Dwight Eisenhower wanted one tree removed from Augusta National. Clifford Roberts shut down the request. The president got a cabin—but the pine stayed.
The Eisenhower Tree stood on the left side of Augusta National’s 17th fairway, right where Ike’s tee shots kept finding it. In 1956, the sitting president asked the club to cut it down. Roberts ruled him out of order and adjourned the meeting. Eisenhower made 45 visits to Augusta overall, including 29 during his presidency, yet his influence at the club had a very specific limit.
That refusal is stranger when you look at everything Augusta did provide: a fishing pond, a member-funded cabin and a refuge from Washington. The documentary follows Eisenhower’s friendship with Roberts, the caddie who guarded his golf scores, and the pine that kept interfering long after Ike was gone. Arnold Palmer, Ben Crenshaw and José María Olazábal all had their own encounters with it as the tree became part of Masters history.
In February 2014, an ice storm damaged the loblolly pine beyond recovery. Arborists’ assessments finally led to the removal Eisenhower had wanted decades earlier. But the club preserved pieces of the tree, along with two grafts and a seedling. A cross-section was destined for the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas—a lasting reminder of the request Augusta wouldn’t grant.
⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 Augusta Denies a President’s Request
0:31 Eisenhower’s Motion Never Gets a Second
1:04 Why 1956 Made the Rejection Sting
1:32 Ike’s Slice Meets Augusta’s 17th Hole
2:43 Eisenhower’s 210 Presidential Rounds
3:19 Cemetery: The Caddie Who Kept Ike’s Secrets
4:23 Clifford Roberts and the Limits of Power
5:29 A Pond and a Cabin—but the Tree Stays
7:12 Palmer, Crenshaw and Olazábal Meet the Pine
8:42 Augusta Makes the 17th Hole Longer
9:14 The Ice Storm That Finally Ends It
10:18 The Eisenhower Tree’s Journey to Kansas