Around Augusta, amateur isn’t an insult. Anything but. The Masters started as a private tournament precisely so its founding member, Bobby Jones, could play in it without going pro. Jones, who won the grand slam while he was working as a lawyer, once described professional golfers as “uneducated club servants”.
That was back when gentlemen thought it was vulgar to get paid to play. Cricket had a similar arrangement. Sometime in the mid-20th century it switched. Professional became the compliment, amateur the put-down. Except around here, where they like to think they still play Jones’s way.
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