By Mike Berardino
Augusta Chronicle Staff Writer

AUSTIN, Texas - There's this frame that hangs on a wall in Ben Crenshaw's home library. Inside the 10-by-20 inch frame are two black-and-white pictures, stacked vertically, of long-ago golfers putting before small galleries. On top is a picture of Gene Sarazen. Ben Hogan, natty cap and all, is below. The pictures of these two Masters Tournament champions appear to be from the late '40s, but this is not the interesting part of the story.

Scott Sayers, Crenshaw's agent, had picked up the photos at an antique store somewhere a while back. Sayers, without thinking much about it, hung the frame over the sink in the restroom of his frame office building, just around the corner from the University of Texas.

One day Crenshaw stops by to check in with his friend on business affairs. He signs a few autographs. Approves a few requests. And pops into the restroom for a second. Golf historian that he is, Crenshaw notices the stacked photographs. He identifies them as Sarazen and Hogan. But then he goes farther. He starts looking at the people in the gallery. He assesses their clothing, their expressions and tries to place the time and setting.

Just as he starts to think "Texas Open, 1940s,'' Crenshaw sees them. It's his parents, for crying out loud, watching Bantam Ben stroke one home. Charles Crenshaw IV, then just starting out as a legal counsel to former Texas Attorney General Prince Daniel, is wearing a hat. His wife, the former Pearl Johnson, is wearing a dress and crossing her legs at the ankles.

"I don't know why my mother is standing that way,'' Ben Crenshaw is telling a visitor as he conducts a tour of his library. "But isn't that something?''

Oh, it's something all right, Brent Buckman says. Something that only happens to a guy like Crenshaw.

"That's a classic Ben story - classic!'' says Buckman, Crenshaw's old roommate at the University of Texas. "He's taking a leak one day and he looks up and sees his parents. You and I would maybe look at whoever's putting, but he's looking at the crowd. Just mind-boggling. It's unbelievable that could even happen.''

Sometimes it seems Crenshaw, now 44, was put on this earth to boggle our minds. For all of his natural talent, he has been forced to endure lengthy downturns and crises of confidence. Just when you think he's on top of the world, he goes over the edge. But just when you think he's no longer a factor, he stages a triumphant return to glory.

"My whole career,'' he says, making a roller-coaster motion with his right hand, "has been like this.''

He won three consecutive NCAA championships at the University of Texas from 1971-73, then turned pro and won his first time out in the fall of '73. Seven straight one-putt greens in the final round helped him dust runner-up Orville Moody.

The late Pete Axthelm proclaimed the kid "a legend before his time'' in a 1974 Newsweek column, then Crenshaw spent much of the next decade tinkering with his textbook swing, getting about as discombobulated as a golfer can get and routinely sputtering whenever he actually got within sniffing distance of a major championship.

In April 1984, in the midst of a divorce from his first wife, the former Polly Speno, Crenshaw came to Augusta as an afterthought and stunned the golf world with his first Masters championship. Emotion coursed through the galleries that day as one of the most popular players in tournament history finally came through.

He met the former Julie Forrest that same year, and they began dating. But by the summer of 1985, Crenshaw began to wither away physically.

He lost 30 pounds off his already slight, 5-foot-9 frame. He began to fear for his life. Doctors diagnosed him with hyperthyroidism and prescribed four months' worth of radioactive iodine treatments. The condition gradually came under control, and Crenshaw began the long climb back to respectability.

Then came last April and his greatest trick yet. Seemingly past his prime and in the midst of a pronounced slump, Crenshaw came to his 23rd Masters with little hope of winning. Compounding matters, his longtime golf teacher and father figure, Harvey Penick, died on the Sunday night before the tournament began.

Crenshaw, as the whole world knows by now, flew back to Austin and served as a pallbearer for Penick's funeral. On Wednesday he returned to Augusta and four days later won his second Masters title amid a season of raging emotions.

"People in Austin shed so many tears,'' says Crenshaw's father, now 82 and semi-retired, "I think Lake Austin rose a foot.''

Memories linger

Nearly a full year has passed since Crenshaw tugged on a nation's heartstrings like a modern-day Frank Capra. The deluge of letters and autograph requests, which totaled 5,000 by the end of last fall, has dissipated. The Ryder Cup has come and gone. There has even been another victory, last November in Koloa, Hawaii, when Crenshaw slam-dunked a 50-yard eagle pitch on the final hole to beat the year's other three Grand Slam winners in a made-for-TV event.

