It was born of elitism and has a murky past but there is magic at Augusta National, an indefinable thing. And while it's not Nirvana, the smell of azaleas in the morning certainly beats the alternative, and could even keep us safe, at least during Masters week, writes Matt Cleary
And so to Augusta National and the Masters, and the 4am starts, and the coffee and hot cross buns with dollops of melting butter, and the longing to be there, just once, to wander the inclines they say TV doesn’t do justice to, and to see - even sneak on and pocket a thatch of - the pine straw on 13 from which Phil Mickelson hit a six-iron through a pair of loblolly pines on his charge to glory in 2010.
How about that for a golf shot. How about Augusta. What a canvas upon which to paint such ridiculous art. You only have to say Tiger on 16, Rory on 15, Sarazen on 15, too, and golf fans know what you're talking about. That's magic.
I know it's not magic. It's a golf tournament at a posh club in Georgia, not Disneyland. It has barnacles that we will detail in due course. But, in a free world in which the nominal leader thereof is hurling verbal and actual bombs about like a rich kid playing tough guy in the schoolyard with chips he won't personally cash, we can at least have a week in the cocoon, nestled in the bosom of The Masters at Augusta.
Which is something, right? And at least while the golf's on, old mate Trumpy will be watching television rather than getting twitchy with the codes. Augusta saves the world? Yeah, probably nah. But it's not bad salve.
And there is magic in it.
Consider: some years ago, friend and colleague and former associate editor of this crackerjack journal, Steve Keipert, turned up on his first visit to the property, on the Sunday of Masters week, as early as media was allowed to arrive, there are many rules of engagement, and if you’ve been there a lot they can cloy, as curmudgeon-in-residence John Huggan chronicles here.
Steve, though, was dewy-eyed like Bambi. He was at Augusta.
He parked his laptop in the mighty marquee and set out to see what he could see. Soon enough, he was surprised and delighted to find none other than Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods and his caddie, Steve Williams, on the 10th tee, just a couple of guys heading out for a hit.
After asking Williams if it was cool to wander along, and, in the way of these things, taking shit from Williams about the All Blacks winning the Bledisloe Cup for the 97th time, Keipert spent two hours, in the afternoon gloaming, the sun dappling through the loblolly, treated to a one-man stripe show, with Tiger hitting stinging three-irons for fun. I’ve never forgotten it and I wasn’t even there.
Another former editor of this magazine, Brendan “BJ” James, whose photography and words still adorn our pages, actually had a hit at Augusta on the Monday after the Masters in 2014, courtesy of the ballot that working media may enter. There’s not a lot of money in this gig-come-calling, but the Wonka tickets can be all time.
And so out the great BJ went, arriving on the tee of the par-3 12th hole, the famous “Golden Bell”, where his 45-degree Sherman Tank went to a place his caddie had never seen a ball go in general play, the shot viewed so often on the YouTube that Augusta National’s comms people asked BJ to take it down. Very conscious of the ‘look’ of their brand, the green jacket people, given they own the whole thing – lock, stock, the blinkin’ lot.
While Keipert’s personal stripe-show and James’s glorious hosel rocket to infamy (chonicled above) will live long only for those whose vision of them remains seared in their mind, memories of the Masters are legion. Mine largely feature Greg Norman, of course, who knew doomed charges at a jacket in 1981, ’86, ’87, ’88, ‘89, ’92, ’96 (sob) and ’99.
The most searing, poignant one, of course, was in 1996 when he led by six shots and lost by five, the Terminator Nick Faldo and a missed chip for eagle on 15 bringing the man literally to his knees. Credit to old Sharky, however, who fronted media, boarded his private jet, landed in Florida and commanded his people to not leave the hangar “until we’ve drunk this plane dry”.
Magic, friends.
Yes, look, I know - it's not Nirvana. It's a posh bolt-hole for uber-elites which, like "The South" of the often disunited states of America, has not been a pillar of human rights. Its founder, Clifford Roberts, was a racist even by standards of 1952, declaring that players will always be white and caddies always black while ever blood bubbled through his corpuscles.
Ever concerned with "the look" of Augusta, Roberts wouldn't let his friend and co-founder, Bobby Jones, on the jacket presentation dais given Jones was confined to a wheelchair and suffering from syringomyelia, a painful neurological disease of the spinal cord. Didn't look good. White people can't be sick!
In 1977, aged 83, chair-ridden following a stroke and dying from cancer - and with said "look" ever in mind - Roberts got a fresh new haircut, dressed in brand new pyjamas, and shot himself in the head.
For a combined case of magic and tragic, consider our man Shane Warne, the late and great champion of all Australia, who had a hole-in-one on 16 at Augusta, the back right pin, it had never been done. The jackets presented Warney with a commemorative plaque and mounted the ball. It was his first and only hole-in-one, and he spoke for us all when he said: “At Augusta, on one of the most iconic holes on the planet to a back-right pin that no one has ever done, the only person to do it, I’ll take that.”
Four years later, the great man was gone.
Now, sure, the green jackets who own the television coverage can lay it on a bit thick, on occasion, with the syrupy music and the soft-focus lens, and the close-up, super-slo-mo vision of Scottie Scheffler’s sliding Nike Victory Pro 4s, and all that. And they brook no criticism, preferring media proclaim "Everything is awesome" like in the catchy song in The Lego Movie.
But loving the smell of azaleas in the morning does beat the alternative. The coffee and hot crossies aren't bad either.
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