Men in Green by Michael Bamberger

as a playing partner and about his tee time. In Hayward’s account, Ken showed no gratitude to the club. He was dismissive of the pros and disrespectful toward Jones and Roberts. Hayward had Venturi claiming that the club would not allow Eddie Lowery anywhere near Ken during the fourth round, when Ken could have used some moral support. It was a hatchet job. They all were, but Harry Hayward’s was the worst. Ken despised the man.
    After the stories came out, Ken’s patron, Eddie Lowery, trying to make things better, made things worse by sending via telegram and over Venturi’s name an apology to Roberts and Jones for his remarks, with copies to the newspapers. Damage control. “I never saw that letter,” Venturi said.
    A letter that had Ken Venturi apologizing for comments he did not make with an apology that was not his.
    The high status he had enjoyed that Saturday night in Augusta was vanishing. His dream of living the life of the gentleman amateur, in the tradition of Bob Jones of Atlanta and Chick Evans of Chicago and Francis Ouimet of Boston (for whom Lowery caddied in the 1913 U.S. Open) died that week. Venturi turned pro before the year was out.
    Ken finished tenth on the 1957 money list as a rookie. He won five times on tour before the ’58 Masters. But Ken was far more focused on what his life would have been had he won the ’56 Masters as an amateur—or the feelings of redemption, over Harry Hayward and various others, that he would have enjoyed had he won the ’58 Masters as a pro. Or how, had he won in ’60, he could have had the last laugh over Palmer and Cliff Roberts and various others for Palmer’s favorable ruling. But Venturi didn’t win at Augusta in April 1960. It was Palmer who did, by a shot.
    It was Palmer who appeared on the cover of Time the following month. It was Palmer who had an intimate friendship with Eisenhower through the sixties. It was Palmer who reinvented the British Open, Palmer who piloted himself around the world in his private jet, Palmer who had a line of clothes named for him, Palmer who appeared repeatedly on the Tonight Show , Palmer who was the grand marshal of the Tournament of Roses parade.
    Only Ken could really understood the scope of the wrong Palmer had committed on that twelfth hole in 1958. The public could not be bothered with it. Not in 1958, when it happened. Not in 2004, when his book came out. Not ever. Some weird rules thing from a hundred years ago—who cares?
    Ken and Arnold had arrived in Augusta for the ’58 Masters with nearly equal status. But by that Sunday night, Arnold had become golf’s leading man, while Ken had been reduced to supporting player.
    Over a half century later, as Mike and I sat in the back of Castelli’s with Ken and his wife, nothing had really changed. There was no way Ken could let go of Harry Hayward or Arnold or that favorable ruling. Ken once told me, “Harry Hayward’s long dead, but I still don’t forgive him.” Forgive and forget was not in Ken’s DNA.
    The check came, and there was no fight over it. It had been a working dinner, at my behest. But it didn’t feel like work. It felt like a journey into a man’s head. The dinner group congratulated itself for going four hours without looking at a cell phone. Well, not Ken—that was not even an issue for him—but the rest of us. Ken buttoned his blazer and headed out to the valet.

Arnold and Ken on the twelfth green of the Sunday round of the ’58 Masters: What staying power that whole thing had. At least it did for Ken. Leaving the restaurant, I didn’t know if the ancient dispute said more about Venturi or about Palmer. No matter: It was serious.
    All these rules disputes are. Reputations are on the line, on both sides of the accusation. Consider the case of Mark McCumber. At the 1978 Milwaukee Open, playing the second PGA Tour event of his career, McCumber whiffed in the