A Major Obsession E-Book

Kenneth Robert Reid

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 459

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Kenny Reid has avidly followed golf's majors for more than 30 years. Through the luminescent glow of his television screen, and even, on occasion, from the vantage point of the roped-off boundaries, he has watched the greats of the game stamp their mark in the history books of each of the golf world's premier tournaments. In 2009 he decided to go a step further, decided that it was time to live the dream of all golf enthusiasts - he embarked on a pilgrimage, a 'fan slam', to each of the four majors - the Masters, the US Open, The Open and the PGA Championship - all in a single year. A Major Obsession chronicles this golf fan's odyssey. In an effort to record every detail of the fan's experience at the majors at Bethpage, Augusta, Turnberry and Hazeltine, he experiences excitement, mishaps, surprises and feats of brilliance. Not a golf insider or writer, he records each championship's special feel and ambience from the everyday fan's point of view. The journey takes him to the heart of the spectator experience, comparing and contrasting each championship's highs-and-lows both on and off the course. It mixes the sublime with the ridiculous; the expected with the unexpected. Original, quirky and brilliantly insightful, this fan's-eye account of the best players and tournaments in the world is a must for all lovers of sport and of golf; it is entertainment, travelogue and user manual to the most spectacular golf tournaments in the world.

Leseprobe

A MAJOROBSESSION

A MAJOROBSESSION

One Fan, Four Golf Championships

KENNY REID

This eBook edition published in 2011 byBirlinn LimitedWest Newington HouseNewington RoadEdinburghEH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

First published in 2010 by Birlinn Ltd

Copyright © Kenneth Reid, 2010

The moral right of Kenneth Reid to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-091-3

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Preface

Planet Augusta, Golf’s Shangri-La

The Masters Tournament

Golf in the Free World: by the People for the People

The US Open Championship

Where the Land Meets the Sea: the Home of Major Golf

The Open Championship

Ten Thousand Golf Balls, Ten Thousand Lakes

The PGA Championship

Epilogue

The Mystic Chords of Memory

Acknowledgements

Appendix

Attendance and Travel Tips

For Bob and Moira

Something is missing from golf as experienced on television. The third dimension is missing. The serene space of it all, and the singing flight of the happily struck shot. On television, every shot appears to jump off to the right, like the worst sort of shank. Again and again one is amazed to be told that the shot that just went sideways off the screen is right on line – that, far from a shank, it has wound up 10 feet from the pin. Also, the distances are impossible to judge on that little screen, so that players take 9-irons for what look like targets in the next country. And the greens don’t show their slope or swales, so that putts move in a weird magnetic field insulated from the contours that would be obvious if we were there. Being there, really, is much of the joy of golf.

John Updike, Golf Dreams

Preface

By trade or profession I am neither journalist nor writer. At heart I am simply a golf fan. I’ve played since I was a boy, and I love the game.

This book is not the work of a professional author, an established member of the media or golfing insider. I hope it’s a book for golf fans and golf lovers everywhere. For years I’ve watched all the majors on TV, read about them in books and magazines, occasionally listened on radio, and attended a few, too.

I hope this book can take you out of your armchair and onto the courses along with me as I enjoy a golfing odyssey, watching the world’s best players on some of the best courses, playing in the best tournaments. As in all endeavours, I often came to rely on the kindness of strangers and friends, some of whom you’ll meet in the forthcoming pages. In an effort to give the average golfer a look behind the scenes that go into the making of a major, I made various requests; some were granted, others not. It was all part of the experience of trying to put this book together.

To avoid argument and correspondence from the pedants out there, I have chosen to call each of the championships by the names used by their respective organising bodies. So within these pages there will be no ‘British Open’ in the same way as there will be no ‘US PGA’.

I hope you enjoy this journey into the crucible of golf’s greatest events: The Masters at Augusta National; the US Open at Bethpage; The Open Championship at Turnberry; the PGA Championship at Hazeltine.

