It's a blustery september day at Atlanta's venerable East Lake Golf Club, where the fairways are still soggy from the weeklong rains blowing north from Tropical Storm Isidore. For Atlanta developer Thomas G. Cousins, who has been nagged by a sore back, today is the first time in roughly a year that he has walked the 94-year-old course. In other words, hardly the conditions to show off your game in front of a visitor, much less try to build on a 3.6 handicap.
But for Cousins, golf has always been about more than a score. Indeed, East Lake is an example of what Cousins calls "golf with a purpose"--using the game to help achieve other social ends. It was here in the mid-1990s that the developer led an effort to revive the urban course, which had been all but abandoned as the neighborhood became more crime-ridden. With $15 million in federal money, Cousins demolished a public housing project in favor of a new 500-unit complex and used the course's revival as the centerpiece of a gentrification effort. The result: Crime plunged by nearly two-thirds, and real estate values have been soaring as residents move back into the area. As evidence of East Lake's renewed status, the club that was the setting of the 1963 Ryder Cup is back on the map with the PGA Tour, hosting the Tour Championship for three of the past five years. "Tom really cares about giving back to the community and saw that golf was the way to do it at East Lake," says longtime friend and occasional golfing partner John J. Mack, now CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston.
Still, Cousins' do-good role doesn't win him any mulligans from his playing partners today: Billy Payne, the attorney who directed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and Thomas D. Bell Jr., whom Cousins named as CEO of his Cousins Properties Inc. last January. "These guys would rather beat me than eat," jokes Cousins, who is widely thought to be one of the developers writer Tom Wolfe used to construct Charlie Croker, the protagonist of the 1998 novel about Atlanta, A Man in Full. Cousins seems somewhat self-conscious about having to follow Payne's booming drives, which carry 250 yards even on the wet fairways. "With my back problems, I lost 30 to 40 yards off the tees," he admits. "But I'll get it back."
It's quickly clear Cousins needn't apologize for his game. Even now, at age 70, he has a fluid swing. On the uphill, 393-yard first hole, Cousins musters 200 yards on his drive with no roll, then leaves his second shot 40 yards short of the green. But even if Cousins' irons have lost their punch, it's here that his true strength is revealed as he effortlessly chips to within five feet of the pin. With a tap-in, Cousins salvages a par. "He's still got the best--well, second-best-- short game of any member out here," whispers his caddie.
For a man who also holds memberships in Augusta National and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club in Scotland, and has built a "few greens," as he puts it, at his 6,900-acre hunting estate in south Georgia, Cousins clearly has an affection for East Lake. It was here in the 1940s that, as a young teen, he worked as a lifeguard and started caddieing for members for 50 cents a round. Cousins played his first round at age 11--and discovered that golf came easily to him. At 14, on a day so wet he finally shucked his dog-eared cleats and played barefoot, he carded a par 72.
It was also here that as a teen Cousins got his only glimpse of legendary amateur Bobby Jones, an Atlanta native who played East Lake as his home course. Cousins still remembers racing over to the 13th green just in time to see Jones hit a dramatic, 130-yard duck hook around an oak tree, landing his shot just a few feet from the pin. Even today, Cousins can't play a round at East Lake without seeing Jones's presence on every hole. As the group steps to the 127-yard sixth hole, with three pars and two bogeys for the round, Cousins points to the green. "This was one of the first holes with an island green in America," he notes. "Bobby Jones once said he finally figured out the secret to playing this hole: `Use an old ball."'
After Payne and Bell both land safely on the green, Cousins swings his Ben Hogan 7-iron--and fearing he had left it short, starts imploring the ball to "Get there! Get there!" When Cousins' ball plunks down eight feet from the pin, Bell can't resist ribbing his boss. "If you'd kept your mouth shut, we'd have thought you were good," Bell jokes as he walks away. Cousins misses his birdie putt, but, like the other two players, still makes a par on the hole to remain 2-up after six.
As a student at the University of Georgia, Cousins put golf aside to join the swim team ("dumbest thing I ever did," he says) and packed his clubs in the closet in his 20s as he pursued a real estate career. And what a career: Over the coming decades, Cousins developed a number of Atlanta landmarks, including the CNN Center and the Georgia World Congress Center. Since 1977, his New York Stock Exchange-listed firm, Cousins Properties, has delivered a 25.3% average annual return--topping those of Coca-Cola, General Electric, and Bank of America.
In the early 1970s, Cousins refocused on his game. His best rounds: a 70 at Augusta National and a 77 at St. Andrews. Plus, he once made a hole-in-one on Augusta's 12th hole, notorious for its swirling winds. His true brush with greatness came in 1973, when he was paired with Jack Nicklaus in the Wednesday pro-am at the Atlanta Classic hosted by the Atlanta Country Club. After an opening bogey, Cousins found his groove and parred the next 16 holes--leaving him even with Nicklaus. When Nicklaus' drive at 18 sailed wide right, Cousins cut the corner perfectly on the par-5 dogleg. "I was gonna hit my 4-iron 200 yards, eagle the hole, and have one great round," he recalls.
As they left the last tee, Nicklaus put his arm around Cousins and said, "Tom, you're a heckuva golfer. Ever consider going on the tour?" As Cousins stood over his second shot, he thought about what Nicklaus had said--and promptly hit his shot in the pond in front of the green for a double bogey. A few years ago, during a dinner with Nicklaus and their wives, Cousins asked the Golden Bear if he'd meant to rattle him. "Probably," laughed Nicklaus.
Cousins isn't rattled today, but it is clear that his efforts to proselytize about his beloved East Lake are affecting his concentration--and his score. After his par on the sixth hole, Cousins records three bogeys--one only after he hit the flagstick with a chip--leaving him five over at the turn. But never mind. As he strides up the 10th fairway, Cousins is more fixated on pointing out all the gentrification that's occurring on the surrounding streets--evidence that the turnaround of East Lake is taking root. "Look, you can see the people coming back. And that house there, the owners have taken the bars off of their windows," he points out.
But Cousins won't feel validated unless he succeeds in persuading business leaders in other cities to replicate East Lake in their cities, which so far isn't happening. While Cousins is heartened by similar ventures afoot in Charlotte, N.C., Orlando, and St. Louis, he's clearly frustrated that elsewhere his efforts have been in vain. "Go to Mexico, and you can see the rich walled off behind their gates. Well, that's where we're headed in this country, but...no one...will...listen to me!" he says, finally clutching his guest's arm in frustration. "We could do this in every city--and there's plenty of money to do it. We could cut what we're spending on the poor by billions if we'd spend it the right way."
Cousins notes that East Lake was turned around on less than $25 million. After buying the club in 1993 for $4.5 million, he refurbished the original Tudor-style clubhouse and recruited Rees Jones to restore the course to its original Donald Ross layout. More important, Cousins persuaded American Express Co. (AXP
), AT&T (T
), and more than 80 other companies to buy corporate memberships to the golf club that would, in turn, be used to help subsidize the revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood.
After 13 holes, with Bell late for a speech, the threesome cuts ahead to the 18th hole, a rugged, uphill 232-yard par 3. Payne and Bell both land just short and to the left, while Cousins is still 30 yards off to the right. All three chip up, and 2-putt for bogeys. While Bell didn't keep score, Payne finishes eight over for the 13 holes and Cousins at 10 over--not bad considering how many shots he hit while talking up East Lake. For Tom Cousins, golf has to have a purpose.
By Dean Foust
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