Hello, Friends.

 

Last Tuesday night, I couldn’t sleep, but that’s nothing new. When you’re my age, a built-in bladder alarm usually goes off around 3 am, interrupting an otherwise comfortable night’s rest.

 

But this night was anything but comfortable. I was wired with anticipation, excitement, and nervousness, knowing that before the sun woke up, I would be awake, dressed and driving to a magical place I had only seen on television and in my dreams.

 

Not Disney World. No Mickey, Minnie, or Goofy here. McIlroy, Rahm, and Scheffler were the headliners, just to name a few.

 

Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters golf tournament, is hallowed ground. Its history, beauty, and exclusivity, make for one of the toughest tickets in sports. You can either enter the lottery (bookies.com estimates there are two million applications each year for approximately 22,000 daily tournament tickets), or you can cough up serious dollars and buy tickets on the aftermarket.

 

Last November, for my 60th birthday present, my fiancee did the unthinkable. The unbelievable. The unimaginable. 

 

She did something as improbable as Tiger Woods’ epic, last ball rotation chip in on the 16th hole, en route to his fourth green jacket. 

 

She gave me two tickets to last Wednesday’s practice round and Par 3 tournament. (Hmmm. I wonder who I was going to take?)

 

And she didn’t win the lottery — Masters or Powerball.

 

In your life have you heard of anything like that?

 

Showing her intelligence, she didn’t tell me how much she paid. And tickets are just a part of the expense. Hotels and Airbnb owners raise their prices so high, Staying in Baton Rouge on a Saturday night in October seems cheap. 

 

However, my intelligence tells me she worked her tail off and saved for a year. 

 

My kinda gal.

 

So at 10:15 pm after driving to Augusta (taking my car and buying gas was the least I could do), we foolishly set alarms for 4:15 am. Foolish, because alarms weren’t needed. The next six hours were filled with little shuteye and lots of tossing and turning. And my built-in alarm still sounded at 3 am.

 

Augusta National’s gates opened at 7 am, so two hours and 45 minutes seemed like plenty of time to get up, get dressed, drive and park. But we were squeezed, thanks to my man-sized ego ignoring the big, flashing, “Masters Parking Turn Here”, sign. We ended up in a part of Augusta National you never see. How security didn’t find us and lock us in the basement of Butler’s Cabin I will never know. 

 

But, as the clock struck seven, there we were, part of the thousands of patrons who 

— only when instructed by friendly but serious-looking officials, poured through the gates. It was a moment I will never forget. After years of watching on television, there I was, legally behind the walls of one of the sporting world’s most famous venues.

 

I can sum up the next 11 hours in one word — overwhelming. From the large crowd (40,000?), to the colorful pallet of blooming azaleas, to the incredibly friendly workers, to the grass that makes me wonder why I even bother cutting my yard.

 

It was sensory overload.

 

Some observations:

 

*I’m pretty sure half the patrons go not for the golf, but to buy merchandise from one of two HUGE shops, and from other smaller, on-course pop-ups. Each place was shoulder-to-shoulder, people filling large green (of course) shopping bags with everything from shirts, to caps, to wine glasses (of which my fiancee now has in her home). We were told Augusta sells $1 million a day worth of merchandise. We contributed to the cause.

 

*If that’s true, then surely they can go easy on us when it comes to food and drink. And they do. I’m cheap, so the prices were right in my wheelhouse. The Masters is known for offering the most affordable concessions in sports. $1.50 Pimento Cheese and Egg Salad sandwiches. A $3 breakfast chicken biscuit. A $2 bottle of water. Despite the cost, I couldn’t bring myself to open a pimento cheese wrapper. But I did enjoy two egg salad sandwiches and a chicken biscuit. All so good.

 

*If you color outside the lines, you will be kicked out faster than a maintenance worker picking up a leaf. Augusta National’s employees were all very polite, but you could tell they meant business. That morning, a passenger tried to get out of the car he was in, thus halting the parking process. “Sir, stay in your car! Sir, stay in your car! Sir, stay in your car!” The attendant loudly issued his commandment six times, each time moving closer to the offender. I’m thinking if there had been a seventh time, someone would have had a ticket they weren’t going to use.

 

*The men’s restrooms were, for an event which draws so many people, the cleanest I’ve ever seen (Are you listening, Tiger Stadium?). And get this: each one has an attendant who doesn’t just stand there. He’s like an auctioneer, loudly rattling off questions and instructions. “Who needs a urinal? Who needs a urinal? I’ve got three good urinals on your left. Step right up! Mister blue pants, walk this way and take a spot on your right.” 

 

The young man did not comment on toilet seat availability.

 

There’s also a guy whose one and only job is to, armed with a small squeegee, remove water from the lavatory countertops. Now that’s an interesting resume’ builder.

 

*The lines for everything are long. But they move very fast. So fast, you would think these Masters folks know what they’re doing. After all, they’ve been at it most of 88 years (there wasn’t a tournament 1943-1945 because of World War II). 

 

*You can’t bring your cell phone onto the grounds, and on tournament days, you can’t bring a camera. But on practice days like last Wednesday, you can bring an old-fashioned camera. Got one of those lying around? But there’s no substitute for getting your free (yes, free!) picture made in front of Augusta National’s clubhouse, with yellow flowers planted in the shape of the Masters logo. This will one day hang proudly in our house.

 

*Don’t ever think golfers are not athletes. We walked almost seven and three-quarters miles up and down hills you don’t see on TV. We didn’t get to every hole — and there are some holes which you can’t access. And we were dressed comfortably. The players are wearing long pants and walking all 18 holes, 

 

But here’s my most important observation of all, and it has nothing to do with golf.

 

I’m not a “bucket list” person, but there are two things I’ve wanted to do before I die. One was to go to a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field and sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game with then legendary announcer Harry Caray. Harry’s timeline was shorter than mine, so that didn’t happen and never will.

 

The other was to go to the Masters. I didn’t care if it was for the actual tournament, the Par 3 tournament, a practice round, or to be the guy with the squeegee. For years, I’ve entered the lottery and come up empty. So, I figured for my dream to come true, I was going to have to work my tail off and save for a year.

 

But, someone beat me to it. Someone who listened to me. Someone who cared about what was materialistically important to me. Someone who sacrificed their wants for my wants. Someone who, while enjoying the experience, likely didn’t feel it as deeply as me.