Planet Augusta, Golf’s Shangri-La

The Masters Tournament

I was glad Cabrera won, although I’d liked to have seen Kenny Perry win. My husband’s from the same small town as him in Kentucky, and it’s just a wide bit of the road.

Elaine Harris, Roswell, Georgia

MASTERS WEEK: GO SOUTH, YOUNG MAN

Shangri-La is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a place regarded as an earthly paradise, especially when involving a retreat from modern civilisation’, and I was very lucky to be coming to such a paradise, Augusta National, for the second time. After a three-day visit in 2007, Augusta took root in my golfing psyche. It’s an amazing venue, almost literally breathtaking.

The Masters is the only Major with a true sense of place; no other Major has that same feeling. With that comes a clear feeling of time and history. If the other majors play in your mind on some mundane multiplex cinema, Augusta National is IMAX High Definition, an assault to the senses with sharp, brilliant colours, near-perfection wherever you look.

For years The Masters has provided invigorating climaxes, drama at every turn. I’d watched it religiously on TV, my first real recollection Ben Crenshaw’s long, twisting, 60-foot snake of a putt at the 10th in 1984 that kick-started his drive to victory. Gentle Ben’s win followed Seve’s second green jacket, and preceded Langer’s first. And then there was 1986.

On that fabled Sunday afternoon, Seve and Greg Norman rode into Choke City while ageing gunslinger, the Golden Bear, shot 30 on the back nine and carded a 65. It was Jack Nicklaus’ sixth green jacket and an amazing display from a written-off 46-year-old. I still have that round on videotape (remember that format?), and marvel every time I watch.

Of course, before my own real-time memories were the great battles and victories of Ben Hogan, Slammin’ Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer. And, lest we forget, the victories of Nick Faldo, José Maria Olazábal, Phil Mickelson and Tiger. Although recent Masters Sundays have bordered on the anodyne, many others at Augusta National have been the benchmark for major golfing excitement. Much of that is down to the course.

Seeing Augusta as I did in 2007, you are smacked in the face by its sheer scale, its vastness, its tranquillity, its quest to be the best course it can be for the best Masters possible, year after year after year. The Masters tries to be the best of all possible golf tournaments in the best of all possible worlds. It succeeds.

On each of my seven days at Augusta – Monday to Wednesday in 2007; Thursday to Sunday in 2009 – I always entered via Patron Corridor, past the golf shop, the exhibit stand and the right of the first fairway. You double-take on seeing the slope that heads from the front of the teeing ground and runs down from the left, then steeply up to your right. This first view of the course is a blow to your solar plexus.

Through the dip, on the left of the first fairway, massive pine trees demand your attention, watching over you, challenging you to believe that they are as tall and magnificent as they seem. Everywhere you turn, similar trees abound, most guarding fairways, some guarding greens. It’s horticulture on steroids. Hyperbolic, it grabs your breath and beggars belief.

As you stagger, dizzy with myriad sensations, up towards the first tee, you see the tricky 9th green, the 18th green, the long sweep down to the 2nd green, and beyond, the beauty of the 7th green. Can this really be where some people get to play golf? What perversity of chance or upbringing or wealth allows for such inequity in The Golfing Life?

But then you realise it doesn’t matter, because you’re here and the rest of the world isn’t; you’ve seen it and so many haven’t, and most never will. The bigness – a clumsy word, but it seems right – of Augusta National is there at every turn. When Bob Jones first came to the old and dilapidated Fruitland Nurseries in the spring of 1931, he saw immediately that the land was perfect. So much so, Jones was hard pressed to believe it wasn’t specifically designed for his purposes.

Visitors to Augusta National get a sense of what Jones saw. Rolling hills, the flora and turf, the humps and hollows; Jones sensed which areas demanded tees, fairways and greens. It comes as no surprise to learn that when routing the famous 13th – the boomerang par-5, ‘Azalea’ – Alister Mackenzie designed it seconds after first seeing the creek and sweep of the land. Hidden in the mists of time, the 13th had been there for centuries, waiting to be discovered. Of these things legends are made.

