One standout homeowner refuses to budge from her home for Augusta to expand Masters course

‘We really don’t want to go,’ Ms Thacker said in 2016. She is still in the house today

The Thacker home just outside of Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. The home was built by Herman and Elizabeth Thacker in 1959, and the couple refused to sell it to Augusta for years. Ms Thacker remains in the house to this day. (Google Maps)

The Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament, has spent the last decade expanding, turning what was once a neighbourhood into a free parking lot for visitors.

With $40m already invested into the project, the club has nearly completed its expansion. But a single house remains to be purchased, demolished, and covered with concrete.

Unfortunately for the club, the owner of that house won't sell.

Herman and Elizabeth Thacker built their home in 1959. In 2016, they told NJ.com that they intended to live out their final days together in their 1,900-square-foot home, even if it meant turning away a million dollar offer for a house whose estimated worth is $300,000.

"We really don't want to go," Ms Thacker told the outlet.

Her husband agreed, concluding that "money ain't everything”.

According to The New York Post, Mr Thacker's wish to spend his final years in the house he built with his wife came true. He passed away in 2019 aged 86.

Ms Thacker still lives at the house, dealing with Masters traffic once a year and occasionally hosting house-hungry suitors from the club.

The couple said that they always invited Augusta representatives into their home whenever they visited with an offer.

“He’ll come by here every so often and he’ll say, ‘Just want to let you know we’re still interested in your property,'” Mr Thacker said at the time. “And we’ll tell him the same thing again.”

The Thackers have not always been at odds with Augusta; they sold the club a second house they owned – just across the street from the one they won't sell – for $1.2m. It was bulldozed within a week.

Despite the couple's seemingly contentious relationship with the golf club, the sport has been an important part of their lives. Mr Thacker was an avid golf fan until his death in 2019, and now one of his grandchildren, Scott Brown, is a professional golfer playing in the PGA Tour.

“I’ve been watching him play ever since he was knee high to a duck,” Mr Thacker told Golf.com in 2017.

Mr Thacker said at the time that he believed his grandson would play at Augusta one day.

“He’s going to be over there one day," Mr Thacker said. "I just know it, but I don’t know if I’ll be around to see what he’s done.”