From North Carolina To Augusta:
Where BBQ, Pimento Cheese Connect
By Ward Clayton
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Feb. 16, 2026)
The debut of “The Road to Augusta” podcast this week, in concert with the North Carolina Sports Network, is the perfect marriage between my background as a golfer and journalist growing up in North Carolina and my favorite golf tournament, the Masters Tournament, held the first full week of every April.
There is a long list of those with North Carolina ties who have played in the Masters since the first tournament was held in 1934. Their influence, in tandem with those who are members of Augusta National and N.C. landmarks that have golf ties, is notable.
A trip from the course where I grew up, Hillandale Golf Course in Durham, is only 4½ hours by car from the front gates of the Augusta National Golf Club. Proximity and history play a key role in all these associations.
Historic and off course:
* John Derr, who grew up in the suburban Charlotte community of Dallas, attended his first Masters in 1935 as a newspaperman and was on the original Masters television broadcast in 1956. He attended and wrote or broadcast from 69 Masters. Long-time Atlanta columnist Furman Bisher, a Denton native, was the dean of writers covering the Masters into the 2010s and covered 62 Masters. The Charlotte father-son team of Ron Green Sr. (60 Masters) and Ron Green Jr. (43 Masters) continues that trend.
* 1950s amateur sensation Billy Joe Patton of Morganton was in position to become the only amateur winner of the Masters in 1954. However, he made double bogey on No. 13 in the final round and missed out on a Sam Snead-Ben Hogan playoff by one stroke. Patton would become an Augusta National member.
* Four-time winner Arnold Palmer attended Wake Forest when it was in tiny Wake Forest, N.C. Palmer’s wins in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964 — in concert with the tournament first being televised in 1956 — brought the Masters to a new level. At his first Masters, in 1955, Palmer and wife Winnie drove to the Masters and pulled a trailer into Augusta to stay off-site for the week. Palmer’s course design work also is plentiful around the state, including the Lonnie Poole course in Raleigh, home of N.C. State’s golf team.
* Art Wall, the 1959 Masters champion, was the captain of the Duke golf team in the late 1940s. The Pennsylvanian shot a final-round 66 to win the Masters, concluding with birdies on five of the last six holes.
* Raymond Floyd grew up in Fayetteville and became famous for playing money games against Ft. Bragg soldiers as a teenager. Floyd won the 1976 Masters — 50 years ago — handily by utilizing a brand-new 5-wood to tackle the par 5s at Augusta National.
* Jack Nicklaus is from Ohio and split his time in south Florida. But Nicklaus, 86, has close ties to the Tar Heel State. Oldest son Jack Nicklaus II played golf at North Carolina and won the 1985 North and South Men’s Amateur, just 11 months before caddying for his father’s sixth green jacket win in April 1986. Jack (1959 winner) and Jackie, as he was called then, are the only father and son to win the North-South. The Nicklauses also have designed a handful of N.C. courses, including Landfall, Governors Club, Elk River and The Cliffs at Walnut Cove, which will host the Biltmore Championship Asheville this September.
* Three prominent members of Augusta National have deep N.C. ties. Jim Hyler, a successful banker and Pinehurst and Asheville resident, was impactful in bringing the U.S. Open to Pinehurst in 1999 and served as the Masters Tournament Competition and Rules Committee Chairman for eight years, through 2025. Tom Nelson is the Chairman of the Media Committee and runs National Gypsum in Charlotte. They have been seated beside Chairman Fred Ridley during his annual Wednesday press conference. Johnny Harris of Charlotte has held many positions at Augusta National and leads the effort for PGA Tour, major championship and Presidents Cup golf at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte.
* The N.C. mountains are a big part of Augusta National. Augusta National co-founder Clifford Roberts summered at Grandfather Mountain. As a result of being there, Roberts found out about Augusta’s current bright-white bunker sand, which is mined in Spruce Pine, about halfway between Asheville and Boone. Augusta National purchases the sand from there.
2026 Masters participants:
* Bryson DeChambeau won the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, edging Rory McIlroy after making a memorable up and down for par on the 72nd hole.
* Max Greyserman, a New Jersey native, played collegiate golf at Duke from 2013-17. He played his first Masters in 2025 and earned a spot this year based upon a top-50 spot in the final Official World Golf Ranking of 2025.
* Georgian Brian Harman is sponsored by Wilmington-based MegaCorp, wearing the company hat that is vastly different than most front-of-hat sponsorships. Hickory’s J.T. Poston also is sponsored by MegaCorp and is trying to rise in the Official World Golf Ranking in the last few weeks to earn an invitation. Poston needs to be in the top 50 one week before the tournament.
* Cameron Young, a native New Yorker, played golf at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. His first PGA Tour win came last July at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro.
* Ben Griffin grew up in Chapel Hill and was a star player for the Tar Heels. In 2025, he won three times on the PGA Tour, played in the Ryder Cup and became one of the world’s top golfers. He will be making his Masters debut this April.
* Akshay Bhatia grew up in Wake Forest, after his family relocated from California in 2011. Bhatia was home schooled and turned professional, at age 17, in 2019. He played in the 2014 Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals at Augusta National and since has become the first player to go from that youth initiative to playing in the Masters.
* Ryan Gerard is from Raleigh and played golf at UNC alongside Griffin. Gerard won for the first time on the PGA Tour last fall and went halfway around the world last December to secure his spot in the 2026 Masters. A runner-up finish on the DP World Tour at Mauritius, off the east coast of Africa, assured a spot in the 2025 year-end Official World Golf Ranking top 50 and his first spot in Augusta.
Also Worth Noting:
* The weekend before the Masters also has N.C. connections. The Saturday, April 4, final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, to be played at Augusta National, could include Rianne Malixi and Andie Smith (Duke); Chloe Kovelesky, Winston-Salem’s Macy Pate and commit Amelie Zalsman (Wake Forest); Marie Eline Madsen (N.C. State); Megan Streicher (UNC); Elizabeth Rudisill (from Charlotte, Vanderbilt) and Amanda Sambach (from Raleigh, Virginia). Elizabeth Guthrie of Charlotte and Gabriella Collelo of Pinehurst are in the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals, girls age 14-15 division, on Sunday, April 5.
* Michael La Sasso had qualified for the 2026 Masters by capturing the 2025 NCAA Championship medalist honors. However, the Raleigh resident and former N.C. State and Ole Miss golfer turned pro in January and joined the LIV Tour. As a result of turning pro, he forfeited his amateur spot in the Masters. Tom Scherrer, a UNC golfer, was runner-up at the 1992 U.S. Amateur to earn a spot in the 1993 Masters, but he turned pro and missed that Augusta visit. He later earned a spot in the 2001 Masters as a pro, marking his only year as a competitor in the event.
There are others, I’m sure, that will come up in conversations as we get closer to April.
For those reading or viewing and listening to “The Road to Augusta” podcast leading into the Masters, note that very few newspapers or TV stations from these markets with these players will be on hand at the Masters. John Dell from the Winston-Salem Journal is scheduled to be on-site.
Therefore, having the North Carolina Sports Network reporting fills a void for a focus on these players, a tradition long held for the Masters to have media representing participants’ hometown areas.
