This Masters rookie's mom hit golf balls on the day he was born
This Masters rookie's mom hit golf balls on the day he was born
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Anne Highsmith was in her mid-20s when a couple of friends stopped by her place in Tacoma, Washington, and invited her to play golf. As luck would have it, her mom's clubs were in the trunk, so she tagged along. Nine holes later, she was hooked. Highsmith hightailed it to her local golf shop and bought a set of irons. Soon she was a regular, rounding out random weekend foursomes as a single until she joined Tacoma Country and Golf Club, one of the oldest clubs in the Pacific Northwest.
Highsmith met her husband, Chris, on the first tee at Tacoma. They dated for six months before he proposed at Pebble Beach, where they later honeymooned. When Anne was pregnant with her second son, the couple went out to practice a beautiful spring day. She'd hit a ball, then have a contraction.
Son Joe was born later that same day.
"I can talk about golf for hours," said Anne, who'd been out shopping for the friends and family flying across the country for Joe's debut in the 89th Masters Tournament.
Anne's parents, who are 91 and 89, come on Tuesday. Joe and his older brother Sam invited eight of their high school friends, who will be out at the course on Wednesday.
Growing up, the Highsmith family treated Masters Sunday like a national holiday. Anne didn't sleep for a week after her 24-year-old son won his first PGA Tour event to secure the invitation.
'I really don't know how to put it into words,' said Joe of what it means to be one of 21 players making their Masters debut. 'It's going to be unbelievable.'
The first time Joe played Augusta National on a cold winter day, he hit driver-driver into the par-5 15th to 8 feet. After years of watching all the old Masters footage he could find on YouTube, he's now putting together his own highlight reel. Three weeks ago, he played 36 holes in one day with brother Sam and Pepperdine head coach Michael Beard. In the coming days, he'll play a practice round with Fred Couples, a close mentor, and have a sit-down with Jack Nicklaus.
Beard first spotted Highsmith at an AJGA event in Tacoma before he was old enough to drive and was struck by the lefty's pure swing: 'It just seemed like he had the gift.'
Fast forward roughly 10 years later – past a national team title at Pepperdine and a short and successful stint on the Korn Ferry Tour – and Highsmith, in his 34th career PGA Tour start, became a winner at the Cognizant Classic in dramatic fashion. Back-to-back 64s over the weekend at PGA National made him the first player in nine years to win a tournament after making the cut on the number.
Mom was supposed to leave at the turn that Sunday but canceled her flight.
'She's been my No. 1 supporter over the years,' said Highsmith, 'pretty much never missed a tournament.'
On the bag for Highsmith was Joe LaCava IV, son of legendary caddie Joe LaCava, who caddied for Fred Couples when he won the 1992 Masters and when Tiger Woods won at Augusta in 2019.
The victory earned Highsmith a spot in the Masters, PGA Championship and remaining Signature Events in 2025. He's also exempt on Tour through 2027. Highsmith's $1,656,000 payday meant he didn't need to worry about the roughly $500 Uber ride he took to get from the Seminole Pro-Member in Juno Beach, Florida, to Orlando for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Originally slated to play in the opposite field Puerto Rico Open, Highsmith welcomed the last-minute change of plans, not to mention the confidence boost.
'It's not like he's wondering, 'How am I going to have a chance this week?' ' said Beard. 'He kind of knows what to do, and now it's just a matter of him doing it.'
After Highsmith won the Cognizant, he sent Beard a text saying he'd put him down as his coach for the Masters. It's not uncommon for the two to talk several times a week when he's competing.
Back at Pepperdine, Highsmith was working on his swing one day when Beard asked him a question: Joe, do you want to have a good swing, or do you want to be a good player?
That question started a journey of approaching the game in a different way. There was a belief, Beard said, that if he swung correctly or had the right feels that it would equate to low score. Beard wanted him to tap into some of the game's intangibles.
At the national championship in 2021, they graded each shot on how clear he was with what he wanted to do rather than the outcome.
'If you just focus on what you really, really want and what that feels like, the fear will eventually just go away,' said Beard. 'You get so focused on overpowering fear with clarity and commitment that you didn't even know your swing was doing exactly what you intended it to do.'
Highsmith had such a good foundation fundamentally that Beard felt this approach could take his game to the next level. Long known for his ball-striking, last season Highsmith became the first player on record to make three aces in one PGA Tour season.
On Friday at the Cognizant, Highsmith faced a slippery five-foot putt that would send him to the weekend. He called it the worst kind of putt.
'The greens were so baked out and bumpy, and it was right-to-left, kind of falling away," he said. "Just a super sketchy putt. I hate right-to-left putts because I have a tendency to wipe them or block them a little bit.
'I had already been kind of crumbling under the cut pressure. I think I had bogeyed two of the last five or something, made a couple pars, and of course I ended up with this five-footer just to make the cut. … I just tried to make sure, at a minimum, I committed to it. I didn't want to leave knowing that I had wished the last putt on Friday, so I committed to it and fortunately it went in.'
One month later, Highsmith is doling out 12 tickets a day to friends and family to watch him compete at Augusta National.
Given how he came into the world, it's almost as if he was destined for it.
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