Thrill of a Lifetime

Last Sunday was the conclusion of a very important week here in Augusta; Masters Week.  If you don’t live here, and don’t attend the golf tournament, you wouldn’t know the interesting things that occur during Masters Week.

One fact of interest is that many of the native Augustans leave town during the week for their very own “spring break.”  The public and private schools always have spring break for students during Masters Week for that very reason.

Another reason for people to desert their homes is that many lease them to the visitors for huge fees.  One person I know of leases a five-room house to the CBS Crew every year for $25,000.  It pays the mortgage on the house for the year. Many of the golf pros stay in the same houses every year too.  Of course, these are all in a beautiful gated community called Westlake.

The four-day Masters Badge entitles the spectator/holder to enter the grounds all four days of the tournament. It is a closely held privilege to own a badge, and they cost around $300 per year and are not exchangeable.  However, there are scalpers who do buy and sell badges and tickets for exorbitant prices—badges for up to $6,000.  Individual tickets are scalped for up to $500 for a one-day admission. 

The Masters is always held the first week of April in order to coincide with the blooming of the beautiful flowers that always surround the greens.  However, Mother Nature played a joke this year and all the flowers had bloomed early, so the flowers you may have seen in some of the opening and closing shots for commercial breaks were not really there on the course. No, this year it was a green course, not a colorful one.

I’ve lived in Augusta for six years and have never seen the Augusta National Course. It sits behind a 15-foot hedge and fence, and the course is not open to the public. Unless I am fortunate enough to win the ticket lottery and become entitled to buy a ticket, I doubt that I will ever see the course other than on television, though it is situated in the middle of the city of Augusta and I pass it at least once a week.

A nice touch that has been added in recent years is that any adult with a four-day badge or a daily ticket can take one child up to 12-years-old in for free.

Our local talk radio station, WGAC, provides golf coverage including traffic reports for Masters Week. The hosts are local sportscasters, and they take calls from locals and guests during the week. They also field calls from people who have seen celebrities among the golf crowd, many of whom come to the tournament.

One call came in Sunday morning from a caller who took her young son to the course earlier in the week on that free admission I referenced above. This woman and her son were standing by the practice green near the first tee box.

Tom Watson was on the green practicing before teeing off on his round for that day. He noticed the young lad watching him putt, and Mr. Watson walked over to him and struck up a conversation.  He asked if the boy would like to “putt a few.”  How could the kid refuse that offer?

Watson lifted the restraining rope and invited the boy onto the practice green, allowing him to use his putter and golf balls to stroke three putts.  The boy was ecstatic! What a kind gesture from one of the consummate gentlemen of golf.

The woman called in to ask if there was any way her son could send his letter of thanks (which he had already written) to Mr. Watson.  The radio host suggested the means to do so and thanked the woman for her telling the story on air. 

There is a memory that will last a lifetime for a young boy who was privileged to meet a legend of golf in a most unusual setting.  Don’t you just love a feel-good story like this?