Remembering those who died since 2016 Masters | 2022 Masters
Breaking news
 
R4   
1 Scottie Scheffler   -10 F
2 Rory McIlroy   -7 F
T3 Cameron Smith   -5 F
T3 Shane Lowry   -5 F
5 Collin Morikawa   -4 F
    Full Leaderboard
Read our extensive coverage of the Masters »
Posted March 11, 2017, 9:18 pm
BY
John Boyette
|
Sports Editor

Remembering those who died since 2016 Masters

  • Article Photos
    Remembering those who died since 2016 Masters
    Photos description

    Edwin Pope in the press center at Augusta National Golf Club during the 1999 Masters Tournament. (File/Staff)

  • Article Photos
    Remembering those who died since 2016 Masters
    Photos description

    Ian Woosnam reacts to his putt for par on 18 as the ball drops into the hole to win the 1991 Masters. Tom Watson and his caddie David Musgrove look on. (AP/File)

Col. David Leonard Davis, who served as tournament director at the Masters after a distinguished military career, died Aug. 3. He was 94.
 
A native of Sharon, Pa., Davis received his commission into the Army after attending Infantry Officers Candidate School. In World War II, he served as an airborne infantryman and master parachutist and saw duty with the 101st Airborne, 13th Airborne and 82nd Airborne divisions. After the war, his assignments included stints at Okinawa, Newfoundland, Germany and Korea.
 
His assignments in the U.S. included responsibility for operational readiness of all airborne units in the Army. He is also credited with helping develop the HALO parachute.
 
His first assignment at Fort Gordon was as Battalion Commander, 3rd Battalion, 1st Training Brigade. His final military assignment was as Director of Instructions and Commandment of the U.S. Army Civil Affairs School at Fort Gordon, where he was responsible for the training of officers to be commanders and staff officers.
 
Davis, according to the Masters Journal, was recruited by Clifford Roberts prior to the 1971 Masters. As tournament director, Davis oversaw the various committees chaired by Augusta National members and ran the gamut from scoring control to gallery guards to public safety.
 
He retired from the position in 1990.
 
Edwin Pope, an award-winning sports columnist who covered the Masters 63 times from 1949-2011, died Jan. 19. He was 88.
 
Pope covered the first 47 Super Bowls and spent more than 50 years with the Miami Herald. He had battled cancer and died in Okeechobee, Fla., where he lived in retirement, Herald managing editor Rick Hirsch said.
 
Pope went into the newspaper business at age 11, was a sports editor at 15 and joined the Herald in 1956. He covered the Miami Dolphins from their first season and recommended Don Shula for the head coaching job in 1970, a suggestion that transformed the franchise.
 
In 1989, Pope became the youngest winner of the Red Smith Award, given for lifetime achievement in sports journalism. He was a member of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame and the Florida Sports Hall of Fame.
 
Pope covered major tournaments in golf and tennis, the Olympics, Triple Crown races, baseball, basketball, boxing and fishing. But his favorite sport was football, and he wrote most often about the Dolphins or Miami Hurricanes.
 
After Shula joined the Dolphins, he credited Pope with being instrumental in the hire. When team owner Joe Robbie told Pope and another writer he was looking for a new coach, they suggested Shula, then coach of the Baltimore Colts. Shula subsequently led Miami to consecutive Super Bowl titles and holds the NFL record for coaching victories.
 
Pope’s journalism career began when he was in grade school in Athens, Ga. He listened to a radio broadcast of the 1940 Orange Bowl, typed a story about the game and took it to the Athens Banner-Herald. An impressed editor gave Pope a job covering high school sports and Pope said his first salary was two 11-cent movie tickets a week.
 
At 15, Pope became the paper’s sports editor and covered the University of Georgia. He was called the youngest sports editor in the nation and appeared in breakfast cereal commercials in newspapers from coast to coast.
 
Pope graduated in 1948 from the University of Georgia, where he also worked as sports information director. He worked for United Press and the Atlanta Constitution before becoming executive sports editor of the Atlanta Journal in 1954.
 
Pope once said the press facilities at Augusta National weren’t as spacious back when he first began covering the Masters.
 
“The press tent was literally a press tent, located over by the first fairway,” he said. “It had planks on the floor and 12 or 13 typewriters. Each one had a big barrel of whiskey beside it, in various stages of emptiness. Mostly empty.”
 
Caddie Dave Musgrove, who was on the bag when Sandy Lyle won the 1988 Masters, died Feb. 13. He was 74.
 
Musgrove was a veteran caddie with nearly 50 years of experience on the European Tour. He also looped for Lyle during his 1985 British Open triumph, and helped two other players win major championships: Seve Ballesteros at the 1979 British Open and Lee Janzen at the 1998 U.S. Open.
 
A native of England, Musgrove began caddying at the age of 12. According to Golfweek, Musgrove lived the caddie’s creed of “Show up, keep up and shut up.” That enabled him to be successful with some of the game’s top players.
 
“We wrote history together,” Lyle wrote on Twitter. “We’ll miss your humour and stories.”
Masters legend Arnold Palmer dies
Slideshow: Arnold Palmer at the Masters

2021 Invitees