Editor’s note: This story, which originally published on March 4, is another installment in our annual Best Of The Year series. Throughout December, we will be bringing you the top GGP+ stories of 2022.
The only rookie to win the Masters in the last 87 years, Fuzzy Zoeller, owes much of his historic performance to the man in the white overalls who steered him successfully to the green jacket in 1979. There were no yardage books or greens books, and Zoeller’s full body of experience at Augusta National went all the way to the previous Sunday when he met Jeriah “Bubba” Beard.
Beard had already caddied in four handfuls of Masters – 12 of them with Don January – when he earned Zoeller’s bag in 1979. By the end of their first nine holes together the Sunday before the Masters started, Fuzzy had already gained faith in Beard’s ability to pull his clubs and read the greens.
“He told me what to do and I did it,” was Zoeller’s recollection 40 years later in 2019.
Beard attests: “I’m not just patting myself on the back but there’s no way Fuzzy could have won without me. Because he depended on me totally. I pulled all the clubs and read every putt.”
A year later in 1980, Zoeller and Beard were in the hunt for second through three rounds behind runaway winner Seve Ballesteros. In 1982, they started off tied for second and finished T10.
Then came 1983. Just the November before, club chairman Hord Hardin sent a press release stating that Masters participants would no longer be required to use Augusta National caddies and could bring their own. One of the last vestiges of a once common tradition was dead, and Beard’s partnership with Zoeller died with it.
Despite Zoeller’s published promise that he was sticking with the man from the neighboring Sand Hills neighborhood who led him to a green jacket, when he arrived at Augusta on Masters week in 1983 he backed down from that promise and brought his regular tour caddie.
“I was very surprised because he had put in the paper and everything that he was gonna keep me as his caddie and when he got here changed his mind,” said Beard.
Zoeller never finished top-10 in any of the subsequent 27 Masters he played in. Beard never caddied in the tournament again and gave up caddying altogether when the club closed in the spring of 1983.
“I worked at night and caddied in the daytime, so when they did all of that, I stopped caddying basically so those guys could make money,” Beard said of the colleagues he grew up with. “A lot of the members were asking for me and whatnot and that was taking money out of those guys’ pockets.”
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It was a widespread practice at tour events and major championships that host golf clubs provided the caddies. That tradition started dying out in the 1970s as the PGA Tour grew and players began hiring full-time caddies to take with them everywhere they went.
The U.S. Open stopped requiring use of host club caddies in 1975. By the 1980s, only the Masters and the Western Open at Butler National still required players to use club caddies. The Western Golf Association, which still administers the Evans Scholars Foundation for caddies, was the last holdout until 1986.
What seemed like an inevitable concession to the modern tour didn’t seem that way to Augusta caddies as long as club co-founder Clifford Roberts was alive. The club famously employed only Black caddies at the time, and their jobs were secure until Roberts killed himself in 1977.
Prominent tour pros like Tom Watson – who won two green jackets with aptly named local caddie Leon McCladdie – were clamoring to bring their regular tour caddies with them to work the Masters. With Roberts no longer around to protect his caddies, the pros seized upon an opportunity to get their way in 1982.
Late afternoon rain washed out a sizable portion of the first round in 1982, and it led to some confusion about the restart Friday morning. When players had to be back in place at 7:30 a.m., a number of caddies hadn’t gotten the word and didn’t show up on time.
“Everybody’s shouting at the caddies and guys showing up and looking for caddies and had spectators carry the bag and stuff like that. I think a lot of the players just had enough. … The next year it was all over with.” – Tommy “Burnt Biscuits” Bennett
Tommy “Burnt Biscuits” Bennett – who caddied for amateur Tiger Woods in his first Masters in 1995 – calls it “that awful Friday.”
“Friday morning it was just terrible,” Bennett said. “Everybody’s shouting at the caddies and guys showing up and looking for caddies and had spectators carry the bag and stuff like that. I think a lot of the players just had enough. A lot of guys should have got fired when they showed up, but they let it go. The next year it was all over with.
“That’s what changed the whole system, that awful Friday morning when guys didn’t show up. It’s 40 years now.”
Watson and his peers used the opportunity to sway Hardin, and in November came the press release that the 1983 Masters would allow outside caddies.
“I was genuinely surprised, but I knew it wasn’t gonna happen as long as Clifford Roberts was the chairman,” said Beard. “Because he told them that, ‘Hey this is an invitational tournament and you don’t have to play if you don’t want to. But as long as I’m the chairman, the caddies here will be the caddies in the tournament.’ He didn’t say Black caddies, he said the caddies here. He could have had anybody to come in, train and learn the golf course, and then they can get a bag in the Masters. That’s the way it was.”
