Jim Dent, an Augusta native who first learned the game of golf as a caddie and then went on to become a PGA Tour player and a 12-time PGA Tour Champions winner, passed away on May 2 in his hometown at the age of 85.
Born May 9, 1939, Dent began caddying at Augusta Country Club and Augusta National Golf Club as a teenager. He caddied during the Masters for numerous players, including Bob Goalby, Frank Stranahan and Bob Rosburg.
Whether for daily players or Tournament participants, he was drawn towards those who played the best. Reflecting on those early years in 2024, he said, “Golf didn’t mean that much to me until I got to Augusta National and I saw Sam Snead and Ben Hogan practicing and wondered how they could ever shoot over par?”
“I watched them, and I grew into golf.”
The reality in the 1950s meant that he was not able to play golf in many places simply because of the color of his skin. However, as he noted in an interview with the United States Golf Association in 2012, “You didn’t really think about that. You don’t let nothing keep you back. At Augusta Country Club, if you went out and helped them take crabgrass out of the greens, you could play Friday morning. It was nothing to go out there and spend an hour or more. All you gotta do is cut the crabgrass up. So we did that.”
After briefly attending Paine College in Augusta on a football scholarship, he decided to pursue golf seriously. After leaving school, he traveled around the United States, playing golf and working numerous jobs. While back in his hometown and playing Augusta Municipal Golf Course around 1965, Dent earned a personal milestone. “It was the first time I had ever shot in the 60s,” Dent said. “I shot 69 at The Patch. It was a real thrill to be able to shoot in the 60s.”
In the years after that round at The Patch, he began pursuing the PGA Tour, and in 1970, he earned his card for the first time through Q-School. He played 450 events on the PGA Tour between 1970 and 1989 with 25 top-10 finishes, including runner-up to Jack Nicklaus in the 1972 Walt Disney World Open Invitational. He had a reputation as a long hitter, winning the first two World Long Drive Championship titles in 1974 and 1975, and he carried that ability with him as he moved to the PGA Tour Champions following his 50th birthday.
He won 12 times on the PGA Tour Champions between 1989 and 1998 and recorded five top-10 finishes in the U.S. Senior Open, including four consecutive from 1989-1992.
Over time, Dent’s ties to Augusta and the Augusta Municipal Golf Course evolved and grew. In June 2014, Dent, Charlie Sifford and Pete Brown were honored at The Patch during the Swing Hope Into Action Celebration. At that celebration, Dent noted “to see these guys (Sifford and Brown) who did all the hard work for what Tiger Woods and all the rest did, we got the sugar. They stirred it up and baked the cake, and we ate it.”
“I knew Jim ever since I was a kid,” said five-time Masters champion Tiger Woods. “Jim Dent is not just a local hero. He’s one of the great Black historical figures in the game of golf and a legend for all of us growing up.”
When Dent joined the PGA Tour, Brown was among those who helped him out on the road and Dent said, “I was a rookie who didn’t know nothing about the tour. For him to do something like that was a blessing for myself. They said pass the buck down. You can’t keep it all for yourself.”
In the past decade, Dent’s connection to The Patch grew as he was often seen playing with friends and family. In 2020, the road entering the The Patch was changed from Walden Drive to Jim Dent Way.
“The Patch means a lot to me because it was the first place where the city (of Augusta) had enough pride to put my name on the road,” said Dent in 2024. “And it means a lot to me to see my name someplace where someone thought a lot of you.”
The legacy of Jim Dent and his connection to golfing legends will continue following the renovation of The Patch. The roadway will serve as the primary entrance into the facility and is directly adjacent to The Loop at the Patch, designed by Tiger Woods.