But the mystical happenings of Masters Week 1995 remain fresh in Crenshaw's mind. He openly admits to daydreaming about his favorite moment at his favorite tournament on his favorite golf course. He knows this may not be the best way to pursue his chosen career, to chase still more dollars and victories and memories, but he simply shrugs his shoulders and gives you that crooked grin.

"There's not a day that goes by that I'm not back in that moment,'' he says. "I couldn't ever think of anything nicer. After what happened last year, it's an extension of my life - in philosophy and feeling.''

Of course, how could Crenshaw possibly escape those Masters moments when all things Augusta seem to sock him between the eyes at every turn?

Start with the exterior of his spacious 35-year-old brick home in the Tarrytown section of Austin. It's white with kelly green shutters. Inside, the white-brick walls of his library are lined with paintings and photos and trophies and crystal, many of which have Masters themes. The black-marble walls of a restroom bear framed black-and-whites of Augusta National's layout through the years, and another smallish frame sports five different logo patches used by the club.

A Houston artist, Paul Milosevic, sent the Crenshaws an oil painting that takes a wide view of the 16th hole from behind the green. Crenshaw has just sunk the 5-foot birdie putt that would give him the lead for good, while in the distance, above the trees that shadow the tee box, the smiling countenances of Bob Jones and Harvey Penick gaze down upon the scene.

Another painting has become a great icebreaker at parties. It depicts Crenshaw's already classic reaction to his winning putt at the 18th green ‹ bent over at the waist, overcome with the thought of winning.

The Crenshaws love to parade guests into the library, show them the painting and challenge them with a knowing glance to "find Harvey.'' Sure enough, a bust sketch of Penick comes leaping out of the background after awhile, his craggy skin and glasses augmented by the hint of a proud smile.

This is to say nothing of BJ the cat, the half-Persian, half-Himalayan ball of gray-and-white fur that serves as a constant foil for the postcard-cute Crenshaw girls, Katherine, 8, and Claire, 3.

BJ is short for Bob Jones, the late Masters founder and golf champion whom Crenshaw has called "a man I love but never met.''

Jones admirer

It's a shrine, really, but its caretaker prefers to term it an "alcove.''

A few feet from the big wooden desk in Crenshaw's library, where he spends much of his time away from golf courses, is a collection of Jones memorabilia set within three tall, narrow walls.

There's a marble counter at waist level. On it you'll find a replica of Calamity Jane, Jones' trusty hickory-shaft putter, as well as the first club Crenshaw ever swung. It's a splintery half-club, the same ancient "mashie'' Penick and Charles Crenshaw scrounged out of a back barrel at Austin Country Club back in 1960.

Crenshaw flips a switch and an overhead spotlight beams on, providing a closer look at the contents. There's a framed picture from 1923 of Jones and a caddy, resting on the dusty ground by a caddy pen. There's a plaque commemorating the 1991 Bob Jones Award, which Crenshaw won "in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.'' Lining both side walls are black-and-white wallet-size photos of Golden Age golfers, including many of Jones himself. The photos come in pairs and are meant to be loaded into an old-time stereoscope for three-dimensional viewing.

Crenshaw fetches a pair showing Jones at the 1929 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y. The late legend has addressed the ball with a driver. This is the same year Jones would beat Al Espinosa in an 18-hole playoff. This is Jones at his peak.

"Look how relaxed he is over that ball,'' Crenshaw says as a visitor fiddles with the wood-and-aluminum contraption, attempting to bring Jones into focus. "Not a tense muscle in his body.''

Next the tour moves to the wall behind Crenshaw's desk. The wall's shelves are crammed with the 500-plus classic golf books Crenshaw loves to collect. There's no particular order to the display. Some books sit horizontally, others vertically, but Crenshaw seems to know the location of every title. He pulls out The World of Golf by Charles Price.

"A great piece of work,'' he says of the book his father gave him at age 13, the book that opened his eyes to the storied history of the game. "I couldn't have cut my teeth on a better book. It has a little bit about everything.'' Next he pulls out several different Jones books, including 1961's Golf is My Game. For this collection, which is condensed from Jones' serial writings for the Bell Syndicate, Price painstakingly whittled several decades' worth of material down to an accepted length. Jones, Crenshaw tells you, then went through at the end and sliced the book in half again. Such humility, a visitor comments. Crenshaw smiles.

"Humility,'' he repeats in that kindly professor's tone, "but not only that. Ability.''

Continued:The next step for Ben Crenshaw...