Over the years, as Masters coverage has expanded to capture every shot from every corner of Augusta National Golf Club, many fans have come to feel as if they know the course to its last blade of grass.
Paul Latshaw actually did.
From 1986 to 1989, Latshaw served as Augusta National’s superintendent, presiding over four Masters on a property renowned for its meticulous conditioning. It was a luminous stretch within a 40-year career that carried him across some of the game’s most exacting stages — from Oakmont to Congressional to Winged Foot, and beyond — and made him the only superintendent to oversee host courses for all three U.S.-based men’s major championships.
His influence, though, extended far beyond the grounds he tended. To peers and protégés, Latshaw was a tireless innovator and generous mentor who helped shape the careers of scores of industry professionals. By some estimates, more than 100 of his former employees and pupils went on to become superintendents, turfgrass scientists or leaders in the game, including his son, Paul Jr., who is now director of grounds at Merion near Philadelphia.
In recognition of those contributions, Latshaw was honored earlier this year with the USGA’s 2026 Green Section Award, presented annually for distinguished service to the game through turfgrass management. Latshaw, 85, whose health has been declining, was unable to attend the ceremony at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America’s trade show in Orlando. His son accepted on his behalf.
“He was the Michael Jordan of superintendents,” the younger Latshaw told GOLF.com
The man recognized as one of the most influential figures in his field was not himself an avid golfer, nor did he grow up in the game. Raised in Red Cross, Pa., he served in the U.S. Navy after high school and planned to study poultry production at Penn State before answering a newspaper ad for a golf course maintenance job. He took it and was hooked.
He pivoted to Penn State’s two-year turfgrass program, graduating in 1964. But as his son put it, his education never stopped.
“He was constantly seeking information, attending seminars, eager to learn,” he said. “He always wanted to be on the cutting edge.”
Latshaw’s first superintendent job was at The Country Club of Jackson in Michigan, followed by Shaker Heights Country Club in Ohio. In 1976, he arrived at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania, where he oversaw the 1978 PGA Championship and the 1983 U.S. Open. That proving ground — on a course with storied greens of its own — helped propel Latshaw to Augusta, where he arrived in time for Jack Nicklaus’ historic 1986 victory, 40 years ago this spring.
The move from Oakmont to Augusta plunged Latshaw into a different agronomic world, away from push-up greens and Poa annua and into warm-season turf and fall overseeding. He embraced the changes with curiosity and conviction, experimenting constantly, even when it meant unsettling convention.
One afternoon, his assistant, Matt Shaffer, came across Latshaw behind the 5th green, pumping air across the putting surface with a leaf blower.
“I said, you’re pushing 90-degree air across the green at 70 miles an hour and you think something good is going to happen,” Shaffer recalled. “What are you even doing?”
“Experimenting,” Latshaw replied.
With air movement, to be exact, in a tree-shaded setting that stifled it. The results were promising enough that Latshaw soon began jury-rigging fans in the maintenance shop and putting them to work on the course, an unconventional practice that became standard at Augusta and, eventually, elsewhere. He also tweaked the club’s green aerification schedule, shifting it into the fall (before Latshaw’s arrival, Shaffer said, the club punched only in summer, when the course was closed). It was a bold move, with professional (if not agronomic) risks, and it briefly disrupted play and ruffled feathers. But it improved turf health.
A detailed look at Augusta National’s history from the son of its first superintendent
“That was his thing,” Shaffer said. “His first priority was always: what’s best for the grass.”
Working under Latshaw, Shaffer said, felt at times like a daily chemistry lesson. Where Shaffer and many of his peers focused largely on major nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium — Latshaw worked deeper on the periodic chart, fine-tuning elements like boron, magnesium and calcium.
“He could push grass to points I never thought possible,” Shaffer said. “Right to the edge, where you’d swear it couldn’t come back. And then he’d bring it back.”
When the two first met, Latshaw was at Oakmont and Shaffer was working at a little-known Pennyslvania club, feeling stalled.
“I had a chip on my shoulder,” Shaffer said. “Like I wasn’t getting what I deserved.”
When Latshaw offered him a job as an assistant at Augusta National, just after the 1986 Masters, the pay wasn’t life-changing, the title (assistant) was a downgrade and the pressure exponentially higher. Shaffer accepted anyway, recognizing a rare chance to learn from a master.
“I thought I was a pretty good grass grower,” he said. “Then I stood next to him and realized how little I knew.”
If Latshaw’s expectations were exacting, so was his work ethic.
“He didn’t just delegate,” Shaffer said. “If we worked 150 days straight, he worked 160. He was smart, he was driven, and he was endlessly curious. He changed my life.”
After Augusta, Latshaw’s résumé continued to swell with the names of marquee clubs: Wilmington Country Club, Congressional Country Club — where he hosted his second U.S. Open, in 1997 — and a simultaneous consulting role at Riviera. He closed his on-course career at Winged Foot before retiring in 2001 to work as a consulting agronomist.
In total, he ran the agronomic show for four Masters, two U.S. Opens, a PGA Championship and two U.S. Senior Opens. His broader legacy was bolstered through the people he trained, and in the practices he helped normalize.
“Maintenance techniques he introduced that once seemed radical are now standard,” said Darin Bevard, the USGA’s senior director of championship agronomy. “He was always curious, always willing to learn from anyone, and that’s what kept him at the top for so long.”
Years after leaving Augusta, Latshaw was still mentoring Shaffer, who by then was superintendent at Merion, preparing for the 2005 U.S. Amateur under challenging weather conditions that had left the course in less-than-ideal condition. Latshaw arrived with underground soil sensors he believed could help. Shaffer resisted.
“It told him I didn’t have time to mess around with sensors,” Shaffer said. “I’ve got a course I need to get in shape.”
Latshaw persisted. The sensors went in. And worked.
In addition to this year’s Green Section honor, Latshaw also received the GCSAA’s Old Tom Morris Award in 2017. The following year, Penn State, established a turfgrass graduate fellowship in his name.
Over the years, Paul Jr. said, he and his father haven’t always watched the Masters together.
This Sunday, they will.
