"He took it off"

In profiling Augusta National chairman Billy Payne for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Steve Hummer talks to Payne buddy A.D. Frazier.

Frazier, who is not an Augusta National member but regularly attends the tournament, witnessed his buddy inform a club member in passing how much he disliked the man's hat. It was nothing obviously tasteless — it had neither "Caterpillar" nor "U.S. Beer Drinking Team" stitched above the bill. It was just a straw hat as Frazier remembers it. But Payne thought it not quite appropriate for a green-jacketed symbol of the Augusta National ideal.

And what did this un-named member, a powerful man as befits a member of one of golf's most exclusive enclaves, do?

"He took it off," Frazier said.

Maybe Payne is more like Clifford Roberts than we think?  Meanwhile, Hummer also includes this about the chairman's job: 

"It's a tough job," said David Owen, author of "The Making of the Masters," a look at the beginnings of the club and the tournament. "No one wants to be the one [chairman] who makes a big mistake."

The good news is the classification of chairman who made several mistakes was nabbed by Hootie Johnson several years ago.