My Practice Round at the
1960 Masters Tournament

By Charles Harrison, as told to Blaise Ziemian

In 1959, when I was 28 years old, I beat Tommy Aaron to advance to the quarter-finals of the National Amateur Tournament to qualify for the 1960 Masters at Augusta National. The National Amateur is a story in itself, and I’ll tell you that one another time; but right now I want to talk about what happened during the lead-up to the Masters.

This was my first time at Augusta National, and I don’t mind telling you I was a little nervous. Just like today, in 1960 it was packed with tremendous players: Sam Snead, Gary Player, Ken Venturi, and Billy Casper, to name a few. And I’m just giving you some of the names that are still well known today. There were dozens of other guys who were top dogs going back to the days when Bobby Jones was winding up his career. Even Horton Smith, the winner of the first Masters in 1934, and Gene Sarazen, who won 39 PGA tournaments (including the second Masters in 1935) and invented the sand wedge, were in the field.

I thought maybe the best thing I could do to get used to playing with guys like that would be a warm-up tournament. So I asked Harold Sargent, the pro at my home course, to set me up to play in the Buick Open in Sarasota, Florida, two weeks before the Masters.

I also asked Harold to do me another favor. Ben Hogan was my golf hero, and I’d always wanted to meet him. At the time, Hogan had just started his own line of clubs, and I was playing his irons. I asked Harold if he’d try to get me an introduction to Hogan at the Masters and maybe set up a practice round with him. Remember, Hogan’s line was just getting off the ground, and not a whole lot of quality players were using his equipment. I thought my doing so might be just enough to get me into a practice round with my idol.

Well, Harold tried, but he never heard back from Hogan. I went to Sarasota for the Buick Open; I didn’t do very well, but at least I got some of the butterflies out of my system.

Finally, I headed the 500 miles up to Augusta, Georgia for the Masters. Now it’s Wednesday, eight days before the tournament starts, and the course is rained out. I went to the practice range to hit some balls, picked a slot, and was about to go to work when I realized the guy hitting in front of me was Byron Nelson, and the one behind me was Ben Hogan!

I got so nervous I couldn’t hit my eight iron straight. In those days you brought your own practice balls and had a caddy shag them. My shots were slicing, hooking, and going everywhere except down the middle. I was so bad that Nelson’s and Hogan’s caddies were shagging my balls and throwing them to my guy.

I calmed down after a while and was into my practicing when Horton Smith came by, looked in my bag, and saw the name on my clubs. He called out to Hogan, “Hey Ben! You got a guy here playing your equipment!”

Hogan had about 20 reporters around watching him hit, and he barely looked up. But I figured I had enough of an in now to introduce myself. So I waited until the crowd had moved on; there was just one little guy standing with him while he was hitting pitch shots. I walked over and said, “Mr. Hogan, I’m Charles Harrison from Atlanta. My golf pro, Harold Sargent, was going to try to arrange a practice game for us. I was hoping I could maybe play at least nine holes with you before the tournament starts.”

Well, Hogan was still hitting balls, and he never even looked up. In fact, he never even acknowledged I was there! All I saw was the tip of his nose as he kept hitting chip shots. Finally, the little guy standing behind him says, “Sure, you can play golf with Mr. Hogan. If you play him $50 Nassau.” At that I just gave up and walked away.

Now, I should take a minute here to mention something. Back in 1960 I didn’t think very much of Hogan’s behavior. He was my idol, and I was just trying to introduce myself. I thought the combination of my qualifying for the Masters and using Hogan’s line of clubs would’ve at least gotten him to acknowledge that I existed. I later came to realize two things about Ben. First, he was a very private person who simply wasn’t comfortable around strangers. Second, he had tremendous powers of concentration, and was able to block out anything other than hitting a golf ball when he wanted to. Looking back, I don’t think he was trying to be rude; he was just caught up in preparing for the tournament. That’s nice now, but in 1960 all I knew was that I wasn’t playing a practice round with Ben Hogan.

