Fifth generation of Augusta family makes first visit to Masters

Count them on one hand – five generations of one family who have attended the Masters Tournament.

On Thursday, the first member of the fifth generation carried on a legacy started by his great-great-grandfather.

Jack Rhodes, 6, attended his first Masters, adding to the countless visits the long-time Augusta family has made to the grand golf event.

The Battey family tradition at Augusta National Golf Club begins even before the tournament. In 1932, ancestor Lansing Burrows Lee played in the first foursome at Augusta National with co-founder Bobby Jones, Jones’ father and founding member Fielding Wallace.

Lee, an Augusta attorney, performed legal work to form the club, according to the family. When the tournament started in 1934, Lee purchased 16 badges. His daughter, Bertha Lee Battey Toole, attended the inaugural event with her dad when she was 9 years old.

“All she remembered was rolling down the grassy hills during the very first tournament,” said Toole’s daughter, Grace Reed.

Toole’s seven children and numerous grandchildren each have had their chance to watch the tournament evolve through the decades. Reed and her siblings remember the Masters with smaller crowds, dotted with the familiar faces of other local families. Like many other Augustans, a large, grassy hill near the 16th hole was a favorite spot to socialize with friends.

“People of course came from all over the world but everybody in Augusta that you knew had tickets. You would always go and see people that you knew there. It did have a very local flavor,” Reed said. “That’s part of what it signifies for our family too. We’ve had this long tradition in the family since my grandfather in the very, very beginning. Now, we have one generation after the next.”

Now with fewer badges in the family, the Batteys carry on new traditions. Each of Toole’s seven children share badges that they or their children can use for a half-day of the tournament. Even family members who don’t go to the tournament come to Augusta for Masters Week.

“All generations come. It’s like a big house party,” said Lee Nordmann, another of Toole’s daughters.
On Masters Sunday, family members are watching the tournament at the course rush home. The family gathers around the TV to watch the winning putt and see the Green Jacket slipped on the new winner.

The family history at Augusta National also lives on in memorabilia collected throughout the years. Reed has the badge from her first tournament in 1963 and her brother, Tom Battey, has badges from 1966 to 2008.
An extra special keepsake is a silver bowl that Jones gave to Toole and her first husband, Alfred Battey, for their wedding.

Now, it’s the newest generation’s chance to make memories.

Jack’s mother, Therese Nordmann Rhodes; grandmother, Lee Nordmann; and father, Brian Rhodes showed him the course during his first Masters experience. After stopping for a new green hat, Jack saw his second-favorite golfer, Phil Mickelson, play No. 1.

“It's a wonderful experience for him to be able to come out with his parents and grandparents,” Therese Rhodes said. “I have fond memories of coming with my own parents and grandparents and sitting in the stands at 12.”