PGA Tour Veteran Talks about Staying in the Crow's Nest during the 1967 Masters

Dover, NH (April 3, 2007) -- Lodging in Augusta, Georgia is hard to come by this week. Hotels, motels, and timeshares for miles around have been sold out for many months. However, in 1967, when a young South African golfer played in the Masters for the first time, he wasn't worried about booking accommodations. One of the many traditions associated with the prestigious tournament is that amateur participants in the Masters are offered housing in the famous clubhouse cupola, known as the Crow's Nest.

Eighteen-year-old Bobby Cole had earned the right to compete with the greatest names in golf by winning the British Amateur the previous summer in Carnoustie, Scotland. He would be paired in the first round of the 1967 Masters with past champion, Sam Snead.

Over his playing career, Bobby Cole has won more than 20 professional tournaments worldwide, including the World Cup of Golf, the Buick Open, and the Dunhill Championship. While Cole now teaches more than he plays competitively, when he last teed it up in a PGA Tour event (the 2006 US Senior Open) he was wearing the logo of sponsor, SellMyTimeshareNow.

This past week, Cole talked with SellMyTimeshareNow founder, Jason Tremblay, about the first of the six times he played in the Masters. By making the cut that year, Bobby Cole started one of golf's longest standing records. Forty years later, Cole's record stands as the youngest golfer to make the cut and play all four rounds in a Masters tournament.

"The Crow's Nest is a large room, with partitions to separate the sleeping areas. It accommodates five people, with a shared bathroom and shower. I remember having a very comfortable bed," Cole said, "and a window that looked out onto the practice range."

Still operating on South African time, Cole was awake unusually early on the first morning after his arrival. "I thought I was the only person who was up yet, but I looked out my window onto the range, and in the faint first light of day, I saw someone hitting balls. It was so dark, I wondered how he could see what he was doing."

The 'someone' was Ben Hogan and he was still hitting balls on the range that evening, when Cole and friend Tony Jacklin, called it a day. Hogan finished T10 in the tournament and shot 66 in the third round. He was 54 years old and it was his last appearance at Augusta National.

Cole told Tremblay that he isn't planning to attend the Masters this year as a spectator. He will probably be watching the tournament on television like millions of other golf fans around the world. Yet, as he looks back on playing the Masters, he says in many ways, the Crow's Nest, and all the memories it carries with it, are perhaps the best accommodations anyone can ever have in Augusta, Georgia.

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