An autocrat's Augusta legacy

Martinet though he may have been, Roberts is the enduring legend behind the world's best-run golf tournament

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Much has already been written, and there is doubtless plenty more to come, about the changes made to the hallowed Augusta National course ahead of this year's US Masters, which begins on Thursday.

There is a faint tone of disappointment and disapproval, as there might be if an elegant old lady, informed that cosmetic surgery was required if she wished to carry on holding her head up in polite society, felt obliged to go under the surgeon's knife.

The surgeon in this instance is the celebrated golf course architect Tom Fazio, who on half of the 18 holes has moved tees, added trees or reshaped bunkers. And the disapproval stems from the belief that far from "Tiger-proofing" the course, as is believed to be the intention, the changes have made it easier for Tiger Woods and other big-hitters to win. For instance, the par-four 11th, the initiation into Amen Corner, now measures 490 yards rather than 455.

What most of the commentators have failed to point out, however, is that nothing is new under the fierce Georgia sun. Fazio has deepened the two fairway bunkers on the 18th, from where Sandy Lyle set up his winning birdie in 1988 by playing one of the greatest shots in Masters history (leading, you will recall, to indisputably the greatest exhibition of sweaty armpits in Masters history).

But those bunkers did not exist before 1966. They were constructed to prevent a crew-cutted tub of lard from Ohio from making a mockery of the hole. In winning the tournament in 1963 and 1965 (with a measly second place in between), Jack Nicklaus had astounded galleries by hammering his drives at the last onto the practice range to the left of the fairway, leaving himself with only a wedge to the green. So Clifford Roberts, the autocratic chairman of Augusta, ordered that two bunkers be carved into the Nicklaus landing area. The winner of the 1966, more heavily-bunkered Masters? Why, J W Nicklaus of course.

Nicklaus, sadly, has pulled out of the venerable event this year, reckoning that with various muscular ailments he would not do himself justice. But even without him, and even with the contentious nips and tucks to the course, nostalgia will swirl through the magnificent dogwoods more powerfully than ever this year, it being the centenary of the birth of Bobby Jones.

Less attention will be paid to another anniversary. It is 25 years since the death of Cliff Roberts, who co-founded the Masters with Jones in 1934.

Roberts killed himself on 29 September 1977. He was terminally ill and left his wife a note of apology attached to his doctors' hopeless prognosis.

Not everyone mourned him. Where Jones was the soul of graciousness, Roberts was dogmatic and domineering (Jones was reluctant to have the 18th fairway bunkers added, just as he had opposed naming the tournament the Masters, which he thought smacked of arrogance, but in both cases Roberts got his way).

At the Augusta National, where Roberts filled employees with the fear of God more potently than any Bible Belt preacher, stories about him still abound.

In 1948, for example, he decreed that competitors in the Masters could not use more than one ball during practice rounds. Frank Stranahan, then the world's finest amateur, who had tied for second in the 1947 Open Championship at Hoylake, assumed that the ruling did not apply to those playing alone with no partners to hold up. But the misunderstanding cut no ice with Roberts. When word reached him that Stranahan had played two balls to several greens, the world's best amateur golfer was ordered from the course, his invitation to play in the tournament withdrawn.

Roberts dealt even more harshly with Robert Townsend, chairman of the Avis car rental company. When Townsend proudly mentioned his membership of Augusta in a cover interview in Time magazine, Roberts phoned him and told him that he would accept his resignation with immediate effect. Augusta members were expected not to boast about their privilege. Still, martinet though he may have been, Roberts' enduring legacy is the best-run golf tournament in the world. The cliché of choice is that it is run like a military operation. In fact, if you think of the number of Afghan civilians killed by American missiles, it is run with rather more precision.

On which subject, when General, and later President, Eisenhower attended a club meeting after recovering from a heart attack, Roberts magnanimously said: "Mr President, we are so pleased to have you back that we will make any change to the golf course you wish, in your honour." Eisenhower's drives from the 17th tee always seemed to land behind an oak to the left of the fairway. "Cut down that tree on 17," he said. Roberts flatly refused.

It is rumoured, incidentally, that Roberts is buried somewhere on the course. I wonder whether he is spinning in indignation at Fazio's changes? My guess is that he approves.

b.viner@independent.co.uk