The more you drink from the fountain of Augusta’s beauty and grandeur, the more you start to notice some of the paradoxes. The greens are large, but somehow they feel small. Then you realise the humps and the hollows, the swales and the steps on many of the greens mean that landing areas require precision, the utmost skill, the correct shot choice. You notice that each green is a different shape, the generous parts often presented at less than straightforward angles to the approaching player. Bunkers and humps beside the green eat and cut into the green contours, nibbling away at the target areas.

You begin to understand the illusion of smallness is a trick of the eye, the large greens dwarfed by the scale of everything else. There are 18 greens, but at Augusta National these cover over 110,000 square feet, more than double that of traditional US courses of the 1930s. The course is set among trees as high as the ancient cathedrals of Europe. And you also know that this coming Sunday, there will be more worshippers at the church of Augusta National than anywhere else on the planet.

Augusta National is beautiful and energising, a supermodel of a golf course. Augusta National is a rush, a golfing high. But first you have to get there.

My Tuesday morning flight via Paris was smooth and punctual, and once I was through the pain of Atlanta airport, I grabbed a cab to Ansley Golf Club, a lovely, picturesque 9-hole course almost in the heart of the city. After a game and some food, I am given my ticket for The Masters. The Tournament Badge (or Series Badge, Thursday to Sunday) has a face value of $200.

So, this is the hardest ticket in sports? Literally that’s certainly true, as the ticket is laminated plastic. Perversely there’s a mere safety pin affixed to the back to secure golf’s greatest spectator prize. I am transfixed; this is where my journey really starts, and the next few days all hinge on this small and ultimately ephemeral thing in front of me. I feel like I am holding the winning numbers in the lottery, or a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. My whole trip depends on this, and if I lose it a replacement could cost me $5000.

For the next 36 hours, much of my focus is on not losing the ticket, checking my pockets every 15 minutes to ensure it’s still there, all of which obsessive compulsive behaviour probably greatly enhances my chances of losing it. By the time I get to my Atlanta hotel I’ve been awake for around 24 hours. I’m told not to go walkabout in this part of town, but I’m heading for only one place: bed.

The next day it’s Wednesday, the day of the Par-3 Contest, played only hours ahead of the main event itself. I’d been to the contest, unique in all of golf, once before, in 2007. There are no tee times, and people start lining the holes long before the one o’clock start. Tiger doesn’t usually attend. First staged in 1960 when it was won by Sam Snead, it takes place on a course measuring 1,060 yards and is played over DeSoto Springs Pond and Ike’s Pond. Scenically, the course is an oasis of the sort that will lie just beyond the pearly gates. The course record of 20, seven under for the nine holes, is held by the late Art Wall and the late Gay Brewer.

Waking from my slumber, I realise that the past champions will also be stirring after the night before at The Masters Club, more popularly known as The Champions’ Dinner. Each Tuesday of Masters week since 1952 – when defending champion Ben Hogan chose to host a meal for fellow champions – the current holder hosts and chooses the menu. Notable dinners include the one held to be the least popular, Sandy Lyle’s (which featured haggis); the most unique for all the wrong reasons, Tiger’s (cheeseburgers and milkshakes. I’m not sure if there was a drive-thru option); and the one many considered the best, Vijay Singh’s Thai option. Just reading his menu makes one salivate.

Seafood Tom KahChicken Panang CurryBaked Sea Scallops with Garlic SauceRack of Lamb with Yellow Kari SauceBaked Fillet Chilean Sea Bass with Three Flavour SauceLychee Sorbet

I was looking forward to a great four days of golf, and although my long journey via continental Europe had been a bit trying, it could have been worse. That morning the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported that the FBI had charged a passenger on a flight from Honduras to Atlanta with a felony charge of ‘interference’ for manhandling a flight attendant. Unfortunately the passenger in question, one Joao Correa, had eaten something dodgy before boarding the plane and was facing a very public evacuation of his bowel. He claimed the attendant wouldn’t let him use the Business Class toilet during the plane’s ascent. He’d faced a nasty choice – a felony or crapping himself in public.

