Admirable, in most cases, is a son’s passion to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Except it can be a little disconcerting if the father’s foot happens to be pushing the gas pedal to the metal and, well, who couldn’t feel Lauren Carter’s angst. Her husband, Rhett, was very successful in racing circles, both Dirt Late Model and Go-Kart, and their son, Trace, “thought he was going to be a race car driver like his daddy,” Lauren said.
A high school business teacher, Lauren came up with a strategy. Trace could have go-karts and a dirt bike and it was OK to tear up the backyard, but he’d have to wait “until he was old enough to drive a race car.”
Rhett wholeheartedly agreed and hoped that “the stick and ball games” would capture Trace’s attention. But basketball, baseball and football didn’t do the trick. “Racing was going to be his future,” sighed Lauren.
Until, that is, golf entered the picture. Rhett played the game growing up and considers their home area of Blackshear, Ga., “a golf community,” about 165 miles south of Augusta. He introduced Trace to golf, and the day that Royce Carter Sr., Rhett’s father, took his grandson to a local pawn shop to buy a 7-iron helped ignite a fire that is still burning.
“We introduced him to golf and the idea of racing was over,” Lauren said.
Which isn’t to say that it was replaced by the idea of attending Augusta National to watch Trace take part in the 2022 Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals. Yet that is the reality that has unfolded as Trace Carter, in his fourth year of competing in the DCP, did more than make it past the local qualifier for the first time; he earned his way to Augusta.
Give credit to a mother’s intuition, he said.
“After my first time competing in it, (my mother) said, ‘When you make it out of the first round, you will go all the way,’” said Trace, a ninth-grader at Ware County High School in Waycross, Ga. “I’m a little nervous, but excited, too.”
Since showing his parents that he was committed to golf, Trace has played competitively at the American Junior Golf Association level, in Future Masters tournaments in Dothan, Ala., and he dreams of playing college golf.
A friend he met while playing national tournaments, Sam Udovich of Minnesota, won the Boys 12-13 division in last year’s DCP Finals, so Trace carried that added enthusiasm into his practice sessions at his home club, Okefenokee Country Club, after having advanced through local qualifying at Jacksonville Beach Golf Club, sub-regional at TPC Sawgrass and regional at Bear’s Club.
Rhett Carter has been to the Masters once, all four rounds in the unforgettable Nick Faldo rally over Greg Norman in 1996. But this trip to Augusta will be far beyond that in the thrill department.
“I wasn’t at the Bear’s Club, my wife kept providing updates,” Rhett said. “When I heard the news, I nearly broke down. I couldn’t believe it.”
If the parents needed a sign that Trace’s passion for golf is a blessing, it came last week when Rhett was in a wreck during a Late Model race.
“It was pretty bad,” said Rhett, who got hit by another car going about 90 to 100 miles per hour. “I broke some ribs, but I’m lucky. I’m fine. It just hurts a little.”
What hurt the most was the initial fear he had, “that I wouldn’t be able to go to see him play at Augusta.”
But surviving that wreck and knowing he would be going to see Trace at Augusta with his wife and two daughters – Coast, 18, and Sofie, 9 – was the reinforcement Rhett needed. “He didn’t have an option, I was never going to let (Trace) drive,” he said. “Golf is safer.”
