When his father won the Masters in 1968, Kye Goalby was four years old, too young to grasp the magnitude of the moment.
Before long, though, Key understood it, and by the time he’d reached his 20s, he’d attended the tournament on several occasions. He’d even caddied in the event for his dad, Bob.
Experience breeds memories, and Kye Goalby has many around the Masters. He remembers his father letting him play out of his bag during a practice round with this provision: to avoid the watchful eyes of then-tournament chair Cliff Roberts, Kye couldn’t hit from the first tee or putt out on 18. He recalls the pressure of smacking balls on the practice range alongside Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus.
And Kye swears he still can picture a tournament amenity that no longer exists: deep in the pines to the left of the par-5 2nd hole, Goalby says there was a Delta Airlines ticket desk, a travel service for people involved in the tournament. Whenever they played the hole, Bob liked to tell his son, only half-jokingly, “If you hook one down here on Thursday or Friday, you might as well go straight down there to that Delta ticket office, because you’re done.”
In a recent episode of the Destination Golf podcast, Goalby shared that story and many others, including remembrances of how his father dealt with the infamous Roberto De Vicenzo scoring fiasco that distracted from his victory. It was a timely conversation, and not just because the Masters is just around the corner.
Unlike his father, who died in 2022, Goalby never played golf for a living. But he played it well enough to be part of the golf team at Wake Forest. And he loved it well enough to pursue a life in the game — not in competition but in course design. A former longtime shaper for the likes of Pete Dye, Tom Doak and Gil Hanse, Goalby also is an architect himself and founder of Goalby Golf Design. Among his many credits is as co-designer with Zac Blair and Doak (who did the routing), of The Tree Farm, a highly regarded private club in South Carolina, some 40 minutes from Augusta, in a sandbelt region that has given rise in recent years to a starburst of new courses.
At 61, Goalby still plays golf when time allows, which is rarely. Work keeps him on the road more than 300 days a year. He spoke with Destination Golf from Montana, where he is building a course beside a world-class trout fishing river, commissioned by an owner who has given him creative latitude to a produce a walking-friendly, fescue layout that fits seamlessly into the landscape.
When Goalby does a job, he goes all in by moving in. His dedication to being on site with his team and handling construction in-house not only helps him keep tabs on every detail but also allows him to keep costs down.
Showing up at tournaments is another matter. Though Goalby has attended more than 20 Masters, he’s too busy to make it to Augusta National this year. But he will tune in to the tournament. He always does. It’s an annual drive down memory lane.
For more on Goalby’s experiences at the Masters, his upbringing in a famous golf family, and his career in course construction and design, you can listen to the entire episode here.
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