Having never been to Atlanta, I decided to take a look downtown. To the untrained eye the centre doesn’t appear to have any particular focal point, but its avenues are leafy, and as almost all the buildings are new, there isn’t much of a feel for the Antebellum Deep South. There appeared to be only one sign of the credit crunch – a retail unit was for let, although how it had failed was beyond me, as it clearly catered for a highly specialised clientele: CIGARS – SCREEN PRINTS – ICE CREAM.

I passed the tall, cylindrical Westin Hotel. In March 2008 a tornado swept through the city and the 73-storey hotel lost use of 320 rooms, with windows blown to smithereens. The curved glass had been custom-made, is no longer in production, and 81 rooms remain closed. Rumour has it that the insurance company has been paying the full nightly rack rate on each. The hotel is due a makeover to bring the whole structure in line with new building codes, and all 6,000 windows are to be replaced. Glaziers, get your tenders in now.

After meandering through Centennial Olympic Park, which salutes the city’s achievement of hosting the 1996 Olympiad, I reach The World of Coca-Cola. The famous brand has its headquarters in Atlanta, so I felt a visit would be appropriate. As with most US attractions, it’s done very well. The guide, perhaps predictably, knew a lot about Coke and its 2,800 other brands. Among the fascinating facts we learn are that Fanta has 200 versions, 80 of which are orange, and the first diet drinks produced by Coca Cola were TAB and Fresca, both notable because, as a young boy growing up in 1970s Scotland, I thought they tasted like old shoes.

In the shop I purchase something I’m not likely to find in Scotland, and perhaps is only available in the South, a Coca Cola toothpick holder. The kind of handy thing a redneck would have next to a bedside photo of his favourite cousin. With my purchase I head off to pick up my hire car, anxious to get across to Augusta and put the 150-mile drive due east behind me.

The laneage to Augusta was excellent. Laneage (lane-age) was the newest word in my vocabulary, courtesy of the traffic announcer on 97.1 The River, ‘Atlanta’s only classic hits station’. The word has yet to reach the Oxford English Dictionary, but this can only be a matter of time, because every time I use it people laugh and give me strange looks.

My hotel was just off the Bobby Jones Expressway, and once checked in I focused on tomorrow’s golf, facing a conundrum. On TV and on the Masters website the first published tee time is 08:00. But nowhere, not even by googling, can I find the time Arnold Palmer would hit the ceremonial tee shot. Every published time for the gates’ opening was also 08:00. It didn’t add up that people would just be coming onto the grounds as play began. And what of Palmer, was his drive just for members, guests and invited officials? I booked my slot for the first shuttle in the morning, 07:00. I turned the TV off and hit the pillow.

Drifting off to sleep, I was excited about the days ahead, especially at the thought of seeing Augusta National again. Heightening my anticipation, Tiger had continued his return to form. Overturning a five-shot deficit with some stellar play, in his last outing he had shot a final round 67 to win at Bay Hill. It was his sixth victory at the Orlando club and his first since the US Open at Torrey Pines. Woods was back.

MASTERS THURSDAY: CHAD CAMPBELL IS COLLECTING BIRDIES WHOLESALE

Masters Week had already seen inclement weather, but when I went for breakfast at 06:20 it was balmy enough for a golf shirt and shorts. I was the only passenger on the first shuttle bus, arriving at the course 15 minutes after seven, and was delighted to see crowds already streaming towards the gates.

I recalled 2007, when my heart had quickened as I began to realise that I was on the verge of something I had never fully imagined – I was approaching the grounds of Augusta National, the famed golf course of Bobby Jones and The Masters, something I had watched on TV since I was a boy. Goose pimples formed and the adrenalin started to pump, I got the kind of feeling when you’re about to phone a girl, hoping she’ll come out with you.

Turning left off Berckmans Road I walked in past the big green gates of Gate 6, up to the turnstiles, and then another 80 yards to the metal detectors.

‘Morning, Sir.’

‘Good morning, welcome to Augusta National.’

‘Welcome to The Masters.’

