After 40 years, Bennett steps down
Web posted 04/09/00
Freddie Bennett, the charismatic caddiemaster at the club for more than 40 years until becoming the club's director of outside personnel in 1996, will retire when the club's 1999-2000 season ends in late May.
``It's been a lot of fun,'' the 69-year-old Bennett said. ``It's something that's got to happen sometime. It might as well happen when you're in fairly decent shape. I'm going to miss it.''
``This place is full of history and tradition and he knows all of it,'' said Ted Kiegiel, an Augusta National assistant pro from 1985-93. ``I think inside of him, he recognizes the value of that.''
Bennett has been approached many times to write his memoirs. It won't happen, he said. Just to get him to sit down for interview Sunday took much coaxing.
It is Bennett's personality that will be missed the most. His gruff exterior is a front for a soft heart. His good friend Edward White, the man in charge the bag room and cart fleet at the Augusta National, learned that decades ago.
``Freddie's a nice guy,'' White said. ``He's got his ways. When he acts like he's mad, he's just trying to throw you off.''
When he is upset, Bennett will use his favorite phrase, `Oh, man!' in a disgusted tone of voice that has more bark to it than bite.
No matter how strong his words sounded, Bennett never carried a grudge.
``He gets steamed up every now and then,'' White said. ``But with Freddie, today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow.''
``He treats everybody fairly and that's all you can ask,'' said Joe Collins, a caddie of 29 years at the Augusta National.
Bennett, who caddied in 10 Masters starting in the mid 1940s (the first year when he was 13 years old!) started as caddiemaster in 1953. He is a walking encyclopedia of Augusta National history.
The presidents he's met roll off the tongue: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush.
He worked under the Augusta National's first chairman, Clifford Roberts, and knew Bobby Jones, the great amateur who co-founded the club with Roberts.
``Clifford Roberts was one of a kind,'' Bennett said. ``After him, there is none other. That's the truth.''
The famous people he's met from the entertainment and sports world range from Bob Hope to Michael Jordan.
``I had a book with all that stuff (names of famous people he met),'' Bennett said. ``I don't know what my wife did with it.''
``There are a lot of stories and memories he can talk about,'' said Kiegiel. ``He's spent his whole life in it. He had great relations with the members.''
``I've worked with the best of people,'' Bennett said. ``A lot of them don't know I'm going. I'm going to tell them I enjoyed working for them, I'm getting out and I won't be back.''
The first player Bennett caddied for Jackie Burke. He later caddied for Billy Burke, Frank Stranahan, Peter Thomson, Jay Hebert and Chick Evans.
In 1948, with Bennett on the bag, Stranahan, an amateur, became the only Masters invitee to get kicked out of the tournament.
It happened during a practice round. At the time, players were allowed to hit two balls. Stranahan did that, hitting no more than two balls, but he also took a bag of balls that he'd spread out on the green to putt to the four pin positions that would be used during the tournament.
Bennett said the club's general manager at the time stopped Stranahan on the second green and told him he couldn't hit more than two balls from the fairway to the green, Bennett recalled.
``He (Stranahan) said `I only hit two balls,''' Bennett said. ``There were balls all over the green, but Frank didn't explain that they were there for putting. On No. 6, he asked me if they were still following him and I told him they were. When we got to No. 8, they said `get off the golf course.'
With that, Stranahan, a co-runnerup in the 1947 Masters, was gone and so was Bennett's bag for that year.
Holding court in his office adjacent to the bag room, Bennett is famous for telling fishing stories.
``I've been a couple of times with him,'' White said. ``I just go along for the ride, to be with Freddie. I don't do any fishing. I let Freddie catch them and I eat them.''
``You can't fish every day so I'll probably find a couple of day's work somewhere,'' Bennett said of his pending retirement. ``You can't just stay in the house.''
Don't look for Bennett to be attending the 2001 Masters as a spectator.
``I won't be here,'' he said. ``I'm gone. That's it. I won't be back. I've seen enough.''