The practice round with Hogan had fallen through, but I still had work to do – after all, I was there to play in the Masters! So the next morning I lined up a round with Bob Rosburg, the PGA Champion at the time. We played the back nine first, and as we were heading off the eighteenth green, Arnold Palmer, Byron Nelson, and amateur Dudley Wysong were teeing off on the first hole. Palmer yelled over, “Hey Rossi! Why don’t you join us, and we’ll play five!” Rosburg asked me, “Do you want to join them?”

“Sure!” I said. “Are you kidding me? I get to play with Arnold Palmer and Byron Nelson? Yeah, I’d love to join them!”

I knew Palmer a little bit. He’d been at Wake Forest about the time I was at Georgia Tech, and we’d played in the Southern Conference Tournament in Athens at the same time (although not against each other). He was great to play with–he didn’t act like a big star; with us he was just one of the guys. He loved to make little side bets; nothing big, just enough to get everybody involved and to make it interesting.

Sure enough, Arnold started in right away setting up bets. “Alright, Rossi,” he said. “Dudley and I will play you and your amateur (meaning me). Two-dollar Nassau.”

I turned to Palmer and said, “Well, Arnold, I’ll play you for another two dollars. Give me a shot a side.”

“Okay,” he said, “Why don’t Rosburg and I play Harrison, Wysong, and Nelson?”

Now, Nelson didn’t think too much of that at first, playing with two amateurs against Arnold Palmer and Bob Rosburg. But he said, “Well Charlie can’t be too bad if he’s willing to make a bet against Palmer and only take one shot a side.”

The fact is, it would’ve normally taken a lot more than one shot a side to even out the difference between Palmer and me, but I was too scared to ask for more. I tried to tell that to Nelson. “Don’t make the bet based on that. I just felt like I had to get something!” But it was too late. The sides and the bets were set, and the match was on.

Somebody was smiling on me that morning, though. I shot a 72. My team won, and I picked up $12 from Arnold Palmer and Bob Rosburg. Even though it was only a practice round, I was proud of myself for hanging in there with those top players, holding my own and even winning a few bucks. I was at the Masters, and I’d beaten Arnold Palmer. I felt like I was living in a dream.

Little did I know that the next day the dream would get even better.

The next morning I had a round lined up with Gene Stoudt, the head pro at Augusta National. I was heading into the clubhouse to go to the lunchroom when Arnold met me at the front door.

“Charlie,” he said. “I need a good partner today. How about playing with me?” (How about that? The King of Golf was asking me to be his partner!)

“Arnold,” I said. “I appreciate your asking me, and I wish I could play with you. But I’ve already got a game lined up with Gene.”

“Oh man!” Palmer said, “And I need a good partner!”

I told Arnold how much I appreciated his asking me and headed off to have lunch with Gene before our round. I told him what had happened.

“Well, go on and play with Arnold,” Stoudt said.

I was feeling pretty full of myself after yesterday’s win “Nah, Gene. I whipped his fanny yesterday, and I’m gonna whip your fanny today.”

Just then Palmer came over and asked, “Charlie, are you sure you can’t play with us?”

Before I could reply, Gene cut in and said, “Yeah, Charlie’ll play with y’all.”

With that, Palmer turned around and called, “All right Ben. I’ve got my partner!”

That’s right – Ben. Now I’m not just playing with Arnold Palmer, I’m playing against Ben Hogan, who had completely ignored me a couple of days earlier. And to make it even better, Hogan’s partner is the little guy who made that $50 Nassau crack.

I didn’t know him at the time, but it turned out that fellow was Norm Von Nida. He’s not as well known as Palmer and Hogan, but Norm won the Australian Open three times and finished second six other times between 1938 and 1955. And obviously, based on his comment the other day, he was familiar with gambling on the course.

And now I’m petrified that we’re gonna be playing this thing for a lot more money than I’m comfortable playing for, ‘cause I’d never played for more than two dollars in my life.