Episode 206: The True Story Of The Patch

You are about to become intimately familiar with a previously unknown golf course. For decades, Augusta Municipal Golf Course was the scruffy public track where the locals played. The poor kids from the housing projects next door called it the Patch. A few years ago, Augusta National adopted the course and poured a ton of resources back into it. Next week, the shiny new Patch course will be unveiled to a flood of headlines. But in order to understand where it is today, we must understand the course’s past. For that, Dr. Gregory McCord sat down with host Tom Coyne. McCord was one of those housing-project kids, and he’s written a book about growing up in the Patch. He gives us the real story of life at the course, from stealing golf balls as a kid, to the summer job there that inspired him to better things, to the chance birdie on 16 that put him on a Greyhound to a college scholarship. As the golf world turns to Augusta National, this is the rare time that a story happening outside its gates might be even more interesting. The Golfer's Journal and this podcast are made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: The Golfer’s Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist.

You can listen to Episode 206: The True Story Of The Patch online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Episode 206: The True Story Of The Patch is an episode from The Golfers Journal Podcast by The Golfer's Journal.

This episode is 01:01:17 long.

This episode was published on Apr 1, 2026.

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