[G&G] For almost fifty years, they carried the bags of golf legends but also masterminded victories from the tees to the holes. Then, with one decision, their lives shifted, and the legacy of their glory days went unheralded. Finally, that’s changingIn a small cardroom at the back of a municipal golf course clubhouse in Augusta, Georgia, a handful of old men gather and reminisce.
Do you remember when...? How about that time...? What about when Willie Peterson wound up on the cover of Sports Illustrated back in seventy-two? Wasn’t that something?
All prompts, meant to bring back sweet memories. As they deal cards, the men talk about their golf games and trade good-natured jabs. They have known one another for more than sixty years, gave one another their nicknames.
Jim "Big Boy" Dent. Robert "Cigarette" Jones. Tommy "Burnt Biscuits" Bennett. Ike "Stabber" Choice.
As long as ailments don’t keep them confined to the house, they can be found here a couple of days a week, playing bid whist, ribbing one another, and recalling the days when they were part of Augusta National Golf Club’s all-Black caddie corps, which players were required to use during the annual spring Masters Tournament. From the competition’s inception in 1934, the caddies—born of Augusta and attuned to the land—could be a golfer’s secret weapon coming around Amen Corner or for surviving other notoriously tricky holes like No. 4, Flowering Crab Apple, or No. 10, Camellia.