John Boyette picked a heck of a time to step away from the sports desk. After serving as sports editor at The Augusta Chronicle in Augusta, Georgia, for almost 20 years, Boyette took over in late 2019 as executive editor of his hometown newspaper, The Aiken Standard, in neighboring Aiken, South Carolina. But in Augusta and the surrounding region, the Masters blurs the lines between sports and news. And now, so does the coronavirus pandemic that’s postponed the tournament indefinitely. So although Boyette will continue covering the Masters — the next edition, whenever it goes down, will be Boyette’s 33rd — his new position charges him with looking at the tournament’s postponement both as sports news and regional economic news. “I’ve been telling people that have asked me that it’s like a 13th month or a second Christmas for the economy of Augusta, for a lot of people,” Boyette explained. “It’s a situation where people take on second jobs, or they take a vacation and rent their house out, or all kinds of stuff like that.” And now, with golf’s annual rite of spring up in the air, the region Boyette serves is waiting to learn when the tournament’s spectacle — and its companion economic boon — will arrive.
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LYING FOUR: What is the local atmosphere usually like the last two or three weeks before the Masters?
JOHN BOYETTE: The anticipation and the frenzy around Augusta the time of year is pretty incredible. To me, it’s the best sports time of the year with March Madness, spring training and then the start of baseball, and then the Masters. All of that kind of comes to a crescendo that first full week of April. I’ve been telling people that have asked me that it’s like a 13th month or a second Christmas for the economy of Augusta, for a lot of people. It’s a situation where people take on second jobs, or they take a vacation and rent their house out, or all kinds of stuff like that.
LYING FOUR: And what’s been the community reaction to the decision to postpone the tournament?
JOHN BOYETTE: I think they’re hopeful. When Augusta National came out and postponed it, I thought that was the best-case scenario because they’re not canceling it outright as we’ve seen with other tournaments. Last week I got to thinking, and I thought what really needed to happen was that we get this thing under control, and then the PGA gives up its date in the middle of May, and the Masters is played then; and then you could put the PGA behind the Olympics and adjust the Fedex Cup Playoffs as necessary. But right now, I think that with every day that goes by, it becomes a little less certain. I think the fall is probably the best option we’re looking at now — probably in October. I don’t know if you’ve followed some of the other stuff that’s been going on, but there’s been a frenzy on hotel rooms in Augusta during the second week in October; the Marriott prices are through the roof, and the small little hotels in Augusta are going for ridiculous prices. I hope they’re right; I hope it’s going to be played in October at this point.
LYING FOUR: Y’know, I consider myself to be a pretty well informed person, but that stretch of 48 hours or so last week where the NCAA, the NBA, and eventually the PGA Tour all started canceling events was the first moment it really occurred to me what a massive disruption the coronavirus was going to be. Did you sense a similar reaction in that community, or did people down there kind of see this coming?
JOHN BOYETTE: Going back 10 days to two weeks before the announcement — I don’t think so. I think we were all hopeful that this would be a problem that they were dealing with in Italy and overseas. But then we had a few reports start trickling in. The thing to me is that it’s not tangible yet: I don’t know anybody who’s tested for it. I think we’re all just kind of sitting here in fear, wondering what it’s going to do to the economy. In South Carolina, where I’m at, they’ve shut down restaurant dining rooms — it all has to be take-out or drive-through. My wife’s been to the grocery store a few times and we’ve stocked up on stuff, but the doomsdayers are saying that it’s gonna be several months or weeks before we get through this. I hope they’re wrong.
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LYING FOUR: For 99 out of 100 sports fans, probably the only thing they know about Augusta, Georgia, is that it’s the town that hosts the Masters. What is Augusta like? If you had to describe Augusta to a stranger without mentioning either Augusta National or the Masters, how would you describe Augusta?
JOHN BOYETTE: I think it’s a pretty typical southern town. It’s got a lot of history — not only Civil War, but even dating back to the Revolutionary War times. Being on the Savannah River, it was a strategic outpost for troops. It’s got a lot of older houses, nice gardens, a lot of churches — if you’ve lived your whole life in the South like I have, it’s pretty typical of a midsized town. It’s probably in the top two or three in the state of Georgia.
LYING FOUR: Does Augusta National have much of a local or regional profile during the other 51 weeks out of the year? Do they pop up in local news, or does the club pretty much keep to itself?
