Sneakin' on at Augusta - Taylor Smith, now a professional golfer, tells of a time some 12 years earlier when he surreptitiously entered the closely guarded Augusta National Golf Course

Golf Digest, April, 1999 by Mike Stachura

No invitation?It doesn't always stop enterprising interlopers

It can be done. And when you hear of it, at first, naturally, you are disbelieving. The hallowed, painstakingly private ground of Augusta National Golf Club. Our readers have said it is the golf course they would choose if they had only one place to play the rest of their lives. The truth is, 99.99 percent of us will never tee it up there. Ever. Unless, of course, we could somehow sneak in. But no, not at this impenetrable fortress. Surely, security must be something out of a CIA manual.

Well . . .

Well, the God's honest truth is . . .

People have snuck on AT Augusta National.

Let's be straight about this right up front. Sneaking on at Augusta National is the sort of thing that requires a lot of planning or a lot of stupidity -- or, ideally, both. Because you cannot fake your way up Magnolia Lane. The guardhouse off Washington Road at the club's main entrance gets quite a workout, even during those 51 weeks of the year that the golfing world's epicenter isn't in Georgia. Routinely, cars driven by golfing zealots will pull into the most famous drive in American golf, hoping for a look-see. They are routinely turned away, promptly but politely. (The club will allow you to stop and pose for a picture at the small, simple sign.) It's not that the club requires a retinal scan before you may enter -- not yet, anyway -- but don't think for a moment you will be able to talk your way past the guard.

Augusta National, for obvious reasons, declines any comment on matters of security at the club. Still, there are several documented cases of fans trying to sneak into the tournament, and in October 1983, a gunman in a pickup truck crashed through the front gate and held hostages while then-President Reagan was playing the course. (The gunman hung up on Reagan -- twice -- when the President tried to resolve the situation from the 16th hole. After two hours, the gunman surrendered and the hostages were released unharmed. )

But that's not what we're talking about. What we have in mind is more along the lines of jumping a fence and taking a few swings on the 12th tee or bending a drive around the corner at the 13th hole or hitting a wicked lag putt at the 16th green or even just walking around the place and staring. We know one man who's done it not once but several times and never been caught. He is Taylor Smith. His tale is as exciting and enticing as it is, in a way, cautionary.

Smith, now a touring professional, spent some of his childhood days living just across the fence from Augusta National in the Village Green apartment complex. Although Smith moved away when he was 10, he decided to attend what was then Augusta College in the mid-'80s. It was August 1985 when he returned to begin fall practice with the golf team, but before he got on campus, before he went out to the team's home course, before he met the coach, Smith made a slight detour. He turned down Washington Road past the famous entrance and then made a left on a street that frames the northern boundary of the course. About a mile down the road are the Village Green apartments. From there, it's a walk of about 150 yards to Augusta National's back gate. Even now, Smith is a little afraid of telling this story:

"I parked my car in the lot at the apartments and walked down Rae's Creek. This was during the summer, when the course was closed, and the greens were probably three inches high. There was no sand in the bunkers -- they were just totally bare, with mats in there like they put a tarp or something over them. The grass on the tee boxes was real high, too, and there was no water in the creek in front of 12; it was totally drained and full of mud. You could see balls lying in there.

"If I got caught, I really didn't care, because this was my first time up there and I was just really in love with golf. So I headed to the 12th hole and took a towel and put it on the green just above the bunker. I hit three balls from the tee and went up there, and one of the balls had stopped on top of the towel. I'm like, `I made a hole-in- one on No. 12! ' "

Though it is more than a dozen years since then, there still is excitement in Smith's voice. Longing, too.

"I'll never forget the feeling," Smith says. "That was like heaven out there. Really neat. I remember looking at the pond at 11 -- I bet there were 100 golf balls in there. I walked down and my first step almost went up to my kneecap. The first ball I grabbed had Jack Nicklaus' name on it, and I was like, `Man, this is Jack Nicklaus' ball!' So I grabbed about five balls, took them as souvenirs."

It was broad daylight. Once Smith knew it could be done, he continued to try it, but never again in daylight. On clear nights that late summer and fall, Smith says he and some buddies would sneak under the fence along Rae's Creek and play the 12th and 13th holes, and maybe 6 and 16 under the moonlight, "wherever we were daring enough."

"I always respected the place, never did anything," he says. "We were always nervous if we went there at night. Any sound you'd hear, you always thought someone was coming after you. You never knew. We had heard stories that a couple of people had gotten shot at because they were fishing or something."