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Yates steps aside Masters media chairman part of Augusta’s charm
Posted: Monday February 07, 2000 02:21 PM
At any venerable institution, the changing of the guard can be a thoughtful, reflective time. At an institution like Augusta National Golf Club, where ghosts reside, change takes on a completely different aura. Charlie Yates, who has been great friends with some of those ghosts and surely is destined to become one, is stepping down as media chairman for the Masters after nearly 30 years. Billy Payne, the president and CEO of the Atlanta Olympic Games, takes the 87-year old Yates' place. Though they speak with much the same deep Georgia twang, the 35 years that separate the two of them may bring a definite modernization to the enormous media center that week in April every year. At least Payne, with all of his worldly contacts, should know how to pronounce the defending champion's name. Jose Maria Olazabal was not one of Charlie's finer moments, either last year or the first time the Spainard won the Masters in 1994. "Y'all wanna come on down to the interview room?" came Charlie's warble over the loud-speaker system. "We got us Josey Marie Ola...Olath...we got him down here now." And because it was Charlie Yates at work, we simply filed it away amongst the glorious stock of Yatesisms over the years. Had that been heard at, say, the U.S. Open or any other event, there would have been embarrassed and horrified demands for some sign of intelligence. But because it was Charlie, and because it was Augusta, it was met with warm and understanding smiles. The only man on earth, perhaps, who could call Tiger Woods "boy" and get away with it, for he called everyone "boy". Media chairman at the Masters is not brain surgery. While Glenn Greenspan, the director of communications, does the grunt work, the chairman gets to pick up the leaders each day and drive them, by cart, to the press center. In the later years, as Charlie Yates' health deteriorated, he simply came along for the ride. It never was the safest of journeys when he did the driving, to be honest, for Charlie simply floored it and let those in the way fend for themselves. "Wow," was all Greg Norman could mutter one year after a particularly harrowing ride. Because of his love of fast cars and airplanes, we took that for affection. Other mutterings, however, could never be mistaken for such. Charlie Yates, who was a boyhood friend of the great Bob Jones, was a brilliant golfer in his own right, winner of the 1938 British Amateur. He became a part of the Augusta National fabric almost from the beginning, played in eleven Masters himself, and has been the club's secretary since 1951. I first met him in the mid-seventies. We played a friendly round, in fact. He was shooting his age in those days with regularity and I teased him about it. "Shoot," he chuckled, "I oughta bring out the old sticks. Then you'd see somethin'." "The old sticks?" "Oh, yeah, the hickory shaft jobs I won the British with." "Still got em?" "Sure. They up in my attic. I get em out ever once in awhile. Ain't made anything to match em, far as I'm concerned. People tell me I shouldn't be playin' with em nowadays. Too valuable. Shoot." No, it's the man, not his clubs, who's the valuable property and though he surely will be a part of the remarkable scene that is The Masters forever, life that one week in April will never be quite the same again.
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