The Masters: The Legacy of the Black Caddies at Augusta National

Thirty years ago, this week, in Green 18 of the Augusta National Golf Club, a Caddie consoled his player Llorón, hugging him strongly and supporting him. It was his second Masters victory together, 11 years after the first. The player’s tears were of joy, but also or relief after a week where the emotion outside the course had his leg running through the tournament.

Ben Crenshaw, the 19 -time champion of the PGA Tour, and Carl Jackson, among the most famous national caddies of Augusta, were that couple. Jackson had been in the Croww Stock Exchange in The Masters since 1976, and the couple had been in dispute several times since their first victory in 1984.

But that week was different. The tournament began only a few days after the mentor and teacher of Crenshaw, Harvey Penick, would have died, adding an emotional weight to what Croww called his favorite tournament.

The image of a high black caddie that supports a folded white golfer showed more than victory and relief. He captured the link between two who had become friends.

“Ben was floated,” Jackson said in an interview last month. “I said:” It’s going well. You just won the Masters. “The tournament had a lot to make the duration of the mind, thinking about Harvey Penick.”

Croww said that the two were synchronized in the 1995 Masters.

“We have many legs in the heat, many times,” he said in an interview last month, referring to that feeling of being close to victory. “It’s a lot of fun. It is what you try. To have managed to win the masters twice, and with Carl, it is one of my warmest memories.”

At that time, they had developed confidence for more than 20 years together. It was Jackson, after all, who noticed something different about Celshaw’s swing in the range of the teachers ’95 and suggested a change.

“I knew me very well,” said Celshaw. “I knew what a feeling was like. How were my shots. I simply had a wonderful intuition. I depended a lot on him.”

His victory opened interest in Jackson’s greatest history and the totally black caddies of Augusta National. Now, three decades after the image of that victory, the role of those caddies is celebrated in Augusta, Georgia, with a sculpture in the neighborhood of Sand Hills, where Jackson grew and with a documentary based on his life, “Rise Abeve”, released at the end of last year.

Until 1982, every golfer who played at the Masters had to use a National Caddy of Augusta. Hord Hardin, the president at that time, changed the rule, and the following year, the golfers were allowed to bring their own caddie. He marked the beginning of a very different caddy corps in the club.

“What many of these caddies knew was how to read people,” said Ward Clayton, author of “The Legendary Caddies of Augusta National” (2024). “They had a heterogeneous mixture of skills. A guy could be the best ever green reader.

And many of them were known for colorful nicknames. Willie Pteet, known as Cemetery, was the caddie of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nathaniel Avery, known as Iron Man, cadded by Arnold Palmer when he won master’s degrees in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964.

In 1971, when Charlie Coody won the Masters, he had Caddy Walter Pritchett, known as Cricket, whom he had his daily work that he was in Augusta National. When Coody played in dispute on Saturday, Crick worried about television coverage.

“Crick looks at Coody and says” What time does CBS TV start today? “Clayton said.” Coody says: “Why do you need to know that?” Cricket said, “I drive a bus in Atlanta and I said that I was going to visit my sick aunt, and I knew you were going to play this well.”

Then, in the holes with television cameras, Cricket covered his face with a gorge. “Charlie Coody insists that in the final rounds, every time he looked up, he laughed when he saw the Crick with the gorge on his head,” Clayton said. “He kept him relaxed.”

Jackson, whose nickname was Skillet, is among the last surviving members of those National Black Caddies of Augusta. He said the caddies worked to memorize the course and its green; They succeeded knowing how to qualify the player who had that day.

“We had to go to Caddy just by view,” he said. “I would take a boy, I would see him hit an iron 7 that was a decent shot, and from that point in your instincts they collected how far each other club comes.”

When leaving school to support his family, Jackson began working as a caddie at 14. His first break in Augusta National was with Jackson Stephens, known as Jack, an investment banker from Little Rock, Arkansas, and the future president of Augusta.

“It was a great putter. He did as many positions around Augusta National as Ben Crenshaw,” said Jackson, who started Caddy for Stephens in 1961. I and I moved to Arkansas.

Because Augusta National is a winter club that closes in May and Ropens in autumn, the caddies would go elsewhere in the summer. Jackson worked and lived with the Stephens family, where he helped manage his properties.

In the early 1980s, Stephens took Jackson as his partner in a friendly match in Augusta National.

At that time, it was a rarity that a golfer or a black caddie played the course. In 1975, Lee Elder became the first black man to play in the Masters. (The club would not admit its first black member until 1990).

“I was surprised,” Jackson recalled. “He was the last member in the course that particular weekend. He said:” Carl, you and I are going to play golf today. “He said: ‘Go to the professional store and tell Bob Kletcke [the head pro] That we are going to interpret his partner today. “

Jackson said he was as surprising to him as any other person.

“I had to go looking for shoes and clubs and prepare myself,” he said. “When I was ready, it was for the entire golf club that was going to play the field with Jack Stephens. All the caddies were out there. All the people who worked at the Club house left.”

Jackson remembers hitting a perfect trip of the first Tee, a shot that had advised the players for decades, but he never had it himself. His lonely birdie that day arrived in Hole 15.

In general, Jackson stayed in 54 Masters tournaments, 39 of them for Croww. Other players included Gary Player and Charlie Coe.

Today, he is still consulted. He has shared his knowledge of the greens with Jordan Spieth and his Caddie Michael Greller and with Scottie Scheffler and his caddie ted Scott.

“I discovered the Greens,” Jackson said. “My book is different from Augusta’s national book. Ben knew he had discovered it.”

Only the biggest caddies understand that the final decision on a shot depends on their player. In that 72nd hole in 1995, Celshaw needed a ghost to win. The green short was lost and stirred safely according to Jackson’s advice. I had a putt for the pair.

“I told him that he would break to the left,” Jackson recalled. “He played it to break right, and broke to the left.”

The ball stopped at one foot from the hole. Croww took advantage of him for victory. “He has escaped not listening to me in that,” Jackson said, “because we won.”