Amen Corner.

Sports Illustrated writer Herbert Warren Wind's love of jazz led him to apply the term "Amen Corner" to Augusta. (Courtesy USGA Archives)

It took 25 years for someone to christen the 11th, 12th and 13th holes at Augusta National Golf Club.

That was in 1958, when Herbert Warren Wind used the phrase to describe the tournament's drama in his article for Sports Illustrated .

It took several more years for the words to become synonymous with the Masters Tournament.

It took Richard Moore, however, a little less than a year to poke holes in the origin of Wind's famous phrase.

Heavy rains the night before the final round of the 1958 Masters forced tournament officials to adopt a local rule allowing relief for an embedded ball.

Arnold Palmer's tee shot on the par-3 12th carried long and plugged into the soggy bank behind the green. He asked for relief and was denied. He played the ball and flubbed the shot. Not satisfied with the ruling, he declared that he would play a second ball and seek a decision from the rules committee.

Palmer made double bogey on his original ball, but par with the second. While waiting for the ruling, Palmer and playing partner Ken Venturi continued their round. Palmer went for the green on the par-5 13th in two, made it and then converted his 18-foot putt for eagle.

Two holes later, he received the news: The committee had ruled in his favor and he would be given a par on the 12th hole. Palmer went on to capture the first of his four green jackets.

Wind, who was accustomed to writing lengthy essays, combined his passion for jazz with his love of golf in writing the article. In the April 1984 edition of Golf Digest , he recalled how he came up with Amen Corner.

"I felt that I should try to come up with some appropriate name for that far corner of the course where the critical action had taken place," Wind wrote.

Amen Corner (Special)

He recalled a band led by Chicago clarinetist Milton (Mezz) Mezzrow and a record called 35th and Calumet . Wind remembered the reverse side as Shoutin' in that Amen Corner. The phrase stuck.

MOORE, A RETIRED IMG executive who now lives in Spring Island, S.C., grew up down the street from Bobby Jones in Atlanta.

Jones, the co-founder of Augusta National and the Masters, was in the beginning stages of a rare spinal disease by the time Moore first saw him at Peachtree Golf Club in the late 1940s.

Jones' was the first autograph Moore collected, and it eventually led him to an extensive collection of golf autographs.

Moore had autographs of Wind and Palmer and decided he wanted to add an Amen Corner exhibit to his home museum. So he set off in pursuit of 35th and Calumet .

But Moore couldn't find the record. He ran into one dead end after another.

"I'd have spent some good money to buy the 78," he said. "They said 'Richard, it isn't there.' "

So Moore started researching. He spent a few months contacting jazz experts, both in the United States and abroad. He asked the Yale library, which had copies of Wind's college reviews, for help.

"Wind was such a jazz buff. I've got all those record reviews from Yale," Moore said. "He was really quite a good writer and really understood jazz. I was lucky to get that."

Further research revealed that the flip side of 35th and Calumet was actually Old-Fashioned Love . It turned out that Mezzrow had never recorded Shoutin' in that Amen Corner , and that Mildred Bailey had actually done a version of the song that Wind had reviewed.

In a little less than a year, Moore could come up with only one conclusion.

"Herb Wind bogeyed his memory," Moore said.

THROUGH THE YEARS, the origin of Amen Corner had become a part of Masters lore.

Wind received the credit he deserved for coming up with the catchy nickname, yet no one -- not Augusta National, nor the writers and broadcasters who have helped make the phrase popular -- verified the details.

Moore, confident of his research, contacted Golf World. The magazine reported his findings in a short item after the 2007 Masters.

Bill Fields of Golf Digest followed up with an extensive article in this month's Masters preview edition.

Fields researched magazine and newspaper archives, including The Augusta Chronicle's , to learn more about Amen Corner's origin. "When I got into the story, what I learned kind of surprised me," Fields said. "I assumed it was used much more widely sooner than it was."

Moore was hesitant to make his findings public.

"As I told Bill Fields, I was even reluctant to say anything," Moore said. "I've read a lot and studied a lot. Herb Wind taught me a lot about the game."

Wind, who died in 2005 at 88, is considered one of the top authors the game has ever known.

"It's ironic. Here was a man who wrote 10,000-word articles and many books, yet when he died the lead to a lot of stories was 'the man who invented the phrase Amen Corner.' Two words out of millions that he wrote," Fields said. "He was certainly proud of the fact that he came up with it and it stuck. But I think he was certainly more proud of all the detailed stories he wrote rather than just a phrase."

Staff Writer Scott Michaux contributed to this article.

Reach John Boyette at (706) 823-3337 or john.boyette@augustachronicle.com.