My Usual Game: David Owen
ADVENTURES IN GOLF
My Usual Game
Tag Archives: George Schultz
Halloween at Augusta National
Posted on October 30, 2012 by David Owen
Former Secretary of State George Schultz explaining golf to the mayor of San Francisco in 2005. (Photo by Luke Thomas.)
Condoleezza Rice isn't the only former U.S. Secretary of State who belongs to Augusta National Golf Club: George Schultz, who ran Ronald Reagan's State Department, is a member as well. In 1983, Schultz brought his boss and Donald Regan, the White House chief of staff, to the club as guests, and in addition to playing golf they discussed the U.S. invasion of Grenada, which began three days later, on October 25.
During that visit, a forty-five-year-old Augusta resident named Charles R. Harris rammed his pickup truck through a locked gate, took hostages at gunpoint in the golf shop, and demanded an audience with Reagan, who was playing the sixteenth hole. Secret Service agents surrounded the shop, and sharpshooters set up on the putting green. (One of them told a club member that the scope on his rifle was so precise that he would be able to hit a half-dollar coin on the first green, more than four hundred and fifty yards away.)
Harris eventually released all his hostages except David Spencer, the co-professional. Harris kept a pistol to Spencer's head, and he threatened to shoot off Spencer's fingers one at a time if Reagan wasn't brought to see him. To prove that he was serious, he fired a bullet through a window in the front of the shop. (Today, a piece of the window frame with a bullet hole in it hangs on Spencer's living-room wall.) Spencer was held at gunpoint for two tense hours (not twenty-one, as some Web accounts say). He managed to escape during a moment of confusion when food was sent in for Harris.
"Dave ran out the door and saw Mr. Johnson, the club's barber, and myself standing there," Dr. Stephen W. Brown, a member, told me in 1996, "and he more or less collapsed in our arms. I took Dave up to the clubhouse and sat with him awhile, and I told him that his wife knew he was out and all right. He said he wanted to cry. I said, 'Well, go ahead. Nobody's here but the two of us.' He quickly wiped his eyes and turned to me and said, 'Dr. Brown, I was just as nervous as if I was standing over a three-foot putt and Mr. Roberts told me I had to make it." That's Clifford Roberts, of course—the club's legendary co-founder and longtime chairman.
One October evening fifteen years later—after Schultz had played a round with Nicholas Brady, who served as Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan and the first George Bush and is also a member—Schultz gave everyone in the dining room a handmade Halloween favor: a small orange-and-black gift bag containing an orange golf ball on which he had used a black marker to draw a smiling jack-o'-lantern face. I got one because I was there working on my book The Making of the Masters. (See photo below.)
Orange and black, not coincidentally, are the colors of Schultz's alma mater, Princeton University—which he also honored by having a tiger tattooed on his rear end.
Top-Flite jack-o'-lantern, hand-painted by my close personal friend George Schultz. (Collection of the author.)
Posted in Golf Courses, Masters, My Close Personal Friend, Tournaments	| Tagged Clifford Roberts, David Spencer, Donald Regan, George Schultz, Making of the Masters, Nicholas Brady, Ronald Reagan	| 3 Replies
Where I Watched Tiger's Amazing, Life-Affirming Victory at the Masters
Why Isn't the Masters a Muddy Mess After Three Inches of Rain?
Masters Countdown: A Reader's Trip Report on Monday's Practice Round
Masters Countdown: Archival Video of Augusta, Augusta National, and the Masters
Masters Countdown: Marion Hollins in Action
Masters Countdown: The Woman Who Invented Augusta National
Playing Golf at Brooks Brothers
One Situation in Which You Absolutely Must Putt With the Flagstick in the Cup
Golf's New Rules
Good Seasonal Use for Golf Pushcart
Should You Pay $20 to Watch "The Match," or Line Up to Punch a Stranger in the TV Department at Walmart?
Another Golf Dream
My Latest Golf Dream
Playing Golf on a Day When Most Golfers Think It's Too Cold to Play Golf
Here's Why Golfers Should Not Pay Attention to Weather Forecasts
Archives Select Month April 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012
Categories Select Category 18 Good Things Accessories Architects Back-Roads Scotland Beef Box British Open Bucket List Buddies Trips Caddies Enemy Club England Equipment Games Golf Courses Golf Digest Time Machine Hacker (real name) Instruction Ireland Masters Masters Countdown My Close Personal Friend PGA Championship Ryder Cup Ryder Cup Scotland Sunday Morning Group Television The Muny Life Tiger Woods Tour Players Tournaments Two-Hour Eighteen™ U. S. Open Uncategorized Weather What's In My Bag
Subscribe to My Usual Game