JOHN BOYETTE: They’re very private. They keep to themselves. I learned very early on in my career at The Chronicle that they kind of separate news into two pots. One is club news, which they don’t care to publicize — when they make changes to certain things. And then the other thing is tournament news; that’s sort of their public face, the Masters. They’re more apt to talk about tournament news than club news. The last 15 or 20 years have been really interesting — to see the corporate side of Augusta National evolve. They went from sort of a sleepy club that everybody wanted to be a member of, to now — I think it started under Hootie Johnson’s watch — they started buying up all this property to do these long-range projects. Then it sort of morphed when Billy Payne was the chairman; he really changed the face of it, architecturally. They’re all beautiful buildings and look like they’ve been there for centuries, and they were part of the building programs and sprucing up the infrastructure there.
LYING FOUR: My sister lived in New Orleans for a few years, and I was surprised to learn after a couple of years that a lot of locals don’t spend Mardi Gras in New Orleans — or at least don’t spend both weekends in New Orleans. They’ll leave town and rent out their house or something like that, which means a lot of the hardcore revelers are actually from out of town. What is Masters week like in Augusta and the surrounding region? Does life revolve around the tournament, or is it just something happening off to the side?
JOHN BOYETTE: It’s like I said earlier — it’s like a second Christmas for some people, the people who really love golf and big sporting events. It’s a great time to be in Augusta and partake in it. And if you’re lucky enough to have the badges, either through your family or through a lottery, you cherish those and want to hang onto them. Now, there is a figment of Augusta with people who think, “Hey, this is a great way to finance my kid’s college,” or take a cruise, or go on vacation that week. So a lot of people do rent out their homes. And it’s spring break for the school kids in Augusta, so it’s a perfect time to take a mini-vacation or a week’s vacation.
LYING FOUR: Has that local economic opportunity changed over the years? Or has that always been going on?
JOHN BOYETTE: I’ve been going since I was a kid; my grandparents had badges. And it was no big deal. They would sell their badges from time to time, and there were some times when we were lucky enough to use them. But I think it was always an opportunity for people who lived near the course to set up parking lots in their front yard, and that has gradually eroded. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Masters, but they’ve kind of shut off the Washington Road area going east toward downtown; you really can’t walk in that way. They want you to go to their parking lot that they’ve got and come in that entrance. Hospitality houses were a big thing 10-15 years ago; they started popping up around the course. Augusta National built Berkmans Place, which is the crème de la crème that has any kind of food or beverage you want. They’ve got replica putting greens outside with caddies; this is just ridiculous and over the top. But they’ve really cut down on a lot of that and have been really aggressive finding people who have re-sold their badges. I’ve seen a couple of people who have gotten the letter that you never want to get, which is “we understand that you’ve sold your badges to a third party, and now you’re no longer eligible to get them ever again.” I still think, beyond those things, there are still a lot of great opportunities for people to make money there in a service economy — waiting tables, bartending, driving people around; there’s just a lot of secondary-type events that go on that week.
LYING FOUR: And with the postponing of the tournament, is losing out on that local economic impact going to be a problem? Or as long as it happens this year, does it all come out in the wash?
JOHN BOYETTE: I think we don’t know the answer to that right now. My guess is that the economic impact would not be as great, just because of the disruption. The Masters is an international event; so many people come from foreign countries. And a lot of people still will come to Augusta as long as they’re playing the Masters, but some of the hospitality might be slowed down. Whenever this coronavirus scare is over, who knows how bad that’s going to affect some of these corporations and big spenders. I think there’s just a lot of unknowns in that area.
LYING FOUR: As somebody who has been covering the Masters for more than 30 years — if the tournament does end up happening in October or sometime in that neighborhood, will that be weird? The Masters has always been a rite of spring. Or is it such a big deal that it doesn’t matter when it happens?
JOHN BOYETTE: I don’t think it really matters. I think if it were 30 degrees with a little bit of snow on the ground, people would still go out there and say, “Oh that’s cool!” For all practical purposes, I think the weather will be very similar. Typically in April you have a cool morning, and then it gets hotter as the day goes on. You always have the threat of rain or a late-afternoon thunderstorm. But in recent years, we’ve seen more hurricanes and tropical storms happening later in the season; once September 1 gets here is when hurricane season really begins for us on the East Coast. We’ve had a few disruptions with that. But I think the biggest thing will be what the grass will be like: will they overseed, or what does Augusta National look like when it first opens in October?
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