Over the years, how Masters Coverage has expanded to capture every shot from every corner of Augusta National Golf Club, many fans have come to feel like they know their way to the last blade of grass.
Paul Latshaw actually did.
From 1986 to 1989, Latshaw served as Augusta National overseer, presiding over four Masters in an estate known for its meticulous conditioning. It was a fine stretch within a 40-year career that took him to some of the game’s toughest stages — from Oakmont to Congressional to Foot with wingsand beyond – and made him the only supervisor to oversee the host courses for all three US-based men’s majors.
His influence, however, extended far beyond the terrain he tended. To peers and protégés, Latshaw was a tireless innovator and generous mentor who helped shape the careers of many industry professionals. By some estimates, more than 100 of his former employees and students went on to become superintendents, field scientists or game leaders, including his son, Paul Jr., who is now director of grounds in Merion near Philadelphia.
In recognition of these contributions, Latshaw was honored earlier this year with the 2026 USGA Green Section Award, presented annually for outstanding service to the game through grass management. Latshaw, 85, whose health has been declining, was unable to attend the ceremony at the Association of Golf Superintendents of America 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 known as one of the most influential figures in his field was not an avid golfer himself, nor did he grow up playing 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 tied it.
He attended Penn State’s two-year bar program, graduating in 1964. But, his son said, his education never stopped.
“He was constantly seeking information, attending seminars, eager to learn,” he said. “He always wanted to be on the 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 1983 US Open. That proving ground — on a course with its own greens — helped lead Latshaw to Augusta, where he arrived in time for Jack Nicklaus’ historic victory in 1986, 40 years ago this spring.
The move from Oakmont to Augusta plunged Latshaw into a different agronomic world, away from greens and Poa annua and into warm-season turf and fall planting. He embraced change with curiosity and conviction, constantly experimenting, even when it meant disturbing convention.
One afternoon, his assistant, Matt Shaffer, found Latshaw behind the 5th green, pumping air across the putting surface with a leaf blower.
“I said, you’re pushing 90-degree air on the green at 70 miles an hour and you think something good is going to happen,” Shaffer recalled. “What are you doing?”
“Experimenting,” Latshaw replied.
With the movement of air, to be precise, in a tree-shaded environment that suffocated him. The results were promising enough that Latshaw soon began rigging jury 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 changed the club’s green tee schedule, moving it to the fall (before Latshaw’s arrival, Shaffer said, the club only hit in the summer, when the course was closed). It was a bold move, with occupational (if not agronomic) risks, and it briefly disrupted the game and ruffled feathers. But it improved the health of the terrain.
“That was his thing,” Shaffer said. “His first priority was always: what’s best for the grass.”
Working under Latshaw, Shaffer said, sometimes felt like a daily chemistry lesson. Where Shaffer and many of his colleagues focused primarily on key nutrients—nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium—Latshaw worked deeper into the periodic chart, arranging elements like boron, magnesium, and calcium.
“He can push the grass to points I never thought possible,” Shaffer said. “To the point where you’d swear it couldn’t come back. And then he’d bring it back.”
When the two first met, Latshaw was in Oakmont and Shaffer was working at a little-known club in Pennsylvania, feeling stuck.
“I had a chip on my shoulder,” Shaffer said. “Like I wasn’t getting what I deserved.”
When Latshaw offered him an assistant job at Augusta National shortly after the 1986 Masters, the pay wasn’t life-changing, the title (assistant) was a downgrade and the pressure exponentially higher. Shaffer agreed anyway, recognizing a rare chance to learn from a master.
“I thought I was a pretty good weed grower,” he said. “Then I stood next to him and realized how little I knew.”
If Latshaw’s expectations were demanding, 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 resume continued to add marquee club names: Wilmington Country Club, Congressional Country Club — where he hosted his second US Open, in 1997 — and a concurrent advisory role at Riviera. He ended his career on the course at Winged Foot before retiring in 2001 to work as a consultant agronomist.
In total, he ran the agronomic show for four Masters, two US Opens, one PGA Championship and two US Senior Opens. His wider legacy was cemented through the people he coached and the practices he helped normalize.
“The maintenance techniques he introduced that once seemed radical are now standard,” said Darin Bevard, USGA senior director of championship agronomy. “He was always curious, always willing to learn from anybody, and that’s what kept him at the top for so long.”
Years after leaving Augusta, Latshaw was still mentoring Shaffer, by then the superintendent at Merion, preparing for the 2005 US Amateur in challenging weather conditions that had left the course in less than ideal conditions. Latshaw arrived with underground soil sensors that he believed could help. Shaffer resisted.
“Told him I didn’t have time to mess with sensors,” Shaffer said. “I have a course I need to get in shape.”
Latshaw insisted. The sensors entered. And they 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 graduate field scholarship in his name.
Over the years, Paul Jr. said, he and his father haven’t always watched the Masters together.
This Sunday they will do it.
;)
