By HARRIS PREVOST

Things seemed to happen naturally for Agnes Morton Woodruff. It never entered her mind that she would miss a shot, lose a golf match, or not be able to accomplish what she set out to do. In her seventies now, she is still affectionately called by her childhood name, Aggie.

As a 13-year-old, Aggie caddied for her brother, Hugh Morton, at Old Linville, a 14-hole course build by her grandfather in 1895. (The famed Donald Ross Linville course was built in 1924 and the old course was abandoned in 1934.)

The next year Aggie took up the game. A year later, at age 15, she qualified for the championship flight in the Women's Carolinas Championship featuring the finest women golfers from both North and South Carolina. Aggie lost her first match but won the consolation bracket.

How could a teenager who played golf only one year suddenly become one of the best players in the Carolinas? She credits her father, Julian Morton. "He had a beautiful, natural swing and he taught me to swing naturally, too, and not think much about it."

"My father was a great teacher. Although he was an amateur, he was sought after by many people for lessons. He died not long after I began playing tournament golf. He was my only teacher, and I didn't want lessons from anyone else."

Julian Morton also taught Aggie's brother Hugh how to play. "He was a good player, but he got too busy with his camera," says Aggie. "He tells everyone that it was time for him to give up the game when his sister started beating him!"

She beat just about everyone else, too. There was no girl's golf team in high school so she was recruited to play with the boys. She alternated between the #2 and #3 positions on the team.

Aggie later dominated the Women's Carolinas Championship, winning in 1948, 1952, 1953 and 1958. She also made it to the quarterfinals of the Women's US Amateur in 1954 when it was played in Charlotte. She won the N.C. Senior Amateur the first two times she competed.

In her fifty-plus years of competitive golf, Aggie has won more club championships than she can keep track of (it's somewhere around 30), winning the last one in 1999. A lower back problem has kept her off the course this year, but she is working hard to play again.

Winning championships were nice, but making a lasting contribution to the game of golf in the Carolinas was even more fulfilling for Aggie. Two contributions stand out: co-founding the Women's Virginias/Carolinas Team Matches and founding Grandfather Golf & Country Club in Linville.

During the Charlottesville (VA) Invitational in the late 1960s, Aggie was visiting with her good friend, Sydney Elliott, the Virginia state amateur champ at the time. The men had their Virginias/Carolinas matches, then called "The Captain's Putter," and Aggie thought the women could hold a similar event.

The idea seemed like a natural so they began what is now one of the most prestigious golfing events in the region. The two were the first team captains – Elliott representing the Virginias and Aggie the Carolinas.

One day in the summer of 1964, Aggie and some friends could not get a starting time at the popular Linville Golf Club so, without giving it a second thought, she decided the time was right to build her own course.

"I had inherited some property from my grandfather in a valley at the western base of Grandfather Mountain," Aggie said. "I rode horses and also hiked through it for years so I had a feel for the roll of the land. I knew it was perfect for a golf course."

Aggie met Ellis Maples indirectly through a friendship with his niece, Nancy, when the two were playing in the Virginias/Carolinas Team Matches. She set up a golf game with Ellis and Buck Adams, pro at the Country Club of North Carolina, to see firsthand the good work she heard Ellis had done there.

"I loved the CCNC course," Aggie said. "Ellis and I talked about design ideas and found we thought alike. I invited him to take a look at my property."

Ellis fell in love with the site and agreed to design the course. First, Aggie laid down two non-negotiable concepts that had to be followed: All holes needed to be individual – each separated by woods with no adjoining fairways to hit into, or even see; and each hole had to be unique – no hole reminded the golfer of any other. Aggie also wanted some holes designed with specific views of Grandfather Mountain. Ellis said he could meet her expectations.

The routing of Grandfather was a partnership between Aggie and Ellis so only one routing was considered. "Ellis was easy to work with," she said, "I liked everything he suggested."

The two trudged through rhododendron thickets and down the middle of creek beds when they couldn't get through the bushes, to lay out the course. "Ellis designed it," Aggie said. "I helped with the routing and gave my opinions as we went. Ed Seay, who now works with Arnold Palmer, was a young assistant with Ellis, and he took an active role in the course's construction."

Aggie did have to make some decisions on a few green and tee locations, and on trees to be saved. She loved the stand of towering hemlocks on a knoll near the site selected for the clubhouse so the ninth hole was made into a par three to use the hemlocks as a backdrop. She also wanted to feature a mountain, named Dunvegan by her grandfather, Hugh MacRae. Her mother lived at its base. "I really concentrated on the seventh hole to be sure we framed the mountain in the middle of the hole," Aggie stated.

The original name of Grandfather Golf & Country Club was Glen Dornie Country Club. A glen in Scotland is a valley and Dornie is the small Scottish town where her ancestors, the MacRaes, lived. When brother Hugh Morton and his friend John Williams of the Williams Companies in Tulsa (Williams sponsors Tiger Woods' end-of-season invitational tournament) joined Aggie in completing the development, they changed the name to Grandfather because of its strong name recognition.

"I intended to make this a championship course, but not unreasonably hard," Aggie continued. "I wanted it to be enjoyable for families."

However, Grandfather has the reputation of being testy, shotmaking course. This year, the North Carolina Golf Panel voted Grandfather as the second hardest course in the state behind Pinehurst No. 2.

This difficulty is only a perception according to Bob Kletcke, Grandfather's first pro and also head pro at Augusta National. "People are intimidated by the forests and thick rhododendron lining the fairways," said Kletcke. "I measured the landing areas and they are wider than most courses. Grandfather is a forgiving course unless you hit a really bad shot."

Bill Cocke, Aggie's son and a resident at Grandfather, remembers the time a caddy waded into a rhododendron thicket to find a lost ball. "He got in there and couldn't get out, and he panicked. We calmed him down and talked him out."

Grandfather has undergone a couple of minor renovations since it opened in 1967. In 1989, Ellis' son and a noted designer in his own right, Dan Maples, made the course even more scenic by taking many of the cart paths out of the fairways and hiding them in the rhododendron. He also moderated some of the greens and rebuilt them according to the latest USGA standards.

Grandfather considered several architects for the project. When contacted, Dan said he would take the job if the club didn't tinker with his father's design. That was what they wanted to hear.

In the late 1990s, Grandfather changed its bunkers based on recommendations from professional golfer and designer David Graham. Both Maples' and Graham's changes pleased Aggie.

Grandfather has been called "America's most beautiful mountain course," and it is a source of pride to North Carolinians. The magnificent layout is one of only three North Carolina courses in Golf Digest's "Top 100 Courses In America," currently ranked #79, and it is in every "Top Five" ranking of North Carolina courses.

Aggie reflected, "A friend recently asked me what I thought about what I had done. We looked around and saw a lot of people having fun here. It makes me feel good. A lot of people had a hand in making this happen."

As you walk into Grandfather's clubhouse, you'll see a plaque prominently located on the wall recognizing and appreciating "the originator of the dream who also played a leading role in bringing the Grandfather Golf & Country Club dream to reality."

The plaque also states that Aggie's genius "placed an initial mark on the quality of GGCC that will never be erased. She attained a golf architect who designed the championship course and with him located every fairway, tee and green as well as the site for the lake, clubhouse, principal streets and other facilities . . ."

One person accomplishing what Agnes Morton Woodruff has in the world of golf has been incredible. But not in her mind . . . she didn't think twice about it. It came naturally.