Something to knock the props out
front under a reporter was the answer
given by a popular businessman re¬
cently when asked to play golf by some
cronies one weekday in his office.
"I’ll have to ask Betsy," the young
man, who reportedly makes $25,000
a year in the lumber business, told his
listeners.
The young executive is Billy Joe
Patton of Morganton, the enterprising
lumber dealer who has popularized
golf across our nation like nothing
since Frances Ouintet rose from the
ranks of the caddies to win the Na¬
tional Open golf championship in 1913.
At that time only the very wealthy
and very idle seemed to play the game.
At 32, Patton has reached the
heights of golfdom in the nation's big¬
gest golf tournaments. In the 1954
Masters Tournament at Augusta Na¬
tional Golf Club in Georgia, Billy Joe
rose from nowhere to wind up as low
amateur and come within one stroke
of defeating the best golfers in the
world — Ben Hogan and Sam Snead.
After this performance, Patton was
personally invited by President Eis¬
enhower to play a round with him at
the Augusta club — an honor no other
amateur golfer earned in 1954’s hec¬
tic season.
In the National Open — golfdom’s
biggest extravaganza — at Baltusrol
Country Club in Springfield. N. J..
Patton led the select field of the best
golfers in the world into the second
day and wound up as low amateur in
the field. He achieved another per¬
sonal ambition — playing the final
round with Ben Hogan.
In the National Amateur, in August,
Patton was upset in the fourth round
by unknown Don Doe, a Canadian,
and thus failed to win the "bigun" for
amateurs. Did it detract from his golf¬
ing lustre, which is rapidly approach¬
ing that of Ouimct or Bobby Jones?
Not on your nine-iron.
A change in personality and a de¬
votion to his family arc the big things
which transformed Patton from a ner¬
vous, so-so tournament golfer into a
bantering, swaggering, hcll-for-leathcr
swinger who seems to galleryitcs (some
6,000 watched him in the National
Open) the personal embodiment of
all they would like to be on the links.
Back home in Morganton. Billy Joe
always played a whale of a game of
golf and won some smaller tourna-
TME
БТАТЕ.
OCTOBER 9, 1954
"I'll Haifa
Ask Betsy"
North Carolina’s new
sport sensation learns
to take it easy.
By WARREN KOON
nients in the South, including his big¬
gest. the North-South Amateur. But
when he began to enter the big time,
he would tighten and grow cold, tak¬
ing the game too seriously. It was a
common practice for him to vomit be¬
fore a round from pure nervous strain.
"I decided that when I played at
Augusta," Patton explains. "I would
play like I played at home— easy and
not too serious.”
It worked like a charm. Swinging
viciously and too often in deep rough.
Billy Joe charmed his galleryitcs with
North Carolina witticisms. He smiled
and joked with the gallery — something
unheard of in major golf tournaments.
When he showed up on the final
day of the Masters, leading the field
of the finest professionals and ama¬
teurs America has to offer. Patton had
won the open admiration of almost
everyone connected with the tourna¬
ment — even that of his foes, who were
seasoned, hardened pros.
When Patton hit his ball into the
creek on No. 13 to lose the tournament
to Hogan and Snead, he made a classic
remark to the gallery, many of whom
were almost in tears at his failure:
"Come on. let's smile again” he
chided the fans, and promptly
enshrined himself in their hearts. The
stories grew about Billy Joe — here is
a guy who loves to play golf, will
talk to the common fan and who won’t
play unless his family approves.
Betsy, his wife, and his three chil¬
dren are his chief occupations — lum¬
ber and golf come after. Patton has
an abiding love for his family, which
includes young Betsy. 3; Chucky. 7
months; and Joe, 5.
With his name on the lips of the
golf world, Patton sat in his office at
Morganton listening attentively to a
group which wanted him to play an
exhibition in Asheville. 60 miles away.
"Fellows," he smiled *Td like to
play. I tell you what I will do. I'll ask
Betsy and whatever she says goes.
You know, she needs some help with
the children and 1 don't like to say
I'll go off somewhere unless she thinks
it's O.K.
"I am not going to play in more
than four or five tournaments each
year,” the sensation of the nation ex¬
plains. "Why, I just don't like to be
off and gone all the time playing golf.
My first job is to look after my family
and make a living."
Billy Joe Patton. — (Photo by Warren
Koon.)
In the Masters. Patton became world
famous. A London paper, covering the
event, editorialized, "A suitable Easter
text, if there ever was one (was Pat¬
ton’s remark), let's smile again. . . ."
His scrambling style of wide-open
play prompted the Augusta Chronicle
to comment ". . . he would charge
hell with a bucket of ice water. . . ."
To sum up his own accomplishments
since the transformation of his game.
Patton says "I am a lumber dealer
and I make a living to buy groceries
for my family — when I have some
free time, I play golf because 1 like
it. I’m not a golfer — that's secondary."
In his way, he has become North
Carolina’s favorite son in sports and
ranks with Charlie (Choo-Choo) Jus¬
tice as Carolina's greatest ambassa¬
dors of physical exertion.
13
