Clifford Roberts was not a golfer who could compete at the highest levels of the game.

Clifford Roberts (center, in cap) sits between Byron Nelson (left) and Bobby Jones during a clinic at Augusta National before the 1949 Masters. Roberts, who had been a Wall Street stockbroker, wanted to make the tournament "more enjoyable than any other" and one that would survive after Jones was no longer involved. (Associated Press)

Nor had he ever run a championship-caliber tournament.

He was a perfectionist, though, and his attention to detail made Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament what they are today. Augusta National is considered to be one of the best private golf clubs in the world, and the Masters is considered the standard by which all other tournaments are judged.

Roberts met Bobby Jones in the mid-1920s at Knollwood Country Club in New York. They had a mutual friend, Walton H. Marshall, who ran the Bon Air Vanderbilt Hotel in Augusta. Rob-erts was an admirer of Jones, and they soon became friends.

When Jones announced his retirement from competitive golf in 1930, he and Roberts devised a plan to buy property in Augusta so Jones could build his dream course. This is how Roberts described it in his book, The Story of the Augusta National Golf Club :

"The decision was made as a result of a ten-minute conversation between Bob and myself. I was one of a few who knew of Bob's idea about a new type of golf course. ... I suggested to Bob that Augusta was the logical place. His immediate reaction was to embrace the proposal enthusiastically, but with a stipulation that I agree to look after the financing. This I agreed to do."

Roberts, a Wall Street stockbroker by trade, immediately took to the difficult task of starting a club. With Jones' popularity and Roberts' attention to detail, the club got off the ground and a tournament was started in 1934.

From the beginning, Roberts' goal was to make the Masters special.

"We realized that, in order to build a tournament of stature that could survive Bob's eventual separation from the event, it needed to be operated in a better fashion and made more enjoyable than any other," Roberts wrote in his book.

Those innovations were numerous and included:

- A network of scoreboards around the course that eventually featured the over-and-under scoring system

1934 Augusta National Invitational Tournament ticket. (File)

- Free parking and pairing sheets for patrons

- Observation stands scattered throughout the course

Roping off the fairways and greens for spectator convenience was also an important decision by Roberts.

"We determined at the outset not to permit anyone inside the ropes other than the players and their caddies," he wrote. "This was to provide the patrons with an uninterrupted view of the tournament action."

The Masters also was the first 72-hole event to be held over four days. The custom in the 1930s was to play it over three days, with 36 holes on the final day.

The tournament was the first to be broadcast live nationwide via radio. Though the Masters wasn't the first tournament to be televised, Roberts made sure it was at the forefront of the latest technology. Those innovations included the first golf broadcast in color (1966) and the first overseas broadcast (1967).

Roberts also knew the value of the working press.

"Grantland Rice was the dean of sports writers and would go to Florida with all the writers for spring training, then encouraged them to stop at Augusta on the way back home," said Sid Matthew, a lawyer and golf historian. "Cliff persuaded the British writers if they made it to New York he would make sure they had passage to Augusta."

Roberts did so with the use of the New York Herald-Tribune plane. William E. Robinson, the newspaper's general manager, was an Augusta National member.

Roberts was 40 when the tournament started, and he lived to see it grow into the envy of the sports world. Its popularity was such that the tournament had to limit badges in the 1960s, and by 1978 the patron waiting list was closed.

The reclusive Roberts took his own life in 1977, but he left behind a club and a tournament without equal.

A plaque from the Golf Writers Association of America that hangs in the press building at Augusta National sums up Roberts' legacy:

"In grateful appreciation for the great influence his high personal standards had in upgrading tournament golf throughout the world."

Reach John Boyette at (706) 823-3337 or john.boyette@augustachronicle.com.