AUGUSTA, Ga. — Fuzzy Zoeller stood underneath the big old oak tree that stands between the Augusta National clubhouse and the first tee. He was wearing a big grin on his face and holding an empty Masters cup with a green swizzle stick in it Tuesday afternoon.
“I was just standing here with a drink in my hand and Arnold threw some [stuff] down at me from up in the tree,’’ the colorful Zoeller said in reference to Arnold Palmer, who died last year yet whose presence is still felt here this week. “I looked up and said, ‘Arnold, is that you?’ Because I was drinking a vodka, but it wasn’t Arnold’s brand, Ketel One.’’
Zoeller, the 1979 Masters champion, was among the masses who congregate under the iconic tree, which is believed to be more than 160 years old. It serves as an unofficial monument not only to Augusta National, but to the game of golf.
Lives — including Zoeller’s — have changed under that tree.
It was under that tree Zoeller conducted that fateful TV interview during Tiger Woods’ record-setting 1997 Masters victory, when he urged Woods not to order fried chicken and collard greens for the 1998 Champions Dinner and was later excoriated for being racially insensitive.
During Masters week, everything takes place under that tree — players doing interviews with reporters, player agents striking business deals with sponsors, tournament directors wooing players to their events. And, of course, general socializing among the members clad in their green jackets, their guests, media and others lucky enough to have scored clubhouse passes.
The only thing that does not take place under that gigantic tree, whose trunk is as thick as a VW bus, is golf.
You’d have to hit a pretty errant drive off the first tee for the big oak tree to come into play.
In the club’s ongoing effort to preserve the tree, its huge overhanging branches are held in place with wire cables and cement blocks and there is a lightning rod attached to it so it cannot be struck down by the type of violent storms that rocked Augusta on Wednesday and caused for a midday evacuation of the golf course.
So, by about 2 p.m. Wednesday, there was no activity whatsoever under the tree — a true rarity during Masters week.
“When you think of landmarks around the world — the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore — this is the Mount Rushmore and Statue of Liberty of golf,’’ former player and current broadcaster Peter Jacobson said. “This tree could tell you stories all the way back to Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, and Byron Nelson. This has been the scene of unbelievable joy and incredible sadness and heartbreak, right under this tee.
“If this tree could talk … ’’
If the tree could talk, it might be able to offer some insight as to why Clifford Roberts, the Augusta National chairman from 1931-76, decided to walk down to Ike’s Pond on club property and take his life at age 83 with a gunshot in 1977.
The tree sits directly in the path between the clubhouse and the first tee and practice putting green. So it serves as a constant path for players either going to play or returning to the clubhouse after playing.
At any moment, Jack Nicklaus might amble by with his wife, Barbara. Or Phil Mickelson, Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Lopez, Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth.
At the 2005 Masters, during the height of Tiger Woods’ dominance when, minutes before his Sunday afternoon final-pairing tee time, he marched past his mother, Tida, who was standing under the tree to encourage her son before he went out to battle. Woods never broke stride and never looked at Tida, instead staring straight ahead in a trance he was so focused on the task at hand, which was winning his fourth Green Jacket.
Which he did.
Jay Danzi, Spieth’s manager, called the tree “a unique place.”
“Everybody in the golf world meets under the tree. It’s where everyone goes,” Danzi said. “It’s one of the most special places in golf. I hope it’s there forever.’’
Nathan Grube, in his 13th year as the tournament director for Travelers Championship in Hartford, Conn., makes the pilgrimage to Augusta every year for the Masters. Not to see the tournament, but to build and manage valuable relationships under the oak tree.
“An hour at the tree is worth a week at the office,’’ Grube said. “The entire ecosystem of golf is there — players, managers, PGA Tour officials, media officials. It’s a pretty special place, that tree.’’