There’s one thing that bugs me about the whole Masters/Augusta National thing that’s going on this week.
It’s not the soft piano music that CBS pipes in at any given moment.
It’s not the silly white overalls that the caddies wear.
It’s not the words you only hear this week and never during the rest of the year such as “patrons” (crowd) and “bunker” (sand trap) and “teeing ground” (tee box).
Instead, it’s these words you hear whenever you ask someone about going to The Masters – “I’d be happy to just go to a practice round. I just want to see the course.”
Did Neil Armstrong just want to see the moon instead of walk on it? (“OK Buzz, there it is; let’s get out of here.”)
I understand that people just want to see what it’s all about, but it’s like having a ticket to the Academy Awards and just staying for the red carpet.
I’ve visited Wrigley Field, but you’ll never find me putting that on my list of MLB parks I’ve seen. In this case, it was a cold November day and I conned the security guard into letting me and my two young sons in for five minutes. There was no ivy, no hand-operated scoreboard and, more significantly, no Chicago Cubs.
It was like the scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation, when the Griswold family made it to the Grand Canyon, looked at it for three seconds and got back in the car. I guess Chevy Chase would just walk to Amen Corner, shake his head a couple of times and head to the parking lot.
Would you rather get your first glimpse of the Las Vegas strip at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning or at Saturday night when a big event is in town?
More than 30 years ago, I got a chance to cover The Masters. This was back in the days when CBS never showed anything but the back nine – oh, sorry, was I supposed to say “inward nine”? – so the first thing I did was walk the course, mainly just to get a perspective of how my imagination matched up with reality.
I quickly realized No. 5 was one of the hardest holes I’d ever seen. Had no idea that No. 6 and No. 16 were so close together and had more people walking in that part of the course around than downtown Tokyo. I was just as stunned as to how downhill No. 10 is and how uphill No. 18 is.
Everything is really, really green.
Everybody is really, really nice.
But in no way was that enough. The event is what it’s all about. Granted, I saw one of the worst Masters ever played, but it was still about the competition, not the venue.
Yes, Augusta National is magnificent. A no-doubt Top 10 sports venue in this country. (Just don’t expect Magnolia Lane to be all you think it is; there’s a Circle K about a short par four away.) I would say there’s nothing like it, but the taught in journalism school not to write things that are inherently obvious.
Look, I get that the tickets – dangit, I meant “badges” – are hard to come by, so seeing a practice round is the closest some people will get. But spending all that time, money and effort to get over there just to see Englishman Danny Willett play a practice round with some European amateur doesn’t ring the bell.
But, hey, at least you get to tell your buds that you saw Rae’s Creek.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com