The rare longevity of the old ‘Mule’

Frank Mulherin Jr. (white shirt) and his brother Dick (front center) played on the Academy of Richmond County and the Junior College of Augusta's combined inaugural team. Courtesy Augusta Library Reese Library Special Collections

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was starting his second term as president of the United States in 1937; Byron Nelson won his first Masters; the Hindenburg burst into flames in New Jersey; Amelia Earhart and her airplane disappeared. That same year, 22-year-old Frank Xavier Mulherin Jr. was the new deal in Georgia golf, beating Crawford Rainwater, 3 and 2, to win his first Georgia Amateur Championship on his home course at Augusta Country Club.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in for his first full term as the elected president in 1965; Jack Nicklaus won his second green jacket; the U.S. sent its first ground combat troops to Vietnam; civil-rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, endured “Bloody Sunday” on the Edmund Pettus B...