The Raging Elitist

One of the very few times I ever set foot in the Lupton cabin to the left of number 10 at Augusta National, I met former USGA President Buzz Taylor. I had no idea who he was. My dad had just mixed about a gallon of gin and tonic and was standing slightly behind me when he introduced me. “John, this is Mr. Taylor,” he said.

I stuck my hand out and said, “I’m John Lupton.”

The old man standing in front of me chuckled and shook his head as he took my hand. “That’s some name you got there.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of pride right then, but mostly I was just unsure and embarrassed. I’d known this guy in Jack’s cabin would recognize my grandfather’s name, but I was 21 and trying to act like an adult. How was I supposed to introduce myself? About two minutes later, I left the cabin with my dad and never told anybody about it.

I just about never tell any Masters stories, not even when I’m making my annual rounds for Dad’s pool, collecting Masters teams from people occupying every nook and cranny of my entire life. This year when I was handing out prize money, though, I found out a dead friend won, and I realized I need to start talking before it’s too late.

His name was Dave, the guy whose team won. He was one of my dad’s friends from the local golf course at Patriot’s Point, one of the old guys who hang out on the porch after the Sunday blitz. Easy smile, a subtle rasp and depth to his voice; “Hey, John,” he’d say when I saw him, and I’d be surprised. Here was Dave, looking well, suntanned after 18 holes, drinking a beer, unworried. I found out he had colon cancer years ago, but he always seemed the same – just Dave. That’s how I like to think of him. I don’t like to think of the story Dad told me about the bone marrow transplant, the months of confinement and suffering, the withering away and finally dying; I like to think of the last time I saw him out on the porch with a drink in his hand, relaxed as ever, seemingly immortal.

It’s old guy heaven on that porch. Late afternoon sun glows off Charleston Harbor, and friends settle up bets, sit down with drinks and smokes, and talk. Some people go to church – my dad’s tribe goes to Patriot’s. Over twenty years ago when my mom left Dad, the guys at Patriot’s took him in. I’m fine being Cartter’s son to the employees in the pro shop and the old men on the porch. It’s better than being a name like I was to Mr. Taylor. I can walk into their midst and feel welcome, no need for explanations, no need to give them a story. Like they do, I willingly inhabit a realm whose air space is disproportionately ceded to the sound of my father’s voice. The rule on the porch is that when Dad asks, “Has anyone heard this one before?” all it takes is for one person not to raise their hand. Then Dad gets to keep going. In this way the old guys and I are the same: We’re all walking repositories of Cartter stories.

Lately, the old guys have started dying off. First it was Joe Ruede, the ne’er-do-well, hard-living, wise ass from Michigan who had cerebral palsy but could still kick your ass. Every step Joe took, he looked like he was going to fall over, but he’d gladly climb up and down ladders all day to make a few bucks, and he was a six handicap. Joe was the best, truly, a story unto himself. He died in his sleep a few years ago while on a golf trip with some friends. Dave died this past year. I saw each of them sporadically enough that their deaths don’t quite seem real to me. I have Ruede’s number in my phone, and part of my brain thinks that surely, I could just call him up. I haven’t corrected the impulse enough times. I haven’t had to, not like the old guys have, not like I’ll have to when Dad’s gone. Running the pool reminds me.

Walking out of the pro shop on Wednesday afternoon, I look down at the overstuffed folder in my hand – It’s full of small bills and four-man teams scrawled onto printer paper, and the front reads, “Masters 2024.” The guy behind the counter happily gave it to me. Feeling the weight of it, careful to keep it shut and not lose any of its contents as I climb into the car, I wonder, “What will happen to the pool when Dad’s gone? Will I still be picking up sheets from Patriot’s? Will I want to?”

Running the pool became my responsibility a few years ago. When I was a kid, Dunleavy’s Pub was the main hub. Bar patrons would leave their bets there, and Dad would scoop them up on his way to the tournament on Wednesday and bring them to the Carpenter’s house, the place he’s been renting every Masters week for almost 40 years. There, the Dunleavy’s teams would sit on the little ledge behind the dining room table, mixed in with teams from friends and family scattered all over the country, waiting to be sorted until after the cut on Friday. I loved sitting at the Carpenter’s dining room table on Friday nights, surrounded by Krispy Kreme and Krystal boxes, listening to Dad’s friend Jim mock people’s handwriting and shout announcements to his brother Steve and Dad, who’d be talking loudly in the step-down living room with the Braves game on TV.

Now, Patriot’s has supplanted Dunleavy’s as Dad’s main social outlet, and the scoring has gone electronic. I built a spreadsheet that pulls data from ESPN and updates live. I have to punch in everyone’s teams, so entries are still on paper, but I post the sheet to a domain I bought so that people can follow along and see how their teams are doing. Making cuts to a pile of paper at the Carpenter’s house on Friday night is not a thing anymore.

The pool is in its seventh decade, and this year was the first time it eclipsed 300 teams. The early years of my stewardship have been a success, but I can see why Dad unceremoniously dumped it into my lap: it’s a lot of legwork. Picking up from Patriot’s is the easy part. It’s also how Dad handed the pool off to me: “Pick up the sheets from Patriot’s,” he said to me over the phone on a Masters Wednesday, and that was it. Transition complete. I was in charge.

