Pics from the Masters

Thanks to pool participant, Robert Belcher, for sending some pics from their trip to Augusta.  If you attend a major, send some pics my way and I'll post them on the home page.

Augusta National Live In Person Recap

** Old post from 2011 bumping to the top to get your Masters pants going crazy **


This is courtesy of one of our players who just got back from Augusta.  Thanks Tommy for the writeup!

Wednesday 

Got there about 10 when things were warming up.  The town is pretty ghetto surrounding a really nice country club.  We park our car and we're already in a good place bc its only 10 dollars. Its this low cost stuff that makes you really really hate Jerry Jones.  We walk about two blocks and we look over and theres this big bus with tables out in front of it with all this gear and it is 2 time major winning and 2004 comeback player of the year John Daly selling John Daly merch out the back of a truck.  

The police were in the process of shutting him down because he didnt have a permit.  I love John Daly.

We get in and security is like the President is inside.  On the practice round Wednesday you can have cameras but not for the rest of it.  And you can never have a phone on site. If you get caught with one they take your pass and youre banned for the week.  First thing you walk up to when you get in is the driving range which is nicer than any golf course I have ever seen.  Lot of younger guys were still at the range which is where I got that pic of Rory McIlroy.

The kid is unreal, 21 years old.  All of these guys are just smoking it down the driving range, bullshitting with each other at the same time.  The Asian players kinda keep to themselves.  But every single one of them is just textbook. 

We walk in to the main area and it kinda looks like Six Flags.  We decide we gotta try out the food. And as I told you earlier its dirt cheap. Sandwiches are all a dollar (egg salad, pimiento cheese, bbq, club, etc) Beers are 3 dollars.  (Stella or Budweiser, thats it. So awesome)  You get through that and then you walk up on the Big Board which is the entrance to the course.

This is the first thing you see which is looking over the 1 and 18 fairways down into a few other holes. 1 green is to your right, 18 to your left.

We kinda roam for a little bit and notice the crowd over on 10.  It turns out to be Phil, Freddie Couples, Rickie Fowler, and the US amateur champ Uehlein from OK State.  Everyones watchin Phil, but Freddie is the shit.  During the practice round all the players interact with the crowd and talk to em. Its really cool.  You could tell this group had some action goin on and the amateur was losin his ass.   The kid is tiny but pretty cool.  My dad and our other guy didnt care for him. I dont know if yall saw him yesterday but he literally wore all green Puma gear.  Shirt, hat, pants, shoes, belt everything. We followed those guys for another couple holes and then we broke off to go watch Tiger.  He was playin with his boy OMeara and Arjun Atwal this new guy from India who was supposed to be a stud but didnt play well yesterday.  

Amen Corner

Intermittently throughout we would break off to go eat more sandwiches. Went on to the Par 3 tourney which is a separate 9 hole course on the grounds which is unreal sick.  It would be the most fun thing ever to play this with friends and gamble.  It would be the nicest course that we would ever play and its only nine holes.  

We watched a bunch of pairings and everyone interacts with everyone once again.  Signing autographs and crackin jokes at each hole.  Really cool.  Then we watched the full 9 holes of Palmer, Nicklaus and Player. 

I kinda just left my dad alone on that bc he was in his own little world. We watched that and drank some more by that time it was about 5 so we went back to the hotel.  Pretty awesome day.

Thursday

(The dogwoods and azaleas are in full bloom,  the crowds are filing in here at Augusta National Golf Course.  Hi everyone I'm Jim Nance, and this is the Masters...)

I dont have any pics so this will be a quicker summary.  Got there at 6:30 bc the gates opened at 7.  Daly had not woken up yet.  You get in just as the sun is coming up and theres still a fog over the course and its like 45 degrees.  Its pretty surreal.  We walked the course first before any of the players teed off.  Its just the most amazing thing you've ever seen.  I know we say this but we really need to go.  It would be a shit ton of fun with friends.  Followed Dustin Johnson, Nick Watney and Adam Scott early on.  Dudes just kill it.  I think Johnson must drive the ball 360 yards.  Its pretty empty in the mornings.  What you wanna do is buy chairs and you run to a hole that you want to be at later in the day somewhere between holes 11-16 and put your chairs down.  Nowbody moves em or steels em so you dont have to stay there to save em.  It gets real hot by about noon.  Television gives you a fairly good view of how pretty it is, but it has no way of showing how impossibly hard it is.  The fairways are wide open and there is absolutely no rough.  It really is all just like youre walking on carpet.  But the impossible part are the greens.  TV has no way to show all the insane slopes and bumps in the green.  False fronts, big ol knobs right in the middle and the hole placement is just insane.  One hole they put on a little flat area about the size of a dining room table and the rest of the green is just an absolute nightmare.  One putt we watched broke 4 different times.  And theyre fast as shit so you barely tap it and it goes 40 feet and sometimes off the green entirely.  We were set up at one par 3 tee box after the previous hole which had the hardest green on the course.  And this young player DA Points who is a really cool dude from U of Illinois had all his boys there to see him.  And we are standing next to his friends and after the impossible green he comes to the tee box and see his friends and he just looks at em and shakes his head.  This was their exchange:

Points:  That was the hardest green I have ever played.

Friend:  Wow you really sucked back there

Points:  Shut the hell up, I could have you kicked out so fast

Friend:  Then you'd have nobody here to cheer for you

Points:  Security! This guy has a cell phone! I think he's tweeting!

We followed a few different pairings

Els, Mahan and somebody else (Els is so smooth, Mahan has an ex cowboys cheerleader wife named Kandi with a K and I)

McIlroy, Fowler and Day (McIlroy is incredible, Fowler dresses funny)

Tiger and whoever he was with (He as weirdly small feet, and he just doesnt seem the same anymore)

Westwood, Kaymer and Kuchar (Coolest group, Kaymer World number 1 had an awful day, but Westwood is sick and Kuchar is really cool)

Phil and whoever he was with (Phil has bitchtits.  But he's just happy to be here.)

The crowds all move with Phil and Tiger.  You could be waiting for them two holes ahead and have nobody around you and then all of a sudden you just see waves of people heading towards you and you know its only 1 of 2 people. Like I said the trim was a little disappointing.  I guess we are just spoiled from the Colonial and Byron.   Amen Corner is unreal.  Greens are unreal.  Food prices unreal.  Whole place is unreal.  And John Daly sells tshirts out of a truck.  We all really really really need to go.

TSom