Beard, who started caddying at neighboring Augusta Country Club when he was 15 and earned his way to the National and his first Masters with Bob Toski in 1957, recalls three out-of-town caddies in his time carrying winning bags at the Masters – George “Fireball” Franklin (Doug Ford), Frank “Marble Eye” Stokes (Bob Goalby) and Walter “Cricket” Pritchett (Charles Coody). Cricket, an Atlanta bus driver, wore a towel over his head to hide from TV cameras so his boss wouldn’t recognize him.
“Those three were from Atlanta, but what those guys would do is come from Atlanta for about three weeks up until a month and start caddying in order to get a bag for the Masters,” Beard said. “They couldn’t just walk up and get a bag. That’s how it was done.”
That all changed with the stroke of Hardin’s press release. Only 18 of the 82 Masters starters in 1983 used local club caddies, according to Ward Clayton, who wrote the book “Men On The Bag” in 2004. Defending champion Craig Stadler used Ben Bussey again. Jack Nicklaus used Willie Peterson, who he won five green jackets with, for one last round before withdrawing with a bad back. Gary Player still used Eddie “E.B.” McCoy who he’d won two of his three green jackets with. Biller Casper used Matthew “Shorty Mac” Palmer. Tom Weiskopf used LeRoy Schultz. Watson brought his man Bruce Edwards, so McCladdie picked up the sticks for amateur Robert Lewis Jr.
Since 1983, club caddies are lucky to get the bag of one of the amateurs. The lone and most famous exception is Carl Jackson, who continued carrying Ben Crenshaw’s bag in 38 Masters including their wins in 1984 and 1995. Jackson caddied in a record 54 Masters before he and Crenshaw stepped away together in 2015. Jackson still works at the Alotian Club in Arkansas.
“I got the message that Ben called and said, ‘I’ll see you in Augusta,’” Jackson said of Crenshaw’s commitment in 1983 that paid off handsomely the next year and again 11 years later. “Ben made his decision and he stood by it. He said, ‘Carl has too much experience around here. I can’t let him go.’”
The rest just faded away into the history books. As Beard said: “We just got erased, like we never existed.”
“One thing is lost economics in the Black community,” said Beard, who still lives in the adjacent Sand Hills neighborhood where he and the bulk of Augusta’s caddies were raised. Beard said his peers counted on that income from a Masters bag to get them through the offseason until the club reopened in October, and he said the pros paid well because Clifford Roberts insisted on it.
“I don’t want to call the players names but one of the times when I was a little younger caddie and my man missed the cut, he underpaid me tremendously,” Beard said. “Our pro went and told Mr. Roberts about it, and Mr. Roberts called the pro up. When he came back, he gave me some more money.”
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The caddies were such a prominent part of the Masters lore in the era before yardage books. Men like Nathaniel “Iron Man” Avery (four wins with Arnold Palmer) and Ernest “Snipes” Nipper (who steered Gary Player to his first win in 1961) were a big part of the mystique. Willie Peterson’s flamboyance was as memorable as his five wins with Nicklaus, as he’s the featured focus on the 1972 Sports Illustrated cover with his arm raised, foot kicked up behind him and a cigarette hanging from his mouth while Jack lurks in the background.
But the greatest of them all was Willie “Pappy” Stokes, who was literally born into the life at Augusta National on the grounds of the Fruitlands Nursery where his father worked. Stokes helped clear trees during construction of the course and studied the way all the water moved across the property towards Rae’s Creek to learn every little intricacy of the golf course. He started as caddie when the club opened in 1933 and was Clifford Roberts’ favorite man.
Stokes shared in five Masters titles won by four men – Henry Picard (1938), Claude Harmon (1948), Ben Hogan (1951 & ’53) and Jack Burke Jr. (1956). Beyond that, Pappy was the man who shared his knowledge with generations of club caddies because it was important for them to be good at the job in order to earn more money. He taught them what to do and how to act and how to read the greens from 100 yards away.
“Pappy Stokes was the best who ever done it,” said Beard. “Back in those days, we had no yardage book. So you had to learn your player and how far he could hit the ball and all that stuff. And you had your markers on the golf course that you used, there were no numbers on the sprinkler heads.
“I remember the first time that I went caddying with Pappy and he just took care of me. He said, ‘All right Little Bull, watch this. I’m gonna tell you what that green’s going to do. See where your man’s ball is at? That is going to move so many inches to the right or to the left or is going to be going uphill or it’s gonna be slow or it’s going downhill with the grain. He knew all of that before he got to the green.”
That local knowledge, and the skill that went into pulling clubs and reading greens, is lost on the tour caddies who show up to Augusta for the first time.
“The caddie used to get a lot of credit back then,” Beard said. “Caddies now, in my opinion, all they got to be able to do is count. That’s all they gotta do. And they did one thing that was so distasteful it was unreal, was when they had those green-reading books. That was awful, the most awful thing they’ve ever done because it took the talent away from the player and his caddie. And I’m glad they got rid of that. That was just so distasteful.
