Houses 500 yards from Augusta National are hot goods

ed. Note: The house at 1112 Stanley Road, Augusta, Georgia doesn’t look striking – red bricks, black shutters, four windows on the facade – but in reality, that’s just what. That’s because of the will of its owner Elizabeth Thacker (Her late husband Herman died in 2019)he rejected the advancement of Augusta National purchasing the property, which is located only at the five-pole five-pole at Club’s Gates, and is the last house still on Stanley Drive. In a story released earlier this week, Fox Business confirmed that Elizabeth Thacker, 92, still owns the house but still has no interest in sales. Golf.com introduced the property’s backstory in 2017. We have republished the following articles.

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Of all the PGA Tour experts who grew up dreaming of playing in the Masters, only Scott Brown can say he did so just 500 yards from the Augusta National Golf Club. Brown’s grandparents Herman and Elizabeth Thacker raised him at 1112 Stanley Drive, a three-bedroom brick house built in 1959, and is now a 6-a door.

But the community has changed fundamentally since Brown’s youth. Once a quaint, modest family community, paved in the name of patrons. Over the past 15 years, the Augusta National Golf Club has been in a rave, reportedly spending $40 million to expand its borders.

Many of the landmarks around Thacker House have disappeared, or will soon be gone. Last October, the Pep Boys auto repair shop sold its property for $6.9 million in October. Progress has swallowed the block of Brown, the winner of the 2013 Puerto Rico Open, who once played on the street. Stanley Drive only retains one house and its owners don’t plan to move anytime soon.

“Where are we going?” Herman Thacker, 84, said in an interview at his home Tuesday morning. “This is home. We love it here.”

This place is full of memories. Brown took away his earliest pastor here, and his grandfather set up a four-hole course in the yard for a shaving competition.

“I’ve been watching him since he was as tall as a duck,” Herman said.

As Brown got older, his grandparents began the Masters Sunday tradition of rushing to the 16th hole, placing the green folding chair behind the green, then heading home and making breakfast, and then back to the final round. Herman used a clumsy camera to film Brown’s first AJGA Championship and proudly owned his grandson’s Division II individual championship at Aiken University in South Carolina. Not long ago, Thacker bought a computer so he could follow his grandson on the PGA Tour. He insists that one day Brown is eligible to join his first masters.

“He’ll be there one day, I just know, but I don’t know if I’ll see what he did,” Herman said.

Herman is even more confident that his home has built a new patio and deck over the past decade, and his home will remain intact even if the club adds efforts to ensure it disappears. Less than six months ago, the club hired a crane and crew to plant twelve holly trees and an oak tree along Berckmans Street that left the Thackers invisible. The trees seem to have been there for 25 years.

Herman and Elizabeth are not the only thackers who feel the impact of Augusta National’s desire to expand. The new route is expected to go straight through the front yard of Herman’s brother Jerry Thacker when the club hopes to redirect Berckmans Road to borrow $17 million from the city to improve game traffic. The club bought his two-story white colony and two other properties for $3.6 million. (Augusta national spokesman Steve Ethun declined to comment on any numbers quoted in the story. “We don’t discuss club business publicly,” he said.)

Despite the sale price of seven figures, Hermann said he didn’t want to sell it.

“The other day, I told my wife that we need to push the price up so high that they can’t help but reject it,” he said.

However, he did unload another of his property a few years ago, and Brown lived for a while shortly after his marriage. One day, tournament senior director Walton L. “Buzz” Johnson called for a look at if the thackers were interested in selling. Elizabeth is baking the cake. Hermann is in Loch. When he returned home, the couple listened to what Johnson had called “a ridiculous offer” on the gift.

“Is that your bottom line?” Hermann asked. “He said, ‘Yes.’ So I said, “We will meet you then,” and we walked out.

Thackers ended up selling for $1.2 million.

Thackers said living a week in a parked car is just a small trouble and that doesn’t stop them from doing their daily routine. By Masters Week, Herman was still firing on the grill while Elizabeth raked a pine tree on the yard and kept the landscaping. They enjoyed the privacy of the other 51 weeks.

Johnson often pauses to remind Tux that the club is still interested in standing on the last house on Stanley Avenue.

Tucker said: “The last time he came and said: ‘What if I could build a house like you have, with only nine feet of ceilings and a span of wide shapes?’ “I told him, ‘Where are you going to put it? There is no land, nor is it in Richmond County. “We can solve this problem,” he said. “We told him that if we decide to sell, we will give them the first choice.”

But the club should not hold their breath. Especially if the house ends up passing to another owner.

“If they gave it to me, Augusta would never have it,” Brown said.