The Masters golf tournament weaves a hypnotic
spell. It is the toughest ticket in sports, with
black-market tickets selling for $10,000 and more.
Success at Augusta National breeds legends, while
failure can overshadow even the most brilliant of
careers. But as Curt Sampson, author of the bestselling
Hogan, reveals in The Masters, a cold heart beats behind
the warm antebellum façade of this famous Augusta
course. And that heart belongs to the man who killed
himself on the grounds two decades ago. Club and
tournament founder Clifford Roberts, a New York
stockbroker, still seems to run the place from his
grave. An elusive and reclusive figure, Roberts pulled
the strings that made the Masters the greatest golf
tournament in the world. His story--including his
relationship with presidents, power brokers, and every
golf champion from Bobby Jones to Arnold Palmer to Jack
Nicklaus--has never been told. Until
now. The
Masters is an amazing slice of history, taking us
inside the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Augusta's
most famous member. It is a look at how the new South
coexists with the old South: the relationships between
blacks and whites, between Southerners and Northerners,
between rich and poor--with such characters as James
Brown, the Godfather of Soul; the great boxer Beau Jack;
and Frank Stranahan, the playboy golfer and the only
white pro ever banned from the tournament. The Masters
is a spellbinding portrait of a tournament unlike any
other.
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