David Gair Inglis was a man who would introduce himself as “DGI – it stands for Damn Good Ideas”. In 1979 he had a damned good one – a golf tournament called ‘The Australian Masters’, a complete and unashamed rip-off of the Masters at Augusta National in the United States.
The Australian Masters would invite the best players. They would play it at the same course, in this case Huntingdale on the Melbourne Sandbelt. The winner would be draped in a yellow jacket. They had syrupy muzak for the broadcast and an oxymoronic motto – “A New Tradition”.
And in the first year it lost quite a lot of money. Promoter Frank Williams came aboard in 1980 and the tournament lost more money. But through the early '80s and beyond, with Greg Norman and the world’s best pros backing it - Norman by leaping out of planes and scuba-diving in the lakes - the Aussie Masters went gangbusters.
Augusta has always inspired.
As I type these words it’s Monday morning and beams of morning light are shooting across the function room at Long Reef Golf Club on Sydney's northern beaches.
Here, as in hundreds of clubs, social clubs and loose gatherings of pals around the country, we’ve gathered to eat bacon and egg rolls and watch the rollercoaster on the big screen.
It's been going 12 years. When Adam Scott won in 2013 there were 200 people in the place and it erupted. The captain rang the bell. We all drank free breakfast beer. It was magnificent.
Then, as we will this year, we went out and played the course, shotgun start, stableford competition. The winner is awarded a green jacket. The winner gets it embroidered. They wear it for breakfast. There is nothing I want more in golf.
Except to visit Augusta National for the Masters. Each year I live vicariously through photos. This year a mate met John Daly and a gal from Hooters. A colleague was there when Scott won, their Aussie touring party took over a pub to celebrate.
Another year, another mate, another yarn: in 2007, a former associate editor of this crackerjack journal, Steve Keipert, turned up for his first look at Augusta on the Sunday.
Draped in media credentials, he walked out onto the course for a look around, and found Tiger Woods and Steve Williams on the first tee.
Keipert then enjoyed a one-man stripe show by the world’s greatest player, describing a stinging, lasered 3-iron that stiffed into the par-3 fourth. Williams told him what club it was. I can’t un-see it. I can’t forget it. I wasn’t even there.
This journo game, the money’s not life-changing. But the perks can be good. As Keipert was, you can be paid in experiences.
Example? After every Masters at Augusta National, there’s a ballot among media. And the winners of it play the course. It’s Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket.
You are allowed in the Champions Dressing Room. You are assigned a caddie. You play the Sunday pin positions.
You tell everybody in the world.
Brendan James, barely two minutes into Esteemed Former Editor status at this magazine, took video of himself teeing off on the famous par-3 12th hole called ‘Golden Bell’.
His horizontal Sherman Tank has now been seen [checks YouTube] precisely 709,362 times.
It’s a few more clicks than this column will receive given numbers aren’t flash when you’re largely positive (so there's some LIV stuff to come to argue about).
It’s the power of the course. The branding. The stuffy old men in green coats, give them their due, have created Nirvana.
If nothing else, the Masters at Augusta creates stories. The last nine, on the slick, hard greens, everything is in play.
On 13 and 15, eagles, birdies, bogies, doubles. The leaderboard changes. That year when Charl Schwartzel won with four straight birdies, there must’ve been 10 contenders, including Scott, Marc Leishman and Jason Day. You didn’t know where to look.
Cream rises to the top at the Masters. And there’s a lot of cream.
This one we’ve again watched nearly every shot of these last four days through the taste of 4am coffee has been typically compelling.
There’s lobotomised automatons with other-worldly ball-striking - Scottie Scheffler. There’s silky machines and flat-bellies - Collin Morikawa and Max Homa. There’s Kid Fantastic, in his first major, Lucas Aberg.
There's the old man of the sea, Tiger Woods, a whole other column. (Suffice to say I reckon he'll be back, the human body has the capacity to heal and Tom Watson was 59 when he should've won the Open Championship. Come at me, Huggan.)
There’s Bryson DeChambeau blazing his way around the joint, a madman, combustible, he looks so stiff, he looks terrible, all bunched muscles over chips and putts. He could shoot 65 or 80. He could uproot a sign and carry it about on his shoulder. That, friends, is entertainment.
While the course has favoured the automaton – Nick Faldo has three jackets, for instance – it was designed by Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie for the swashbuckler, the maverick, and to suit Jones's high draw.
Seve Ballesteros and Phil Mickelson were multiple champions. So was Bubba Watson who hooked an 8-iron from the forest on 10, you’ll never forget it nor un-see, no matter you weren't there.
To win the thing, you have to hang on when you have to, record some sort of birdlife on the par-5s, and chip from the tight, slick surrounds with the nerve of the Wolf of Wall Street. Across four rounds of golf, you just have to be really good.
The Masters, as a limited field, invitational, has an almost boutique feel. The jackets understand – not typical for very, very rich people – that ‘less is more’. There are 89 starters. Maybe 30 are legitimate shots.
They could bring the number of contenders up and do a good thing by golf by inviting the best LIV guys. Talor Gooch should be there. Abe Anser. Branden Grace. Our Lucas Herbert reached 40-odd on the asterisk-heavy OWGR list.
They did invite Joaquin Niemann, it appears as a pat on the bum for winning the Australian Open and having a crack at getting his points up via the establishment-sanctioned DP World Tour.
Yet the jackets could’ve hastened the end of this damnable war-of-sorts by inviting the half-dozen best LIV golfers along. They have that discretionary power. They don’t answer to a committee – they are the committee. They invite whom the like.
So, bung some LIV guys in. Make a statment. Bring them in from the cold.
Then LIV can invite PGA Tour players in as wildcards. Invite entire teams. Bring The Golf League’s teams in to play against LIV teams. Boston Common versus Bryson’s Crushers. Mate versus mate.
Another column.
Another damned good idea.
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