In the photograph, Obie Brannon, shirtless and perched on a tree stump with a raised Titleist wedge poised to swing, is a picture of 20-something casual.
He exudes none of the button-down vibe of his neighbors over at Augusta National Golf Club, about 1,250 yards to his back.
He sports sandals and camouflage shorts as he addresses a ball with a most precarious lie on a sawed-off, century-old oak felled by Hurricane Helene.
Brannon, 27, a fourth-year student at the Dental College of Georgia, happened to be practicing chip shots in his front yard a couple of weeks ago when an Atlanta Journal-Constitution photographer dropped by. He later joked that he’s always working on chipping, be it golf balls or chipped teeth.
The day he was photographed by the AJC’s Hyosub Shin for an image that wound up online and on the following Sunday’s front page, the publication was in town chronicling Helene’s impact as the Masters Tournament drew nigh.
Brannon, who grew up in Canton, graduates in May. When Shin spotted him, Brannon had been taking practice shots on the lawn at the house his parents own off Washington Road in a neighborhood of wooded lanes with Masters-sounding names like Bluebird and Persimmon and Apricot, Pear and Oleander.
When he learned the newspaper was reporting on the lingering damage from Helene, which ripped through Augusta last fall, Brannon figured, “This makes sense, let me hop up here.”
Onto the stump he sprang for his wood-chip shot.
”The fun part,” he said, “was that it was a brand new club and I was a little nervous hitting off the stump.”
Luckily, his snazzy Titleist caught the ball clean enough and, he said, “didn’t tear it up too bad.”
Anything for glory at Augusta — a green jacket moment, sans jacket.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
As it turned out, most who saw his picture in the paper — looking part wild man, part figurine on a participation trophy — were not friends or classmates, Brannon says. “It was more their parents and grandparents asking them, ‘Hey, do you know this guy?‘”
His image, telling as it is of the Central Savannah River Area’s golfing heritage and of the wreckage in Helene’s wake, was not widely shared on social media.
Brannon, his anonymity intact, is on spring break this week. He won’t be in town for the Masters. Though he was last year, and he went.
No, not shirtless, but rather after attending a Masters job fair at his school. He signed on as a course valet for the week.
”Since we’re dental students and med students,” he said, laughing, “I think they think we’re responsible.”
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
