Inside the dash to find a driver for this Masters tournament… in a museum

Usually, when a player on a PGA Tour event, let alone a major one, needs a golf club, there are dozens of machine trucks from every OEM to build them.

But on Tuesday afternoon at the Masters, US Mid-Amateur champion Brandon Holtz needed one driver that no Tour Truck could provide. It had been built.

In fact, it was a driver Holtz knew well; he wouldn’t need much time to get used to it. He used it seven months ago in the Mid-Am at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The story was that Holtz had last used that driver seven months ago. In the middle of Am. At Troon Country Club. Located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The driver in question, a Callaway Paradym Ai-Smoke Triple Diamond with a Fujikura Ventus 7-X shaft, was not currently at Augusta or Scottsdale. It was 640 miles from the Masters at the USGA Museum in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, after Holtz donated it to the USGA as a memento of his victory.

But this is the Masters, and he needed it back.

Holtz will go out on Thursday’s first round at Augusta National with the same driver he won at Troon CC. How he got it back took a madman and several USGA officials, from Mike Wahn, to Scott Langley, to the USGA office manager just to get it to Augusta National in time for Holtz to use it this week.

“We’re pretty special,” Holtz said as he waited to be delivered Wednesday at Augusta National. “It shows you what the USGA does and will do for you.”

USGA tradition

Holtz is a college basketball player at Illinois State University who turned pro (in golf) just a year after his last college basketball game. He became one of the most unlikely Masters contenders in history by winning the US Mid-Amateur last fall, the USGA’s first event in 39 years.

He did this mainly with the power of his driving. On the 34th hole of the final match, he hit a driver on the 308-yard par-4 to just eight feet and made an eagle putt to win the match at 3-and-2.

As a tradition, every USGA champion donates a piece of their equipment to the governing body to be displayed in the USGA museum or placed in the archives there. Sometimes it’s a club, sometimes it’s a shirt, shoes or a golf ball.

Given the importance of his drive that week and the tee shot on the deciding hole, Holtz donated his driver to the USGA.

Exceptional service

USGA CEO Mike Wahn probably isn’t used to being asked to deliver a golf club to the Masters on the Tuesday afternoon of tournament week, but that’s exactly what happened.

Holtz was so upset with his driving this week at Augusta that he had a member of his team reach out to Wahn to ask if he could get a driver out of the USGA Museum and down to the tournament.

Shortly before 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wahn received the text and the USGA team “circled the wagons,” Director of Player Relations Scott Langley said to see what they could do.

“I would think Brandon or us as the USGA don’t have that on our bingo cards,” Langley told GOLF during a phone call Wednesday night.

The first hurdle was that the director of the USGA Museum was on vacation in Paris, but he was able to contact someone at the museum who quickly located the driver and directed him to Office Services Manager Wayne McGowan, who rushed it to UPS in time for the overnight shipping deadline.

The driver arrived at Augusta National on Wednesday and the USGA took it straight to conformity testing to make sure Holtz could still use it. Wouldn’t that be something to get it, down in Georgia, to fail the CT test?

Fortunately, the driver passed the sobriety test and was reunited with Holtz just before 4pm on Wednesday afternoon.

Was Holtz nervously watching the tracking number to see when his driver would get there? The club that could make or break his Masters debut. No, not everything.

“They said, ‘hey, just enjoy your day, and we’ll get you another one,'” Holtz said. “No, I don’t follow it, but I have faith that they will be there.”

Lo and behold, that faith was rewarded, and something Langley was proud of the team was able to accomplish.

“As the USGA, we are grateful that they are willing to share their artifacts with us and allow us to display them within our museum and archives,” said Langley. “And in these rare situations when something comes up, and the player might want to put it down [back] to play, we want to do everything we can to allow that and thankfully we were still physically able to do it on the timeline.

What happens next?

Since Holtz has been reunited with his driver, that leaves the museum with a hole in its collection.

Now there is nothing from the 2025 Mid-Amateur champion. So will the USGA ask the driver to return when Holtz’s Masters comes to an end?

Langley laughed at the thought.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say we’re going to go in with him. We’d love to have it there, and in these circumstances, these players really appreciate the opportunity to have one of their pieces of art in our museum. Not just because it’s ours, but an amazing collection of golf history.

“I’m sure we’ll talk about it … I’m sure we’ll laugh about it by the end of the week, and we’ll agree on where the best place to live is.”