Sitting at home listening to the rain and thinking about the weather delay for the first round of the Masters. The long winded words below will describe some of my experience taking in Tuesdays practice round.
Preface: I'm in my mid 50's and played and watched golf most all my life. I wouldn't call myself a huge fan, but have had numerous magazine subscriptions over the few decades as well. I instantly was drawn to PAYNE STEWART (my all time favorite player RIP), Chi-Chi Rodriguez, and a few others. Then along comes the changing of the guard with Tiger, Phil, Rory, Sergio to name a few.
Fast Forward: I'm a member at a private club and try to play at least once a week between work, fishing and other hobbies. One of my partners got selected from the lottery last year to buy two tickets to the practice round on Tuesday and asked me if I wanted to go. This being my first pro golf event AND the MASTERS, I put in time off for a few days and we went this week. Leading up to it, there was a bit of excitement and bragging as the tickets are usually given out via lottery system with the option to purchase.
Experience: Well oiled - Efficient.
Experience - the drive in: Left Savannah at 5 a.m. and arrived at the course just before they opened the gates at 8. Coming in off the interstate, the lanes were directing traffic, people standing on the highway with signs wanting to buy tickets and people charging $40 to park in their lawn. Once on the campus, the flaggers walked every vehicle to their spot.
The Walk In: No cell phones or bags larger than 12x12x10, weapons, etc. but they did allow cameras (which I didn't take). Very easy an quick process scanning tickets, getting through the metal detector, bag inspection, etc.
Food (Concessions), Gift Shop, Toilets: Food was cheap - $2.50 for a loaded biscuit or pulled pork sandwich, beer was $3, as a few examples. Everything had a line and sometimes a huge. The Pro Shop (gifts) we had to wait 45 minutes just to get in. It made Disney Land look like an amateur, but every line was moving, they had attendants all over the place and it worked. Zig Zag rope columns had you thinking you were in the shop, but only to realize you had another 10 minutes of zigging left before getting in. Yes, even the toilets had ushers guiding folks to keep the line going and move down to the next pisser or that a stall had just opened up. Trash bins were all over the place and didn't see the first bag over 1/4 full and not the first piece of trash or butt on the ground.
Friendly: Staff - Everyone and I mean everyone of the staff was like meeting a friend. Patrons: Everyone of the 50K people in attendance was like hanging out with guys at the course on a regular day.
The Course: OMGooooodness-! Words such as Immaculate, Pristine, Spotless, Flawless, Amazing, could be used to describe it. What you see on TV is even better in person. I was awestruck most of the time. I did mention earlier that there wasn't the first weed? It was nice seeing things in person that the cameras don't show.
Players: As this was a practice round, there really wasn't a set schedule for players or at least they didn't post it on the boards until the tee'd off. But when we got there, we saw that Tiger, Justin Thomas and Fred Couples had started and of course were pulling a huge group of patrons. We were able to hustle and get there to see them teeing off on the first par three. We were a bit away, but could still see their faces.
Players cont: Fast forward, we were still humping the hills and came to a tee box with a few patrons gathered and they said that Tiger, JT and Freddy were heading that way. Well, I grew roots and stood firm for 20 minutes because I wanted to see them up close. It was amazing to stand within three club lengths of them and look at their features. The one thing I can say is they are the same as what we see on TV, minus the filtering. Yes, it was cool to see the Tig, but seeing Freddy up close was just as nice.
Players cont - Practice Area: Got to see Bubba, Scheffler, Theegala (one of my favorites), Sergio, Zander, Max Hauma, Finau, to name a few up close on the putting area. It was so chill to see them go through their drills with the caddies and coaches almost machine like.
Walking: Quickly learned that I'm out of shape because that course is rolling. We did almost 10 miles and were on our feet for about 7 hours combined. One thing for sure, I've not been much of a fan of "Masters" gear, as its just not attractive to me, but I did at least have to get a coffee cup for the souvenir cabinet and a flag for the office.
I'm glad I went and took a few days off afterwards. Got to represent the Savannah Bananas and meet some cool peeps.
JR.
Ps, resellers where stupid nuts: People buying tons of shirts, gnomes etc. and walking with bags of merch. Even saw guys with sleeves of plastic cups they had dug out of the trash for resale. One guy said he's getting $10 each online for a 12oz plastic cup that he had a beer in or dug outta the bin.
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Originally Posted by spoon33
