One Gamecock has made a Masters cut. It happened hours after becoming a dad
There is a small misconception about attending the Masters. It would not be accurate to say there are no phones inside the confines of Augusta National. There are a few ... a very, very select few.
Nineteen years ago, just days before he became the first South Carolina alum to make the cut at the Masters, Brett Quigley’s phone was tucked inside his golf bag. He was standing on the 11th green at Augusta National, playing a Tuesday practice round with Jeff Sluman and Lucas Glover when some sort of innate urge came over him.
“I’m like, ‘I need to check my phone.’ I have no idea why,” said Quigley. “Certainly in ‘07, you couldn’t even say the word ‘phone’ at the Masters without getting in trouble.”
Discreetly, Quigley checked anyway and immediately knew something was amiss. There were 17 messages from a friend, all saying the same thing: You’ve got to call me. Obviously that wasn’t an option. A quick way to never get invited back to Augusta National is to make phone call inside the heart of Amen Corner. But Quigley quickly fired off a text asking what the matter was.
A message came back quickly: “You’ve got to go. Amy’s water broke.”
Before that moment, the conundrum Quigley faced had never crossed his mind. His wife Amy wasn’t expected to deliver their first child for another three weeks. Surely, after 16 years of grinding through professional golf — in leagues like the Buy.com and Hooters Tour before the PGA Tour — whatever divine forces exist wouldn’t allow the greatest moment of his personal and professional life to occur concurrently.
The 38-year-old Massachusetts native entered his first Masters thinking about every possible way to make the week as memorable as humanly possible. Fatherhood, though, was not on the agenda, at least not for that week.
Quigley rented two houses in Augusta for masses of friends and family to stay. He arranged to play a Monday practice round with three-time Masters champion Gary Player, and put together an all-black fit to match Player’s iconic attire — a tribute that created some incredible photos. Even better photos: The ones with Quigley and his dad, Paul, inside the ropes at Augusta National. And there are plenty of them because Quigley tabbed his father to caddie for him at the Masters.
He entered the week with two main goals: Make the cut and record an eagle ... simply so he’d get a pair of the crystal highball glasses the Masters awards for such a feat.
For his entire life, Quigley’s dream was to play Augusta National. In a blink, he was trying to leave the course as fast as possible.
Leaving Augusta National
There are few places on Earth more enviable than the tee box on the 12th hole at Augusta National. For Quigley, though, it might as well been have been 50 miles from water in the Sahara. No. 12 is the lowest point on the course, and reaching the clubhouse requires an uphill trek that cannot be made quickly.
Quigley’s thought: How am I going to get out of here?
“I just started walking through there,” he said.
Eventually, Quigley ran into an official with a golf cart, explained the emergency and hitched a ride to the clubhouse. There, a new problem arose: How in the world was he going to make it from Augusta to Jupiter, Florida before Amy gave birth?
Quigley scrambled to find a private jet. Word of his dilemma quickly spread around the clubhouse, somehow reaching the ears of six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus and his wife, Barbara. Their plane had just landed in Augusta, Barbara told Quigley, and he could board it immediately so he could witness the birth of his firstborn.
“She couldn’t have been nicer and more generous,” Quigley said. “Thankfully, we had already found a ride to get home, so I didn’t need it. But the generous offer of the Nicklauses’ will never be forgotten.”
Quigley arrived at the hospital before his child entered the world. And after about four hours of waiting with bated anticipation , doctors performed a C-section because the baby’s head was turned. At 2:55 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Brett and Amy Quigley welcomed a daughter: Lillian Sage Augusta Quigley.
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Making the cut
Somehow, despite being located near a golf mecca, only four alums of the University of South Carolina have competed in the Masters: David Tolley (1983), Fred Wadsworth (1987), Quigley (2007) and Wesley Bryan (2018). Just one managed to make the cut.
That 2007 tournament was Quigley’s only Masters appearance. For most of the next decade, injuries piled to the point where it was fair to question his future in competitive golf. But, after over 400 starts on the PGA Tour, he found a place on the PGA Tour Champions, where he’s won twice since 2020.
Nothing, though, compares to that April in Augusta.
In one sense, it defies logic that Quigley played so well in 2007. He didn’t sleep that Tuesday night. He didn’t arrive back in Augusta until 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, only at the behest of Amy and after he knew she and Lillian were healthy. He teed off at the Masters less than 36 hours after he became a father, playing the first round with the hospital bracelet still on his wrist and pictures of Lillian in his yardage book.
Perhaps, though, it makes perfect sense that Quigley played great golf because he wasn’t thinking about needing to play great golf. Asked about the theory, Quigley had no denial.
“The love and joy and gratitude you feel,” Quigley said, “when your child is born is beyond anything I’ve ever felt.”
He shot back-to-back rounds of 76, which — in what was one of the coldest Masters on record — put him right on the cut line. He gave interviews on Friday afternoon expecting to miss the cut, telling reporters how the “incredible journey” of the week and his excitement to fly back to Florida and spend time with his wife and daughter. He was at a rental house, watching with friends, when it became official he made the cut.
Quigley went on to finish 51st in the 2007 Masters and, because of a magical final-round eagle on No. 13, is able to pour an occasional margarita in a Masters glass. Reminders of that week, though, come at this time every year — when his oldest daughter celebrates her birthday.
Lillian, the first of two Quigley girls, heard the story of her wild entrance into the world and the golf tournament that followed. But Quigley hadn’t mentioned it in years. One morning in early March, she was home on break from Florida State.
“She’s following me — it’s real exciting — to an oil change,” Quigley said from his car. “I told her I was gonna talk to you about that story and it just brought a smile to her face.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2026 at 8:00 AM.
