the reign of Payne, and that period — which now rightfully can be called an era — has been the most eventful in the 83-year history of Augusta National.
A place that embraces the image of timelessness has undergone a transformational decade with Payne at the point. He may have brought the Olympics to Atlanta, but it is at Augusta where he has been able to truly perfect the art of benevolent dictatorship and leave a lasting imprint.
As 2011 Masters champion Charl Schwartzel described the chairman’s method: “When Billy thinks of something he’s probably already done it, that’s how it works.”
The first line in Payne’s legacy always will be the inclusion of women members — the club now has three, hardly a proportionate representation but enough to quell what had been a distracting and destructive controversy.
But more than that, there’s this: The Masters today is so big that PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem recently suggested this tournament’s brand is stronger than that of his own organization.
Heady is the position Payne occupies. Take a free-flowing supply of money — Golf Digest projected last year’s Masters revenues at $115 million, with a $30 million profit. Add an autocratic rule — there was in Sports Illustrated recently the anecdote of Payne informing 91-year-old club member Frank Broyles that he would have a proper lunch at the clubhouse rather than grab something on the go between nines.
Cruel irony alert: The man who holds such sway over America’s most famous golf course can’t play it now. Payne had surgery on his chronically troublesome back late last year, and has yet to begin serious rehab.
“I’m shooting for the middle of June (to play again). Unfortunately we’re closed then. We may, however, open it up for one day,” Payne said with a smile that suggested, you know what, that might just happen.
Players will thank Payne for all manner of blessings. The new practice facility has become a preferred hangout for them all. The champions have an expanded and more opulent upstairs clubhouse. And the course set-up for the tournament has seemed to greatly please them.
“I shot 1 over and won,” 2007 champion Zach Johnson said. “Granted it was a miserable week as far as the temperature goes. But we’re now seeing the drama on the back nine. There have been subtleties to get to that point, and I applaud (Payne) for that.”
Under Payne, Augusta National got big-time into the big-wig catering business, opening the Berkman’s Place complex off the fifth hole.
With evangelistic zeal, Payne has taken on the mission of growing golf worldwide, inventing Masters qualifying tournaments in Asia and South America and beginning a children’s drive, chip and putt competition that culminates here at the beginning of Masters week.
With almost equal energy, he has pushed outward the boundaries of Augusta National. The place is ever more an island onto itself. And there is talk of a multi-million dollar deal to purchase a bit of the neighboring Augusta Country Club to expand the par-5 13th hole and give the National even more breathing room.
Why has Payne done all this? Because he can.
And he has done all this modernizing while continuing to invoke the names of the ancients. “My goal is to serve whatever tenure that I serve and then fade into the background because as I’ve said multiple times, Augusta National has only two people who forever will be a part of their culture, and that’s Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones.”
He is the sixth Augusta National chairman, and if Payne sees it through for one more year, only the stern founding father Roberts will have had a longer reign.
How long, Payne is asked, might he occupy the throne?
“Well, that committee hasn’t met yet,” he said Wednesday. And thus the curtain closed on the annual glimpse of the chairman.
About the Author
