Welcome to Charlie’s Corner

Hi. My name is Charles Harrison. I’ve led a charmed life; and at its heart has been the game of golf.

Now, even if you follow the game closely, you’ve probably never heard of me. That’s okay. Outside of the people I’ve played against and the members of my club, relatively few people today have.

Where do I play? East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia–home course of Bobby Jones, who in 1930 became the only person to win the Grand Slam. I’ve been there since I was a kid, back in the 1940s.

Well, alright – just because I play where Bobby Jones played doesn’t make me anything special, and I’d be the first to tell you it doesn’t put me in his class as a golfer. But even at that, I did okay for myself. ‘Never turned pro (of course, neither did Bobby!), but I won some important tournaments: the Southern Amateur in 1955 and the Georgia State Amateur in 1959, to name just a couple. I also played at the Masters in 1960 and 1973, and in 1966 I was ranked the thirteenth-best amateur in America by Golf Digest.

From 1951, when I won my first of nine Atlanta City Amateur tournaments, to 1982, when I qualified for my sixteenth National Amateur, I was on the fringe of the top level of amateur golf. Over the years I’ve been inducted into the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, and the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame.

I’ve seen golf change from a time when the pros were mostly ex-caddies making a few extra bucks up to today, when Tiger Woods is one of the most famous people in the world. In between were the players who made the transition to the modern era–people like Arnold Palmer and Ben Hogan.

Speaking of them, let me tell you a story…