Being in charge means I’m not just getting teams from a few buddies anymore. I’m getting texts from Dad’s friends, his wife’s family, my cousins in Dallas and Chattanooga and on and on and on. And, of course, I want the pool to grow, not shrink under my watch, so I reach out to anyone I can think of who might be interested in playing. Collecting from everyone is just the beginning, though. Then, there’s data entry and website maintenance, added stressors that come with the new way of doing things. When the pool was strictly analog, all the teams went into a black box. I’m putting everything out there now. The last thing I want is for my spreadsheet to fuck up. It hasn’t happened yet, but when it does, I’m sure I’ll hear about it. People might only put in $10 or $20, but their emotional investment has more to do with the potential win, and I don’t just mean the dollar amount. It’s the winning.

You don’t just get prize money when you win Dad’s pool. It’s not a normal pool. Your office Masters pool doesn’t have 300 teams in it. It isn’t over 60 years old, and it doesn’t belong to a guy who’s been to 56 Masters. This is the pool, and watching the back nine on Sunday with a chance to win it can make people feel part of something bigger. That’s why I don’t want to fuck it up, and it’s why I’m glad that in over 30 years of playing, I’ve never won. Better for the spoils and the bragging rights to go to a friend or to one of the old guys on the porch. I’ve already had more than my share of Masters good fortune.

I first went to the tournament when I was 12. It was 1997, the year that Tiger shot 18 under and won by 12 strokes, both records, the latter still standing. He was 21. Dad tried to get his autograph for my little sister standing outside the clubhouse, and when Tiger saw him, he turned in the other direction and ran. In 2004, I saw aces on 16 in back-to-back groups. My girlfriend got sick at the seafood place that night, and Dad insisted that we all go to the bowling alley anyway. The next year, I was there when Tiger made the most famous pitch in golf history, the one that hung on the edge of the cup and showed off its Nike logo before dropping in the hole. On the way back to the Carpenter’s, Dad ended up walking behind the car down the middle of Washington Road with state troopers everywhere because his wife George wanted her cell phone out of the trunk. It all matters much more to my dad than it does to me. He’s the reason I’ve been so many times, and the years when I’m watching on TV instead of being out on the course, the part that makes me sad isn’t that I’m not there; it’s that someday Dad won’t be either.

The Monday after the 2024 Masters, a small panic shoots down my spine when I check my email and there’s an inquiry from the website. It’s Tracy, Dave’s widow, and all it says is, “I have a question.” Then, when I text her, she just makes a silly joke about my domain name. I’m relieved but bewildered, and I’m a little hesitant before contacting the winners.

I like to pay the winners off face to face if at all possible. Usually, that means a trip to Patriot’s, and this year, after the bizarre message from Tracy, that’s where I go. I faintly recognize the woman in the parking lot when I get there. I met her years ago, and I’m not exactly sure if she’s who I think she is, but she’s a woman putting on golf shoes, so I figure the odds are in my favor.

“Charlie!” I holler to her. She has her back to me, and I call to her from far away so as not to startle her. When she turns around, she doesn’t know me, and I say, “It’s John. I have a check for you.” After that, Charlie’s very happy to see me, and we start chatting. She starts telling me about how Tracy told her to go on the website, and how she thought she could enter her teams there.

“No,” I say. “I have to punch in everyone’s teams.”

I think I’m about to get a thank you for all my hard work, a declaration of Charlie’s love for the website. People usually offer some such compliment. Instead, she says, “I know. When I went on there, I could see it was just all the teams from last year, and they all said cut next to them, you know?”

Yes, I know.

“So, I went down the list, and I saw Dave’s team, and I decided I’d just throw that one in. And that’s the team that won!”

She’s beaming at me like she’s just realized what she’s saying, and my jaw hangs open while her words pause to swim in the air around us before allowing themselves to be reabsorbed. “Tracy’s on the way to meet me right now. We play golf twice a week. I figured I’ll just use the winnings to pay for our golf until they run out.”

I’ve checked Charlie’s story out since this conversation. She put in five teams. It was the fifth team that won, the team Dave entered in 2023 before he died. She had four teams ready to enter, and at the last minute, she thought, I’ll just put in this one extra in honor of Dave.

I guess the odds of Dave’s team winning were one in 321. Maybe that’s not that remarkable, but to get those odds, Charlie had to enter that team, and what were the odds of that? First, Dave had to enter that exact team last year. Then, she had to go on the website by mistake, and for her to do that, I had to build the site two years ago. One way to look at it is that the odds were one in 321. Another way to look at it is that like with most things in life, the odds were absolutely impossible.

Steering towards the exit in the parking lot, crying, I still have the same questions as I did Wednesday. “Pick up the sheets at Patriot’s,” Dad said four years ago. Like it was nothing. Now, I’ve seen one of those sheets turn into an echo of a friend’s life, a wink from beyond the grave, and I wonder if I’ll be picking up sheets at Patriot’s until I’m old and frail. One thing’s certain, and it’s that Dad won’t be around to run his mouth on the porch forever, and if I want to still be his son out at Patriot’s when he’s gone, if I want people to think of him when they see me, I’ll have to be the one telling the stories, and I’ll have to learn to use my full name like an adult without getting embarrassed.