My First-Ever Pro Golf Experience Was the 2017 Masters—It Was Magic
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The ball soars into the gray Southern sky, climbing higher, higher, higher, a thing of beauty to the 500 sets of eyes tracking its trajectory.
Dustin Johnson has just hit a pitching wedge at the par-three 12th at Augusta National Golf Club—the greatest hole in the history of holes (more on that later)—and those of us in the grandstand Wednesday morning during the practice round are hypnotized. As Newton's Laws take over and the ball angles toward the pin on its descent, three young women sitting next to me can't contain their joy.
"Mother of Gawwwd!" one yells.
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"Better than sex!" another proclaims.
"Holy s--t!" the third says in a not-so-quiet, not-so-hushed voice.
So we start to talk, the four of us, about the Masters. I tell them that this is my first trip to Augusta and my maiden pro golf event. Two of them are first-timers as well to this course that opened in 1933. Fist bumps are exchanged.
Oh, what a threesome they are. Here are their vitals: Marlowe Boukis, 30, is a graduate of Princeton who competed in the 2005 U.S. Women's Open; Chelsea Curtis, 29, is a former golfer at Georgetown who used to play on the LPGA Futures Tour; and Claire Sheldon, 29, was on the golf team at Harvard. For them—and for me—this is a bucket-list destination.
They are here on their own dime. I am here as a guest of Mercedes-Benz, a global sponsor of The Masters since 2014.
"Even if there were no golfers on the course, I would want to be here just to see the beauty of the place," Marlowe says. "I can't say I've seen anything prettier."
I couldn't agree more. After being ferried up Magnolia Lane in a shuttle bus—the canopy of 60 magnolia trees providing ample shade—I walk to the 12th hole. This little par three has fired my imagination ever since I first swung a club when I was four. The 12th appears so innocuous—155 yards, over Raes Creek—and yet it has been the demise of so many. Just last year Jordan Spieth, holding a three-shot lead on Sunday, dumped two balls in the water on 12 and made a quadruple-bogey seven.
"This hole is so nuanced, and that's what makes it so great," Sheldon says, noting that she has played the 12th and carded a par. "You have no depth perception. The wind blows one way on the tee box and the other at the green. Golf is a mental game, and this hole is golf in a nutshell."
We watch Johnson, who would withdraw from the Masters a day later after injuring his back in a fall, make par.
The four of us decide to walk the course, which has much more elevation change than you can detect on television. We make fun of the pretentiousness of the place—only here are fans called "patrons"; only here is the rough known as the "second cut"; only here is it considered an Old Testament sin for spectators to run—but we also marvel at the course's sheer majesty, its towering pines and manicured lawns.
Hard as we try, we can't spot a single pine cone or any other debris on the landscape, natural or man-made. The brushstrokes on the canvas couldn't be more perfect.
"I'm not a spiritual person," Marlowe says, "but this would be the closest thing I have to a church."
We near the 13th green when we broach the topic of the gift shop. They inform me that they heard a rumor that the record for most cash spent in that space—which is as big as a Costco—is $14,000. I confess that I laid out $210 earlier, including $16 for a dog bowl emblazoned with the Masters logo. "My puppy will drink water unlike any other."
"I bought four Masters coasters for $25," Marlowe says. "They are hand-stitched, man. They are so nice that I'm not going to allow anyone—ANYONE—to put drinks on them. Back off of my Masters coasters!"
We head over to the 14th. Now it's raining and a voice over the loudspeaker informs the patrons that the course is closed. We quickly buy four beers and four ice cream sandwiches. We walk to 15, beers and ice cream in hands, the course now almost empty.
We've been chatting so much that we only now remember that we don't have our cellphones, which aren't allowed inside the gates of Augusta. "If I can't Instagram it, then I'm pretty sure it didn't happen," Curtis says. "Man, I hate my generation." We all laugh.
We continue to the 16th, ducking our heads in the rain. I finally tell them the secret of why I love golf—and why I really love the Masters.
It was April 2003, a day before the start of the Masters. Me and my dad, a scratch golfer in his day, went out to play a mountain course in North Carolina. On the first tee box he said he wasn't feeling well, so he decided to just coach me from the cart. And that's what he did, telling me which club to hit and what lines to putt. I shot a 76, still the best round of my life.
I tell my new buddies that I can still vividly picture jarring a 25-foot putt on 18, and how my old man and I hugged so damn hard.
Two days later my dad—Robert Louis Anderson—was gone, having passed away unexpectedly at 64 from a heart attack. I watched the Masters one hour after my mother told me the news.
Now we're almost at the 17th and I explain to my new friends that at the time I was overwhelmed with two emotions: grief and gratitude. Naturally I was sad, but here's the thing: Golf had given me time with my dad—just us, alone together. I knew even then, 14 years ago, that whenever I would watch the Masters I would think of him, be with him.
And so it is, I tell my friends. They give me high-fives.
Finally, it is time for us to part ways.
"I've covered so many miles on golf courses in my life, but this has been the best," Chelsea says. "There really is no place like this in the world."
We say goodbye. Then, in the quiet, alone, I wander Augusta National and remember.
It was magic.
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