Golf is big business in Georgia

Golf in the state of Georgia is big business.

WalletHub, a credit rating service, put out a list of what the sport means to the Peach State, prior to the 2016 Masters.

There are 57,000 jobs in Georgia supported by golf with $5.1 billion as the economic impact of the golf industry on the state’s economy. Golf Cart production also is a part of the equation as 90 percent of all golf carts in the world are made in Georgia. Both Club Car and E-Z-Go are headquartered in Augusta.

Georgia is also the site for golf’s first major, the Masters, which begins next week at Augusta National, as well as the season-ending Tour Championship, which is played annually at East Lake in Atlanta in September.

The Masters has a $115 million economic impact on the city of Augusta with some 250,000 people visiting each year for the festivities. Ticket sales annually approach the $35-million mark. The Masters purse is $10 million with the champion taking home $1.8 million and his caddy getting 10 percent.

Augusta National has a membership of 300 and includes the rich and famous. The reported initiation fee is only $25,000 with annual dues at $10,000. But you can’t just sign up to be a member. It is by invitation only.

Among the sports personalities that you will recognize as members are former college football coaches Lou Holtz and Frank Broyles. Holtz coached at numerous schools and won a national crown at Notre Dame. Broyles, a native of Decatur, was the long time coach at Arkansas.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is a member along with Southern California athletics director and former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann and Atlanta Braves CEO Terry McGuirk. Billy Payne, who headed up Atlanta’s Olympic Games in 1996, is the club’s chairman.

There are currently three female members at Augusta National, the first two coming on in 2012. They are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore, a partner in investment firm Rainwater, Inc. Ginni Rometty, the chairwoman, president and CEO of IBM, came aboard in 2014.

You may recall that feminist Marta Burk called for a boycott of the Masters in 2002 because of a lack of female members. However, it was another decade before women were finally admitted.

Dwight D. Eisenhower is the only President to ever be a member of Augusta National. He was invited to join in 1948. President Donald J. Trump and his predecessor, Barack Obama, are both very much into golf. But it is doubtful that either would be a potential invitee for membership.

Trump played the course several years ago as a guest of former chairman Hootie Johnson. Obama has never teed it up in Augusta.

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President, was playing the course in 1983 when an armed man crashed through the gates and took hostages and demanded to speak with Reagan, who was playing the 16th hole. Before the intruder was apprehended some two hours later and his five hostages released unharmed, Reagan tried unsuccessfully to speak with him by a radio phone from the course.

Augusta’s two richest members are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, with an estimated joint worth of nearly $150 billion.

Georgia has hosted the World Series, Super Bowls and NFL playoff games, Final Fours, college football bowl games and playoffs, but the state’s defining sports event has always been and will continue to be the Masters, “A tradition unlike any other.”

This story was originally published March 27, 2017 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Golf is big business in Georgia."