‘The Masters is my life’: the forgotten Augusta legacy of Philip Wahl Sr | Ewan Murray


Eisenhower’s drinking partner and the man who helped make the Masters what it is today surely deserves more recognition

Tucked away in a corner of YouTube sits the kind of cheesy 1976 sales pitch Augusta National had to make to Asia decades before Hideki Matsuyama came along. Cigarettes, whisky and terrain far less manicured than is the case for Masters of this day and age feature. So, too, Philip Russell Wahl Sr.

“We have had the finest group of players, the greatest competitors, on our golf course,” says Wahl. “That’s what makes the Masters great.” And then the payoff: “The Masters is my life.”

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