“When they have a GPS where they can look at the yardages. I don’t like that. That’s fine for an amateur player just out having fun. But in a tournament, shouldn’t have them.”
Willie “Cemetery” Perteet was given his nickname by President Eisenhower after Perteet survived a knife attack from a forlorn lover and woke up in the hospital morgue, much to the surprise of the morgue attendant.
While the modern game has given us professional caddies with nicknames like Fluff, Bones, Squeaky and Bambi, it pales to the charm of some of those old Augusta caddies like Stovepipe, Eight-ball, Marble Eye, Cricket, Cigarette, Cemetery and Burnt Biscuits.
Willie “Cemetery” Perteet was given his nickname by President Eisenhower after Perteet survived a knife attack from a forlorn lover and woke up in the hospital morgue, much to the surprise of the morgue attendant.
Tommy “Burnt Biscuits” Bennett – who Tiger’s father, Earl, sought out to work for his son in order to glean local knowledge in his first Masters experience – was just a child trying to steal a biscuit his grandma was cooking on the woodfire stove. He slipped and knocked over a boiling tea kettle, which burned him “nearly to the bone” and left scars on his legs and a permanent nickname.
Many of these men cut their major championship teeth caddying for the women across the creek in the Titleholders at Augusta Country Club before graduating to the National where the real money could be made. They were such a rich part of the Masters tapestry.
When Arnold Palmer angrily threw a club late on Sunday in 1960, Iron Man Avery famously asked “Are we chokin’ Mr. Palmer?” The question sparked a birdie-birdie finish.
Pappy Stokes had a way of twirling the club when they walked that Burke said helped soothe him during the trying final round in 1956 when many competitors shot in the 80s. When Burke finally asked for confirmation on his decisive putt on the last hole, Pappy simply said “Just go on and cruise her on in there,” and Burke did.
Like the Greatest Generation who fought in World War II, the local caddies who can recall the glory days of working the Masters are dwindling, with most of them in their 70s and 80s.
“It’s not many left I can tell you that,” said Beard, 81. “Ain’t many left at all.”
That’s why Leon Maben, who started a golf tournament six years ago to raise money for the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History in Augusta, tries every year to honor the men who carried the bag in the Masters. The next tournament is May 21 at Augusta Municipal Golf Club – a.k.a. “The Patch” where a few of the old caddies still hang out if they’re not under “the tree” in Sand Hills – will honor the 40th anniversary of the last year they owned the bags at the Masters.
“They seemed to be a forgotten part of the golf history here in Augusta,” Maben said of his mission to keep that from happening.
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Bringing in outside caddies brought new stories and different history to the tournament. The first female caddie in the Masters in 1983 was 19-year-old Stanford sophomore Elizabeth Archer, the daughter of 1969 champ George Archer. She carried him to T12, his final top-20 finish in a major. Fanny Sunesson later won twice with Nick Faldo.
Nicklaus had his oldest son, Jackie Jr., carrying his bag in his historic sixth victory in 1986. Jim “Bones” Mackay and Phil Mickelson provided memorable conversations and moments en route to three green jackets. Joe LaCava won with Fred Couples in 1992 and Tiger Woods in 2019. Michael Greller was taught some of Augusta’s secrets from Carl Jackson and has helped Jordan Spieth become a fixture every year on Augusta’s leaderboards.
And of course there’s Steve Williams, the only modern-era caddie to get close to the two Willies’ record of five caddie wins. Williams tied Avery with four wins with Tiger Woods (2001, ’02 & ’05) and Adam Scott (2013).
“Time change everything,” said Bennett, who caddied on the tour as well as at Augusta National and is pictured on a mural in the Sand Hills neighborhood where they all grew up. “Time change money. The golf game it changed with the yardage books and stuff.
“Young guys should use a few (local caddies) but they’re going with their guys and don’t want to break that tradition anymore. They won’t do it, man. It’s a done deal. It’s basically a new chapter with the young guys.”
But so often today’s players miss the value of what the local club caddie brings. That importance has been illustrated twice in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, as both winners have been guided to the finish by a club caddie. When Jennifer Kupcho won the inaugural in 2019, it was Brian McKinley who helped steer her through the middle of the final round when she was struck by migraines that made it hard for her to even see the greens for several holes.
Beard believes the young men who show up at Augusta are missing out by not utilizing the wealth of knowledge and experience that is just sitting there waiting to help out. He believed 2021 rookie runner-up Will Zalatoris could have been the next Fuzzy Zoeller if he’d made a different choice.
“I was looking at last year’s tournament and the boy in my opinion got cheated out of winning the tournament because he didn’t know the greens,” Beard said of Zalatoris, who finished one shot behind Hideki Matsuyama. “He misread so many putts it was unreal. If he had a local caddie who knew those greens, he’d have ran away with that tournament.
“I looked at it I said, ‘That is a shame.’”
It’s been a shame now for 40 years and counting.