"I never had any problems with him because every time I came through the gate, I was in one of the member’s cars. But you could see that hate in his eyes."
/Golf World noted that a book by Melanie Hauser featuring Carl Jackson and Ben Crenshaw's lives intersecting at Augusta was in the works and reading Carl Jackson's surprisingly frank memories for an SI/golf.com guest piece, I can't wait to read it. Besides not believing that Big Cliff decided on his own to join the Big Augusta In The Sky, he shares a story about a former club security guard who sounds like a deranged, humorless Buford T. Justice. Thanks to reader Rob for the link.
There is a fence dividing Augusta National from Augusta Country Club. We would walk about a mile from our neighborhood, crawl under the fence at the 13th tee at Rae’s Creek from the 10th tee of Augusta Country Club. That day the boys had caught 30 or 40 fish and were keeping them fresh on a line, even though earlier, Rogers Bennett, Augusta National’s nurseryman, had spotted the boys -- and Bud’s .410 shotgun, which he brought along in case of snakes -- and told them to get off the course. One of the boys did leave, taking the shotgun with him.
Shortly after 3 p.m. the boys saw Charlie Young, the club’s white security guard, standing on the Nelson Bridge, near the 13th tee. Young, who had a gun shop at his house, was carrying a homemade 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun with a barrel that was less than 17 inches long. When the boys started running toward the 11th at Augusta Country Club, Young fired one shot and hit three of the five boys, including Bud, who was struck in the right knee. Young later told the club’s general manager, Philip Wahl, that his gun accidentally discharged as he was trying to load it, but he never told the boys to get off the course until after he had fired.
I wasn’t surprised that it happened. Charlie Young had a bad attitude. He thought he was John Wayne.