Hurricanes helped set stage for Augusta National's birth
Stormy weather in Florida and along the Eastern Seaboard in the 1920s and early 1930s was so powerful it, in effect, reached inland to Augusta, Ga., and altered the history of Augusta National and The Masters. The property that is now home to The Masters was first sold by the Berckmans family in 1925 to Florida businessman Commodore J. Perry Stoltz, who planned a lavish hotel and golf course on the site.
At the time, Augusta was becoming a small winter retreat for wealthy travelers from the North, and Stoltz's purchase started a land speculation boom, with prospectors spending millions of dollars for property along Washington Road.
But two hurricanes leveled hotels in Miami and Atlantic City and damaged other real estate owned by Stoltz throughout the Southeast in the 1920s and '30s. Coupled with the effects of the Depression, Stoltz's fortune and his plans for Augusta were wiped out.
A group headed by Bobby Jones purchased the property for $70,000 in 1931. Three years later, Horton Smith won the first Masters.
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