‘Enjoy your day at The Masters, Sir.’

Every guard made eye contact and greeted me. It’s a special place. I was back in Shangri-La.

The Patron Corridor – which houses the tournament golf shop, exhibit area, merchandise shipping and checking, toilets and the first concession stand – was teeming. By the time I got to the gates of the course, I delightedly found myself only six rows from the front. Barring an unforeseen hitch, I would have a good view of Arnold. I could relax. As I waited at the gate, it was all as I remembered it. Sky-scraping pines, the fresh scent of spring flowers, and the laser-sharp green of the fairways. This was Augusta National.

Belying the advertised opening time, the gates parted at 07:40 and in minutes, briskly walking – no running at Augusta – patrons scurry in all directions, heading to the holes of choice to plant their chairs for the day. Like multicoloured ants, lines of people head from this gate up to the 1st green and onwards down the hill to the likes of the 2nd and 7th greens. Others, on the opposite side of the course, stream in through Gate 10 to make for the picture postcard scenes of the 12th and 16th.

I’m delighted that I have got up and come down early. I’m in the first row of standing patrons at the teeing area and, with three rows of seated patrons in front of me, my view of The King will be unimpeded. The standing patrons are ten-deep for the first 100 yards of the hole, and at 07:50 Arnold Palmer is announced and walks on to the tee to great applause. Smiling, he turns to Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne and says, ‘There’s one thing wrong this morning, Mr Chairman, I ordered fog,’ and everyone laughs, tension lifted before his single shot of the day.

Arnie stands up, has a couple of waggles and smacks a lovely fading tee shot into the bright blue sky, much to the delight of the assembled fans. The Masters is underway, and just like that it’s on with business. Without any fanfare, it’s down to golf.

‘Fore please, Ian Woosnam now driving.’

No mention of his 1991 triumph. Today, on the tee, he’s just a slightly podgy Welshman who played a lot of great golf back in the day. Augusta National and The Masters are, paradoxically, all about understatement. One friend of mine, who played representative golf for Scotland and was at Augusta in 2008, was taken aback at the basic, routine nature of the announcer on the first tee. But that’s how it is at The Masters. Keep it simple, keep it nice, keep it perfect.

It’s already a beautiful Georgia spring day, a cloudless sky, pleasantly warm and everywhere the luscious green of the course, the sparkling sugary-white1 bunkers. The sky is a piercing pale blue. I’ve been here just an hour and already it feels like golfing heaven.

The second game out features lone Scot and 1988 Masters Champion, Sandy Lyle. Although now 51, Sandy still possesses serious firepower and I follow him for two holes, firstly to see if he makes the 2nd green in two, and secondly to see one of my favourite parts of the course – the view from the middle of the fairway at the 2nd, down to the green, bringing into view the 7th green, framed by five bunkers. For me it’s one of the few sights in golf that can take your breath away.

Sandy’s first drive is a quick pull, and he’s in the pine straw left. Amazingly, as one of the spectators remarks, Sandy walks up to his ball, has a quick look, then plays a punch-hook that makes the green but runs through the back. He must know the course and his swing like the back of his hand – Lyle takes all the time over the shot that you’d expect from a 12-handicapper trying to sneak in a few holes before his wife discovers he’s left the office early.

Watching Sandy and playing partners Billy Mayfair and Tim Clark go about their business at the first green, hardly anyone speaks. Those who do, do so in hushed, almost inaudible tones. Birds chatter in the trees. A private jet tears across the sky, heading for nearby Daniel Field and disturbing our contemplation of golfing serenity. These hushed tones are not the exception, they are the rule. Sandy starts with a double bogey, pumps a big drive 320 yards down two, then hits another quick hook. It could be a long day.

The breathtaking panorama from the crest of the hill at the 2nd typifies so much of Augusta National. You feel as if you are looking down into a vale of golfing perfection, with so much space, greenery and golfing excitement to come. Imagine the scene in some old Western when, after months of struggle, the settlers’ wagon train comes to the head of an escarpment, and below lie the pure and rich lands of their future. I have never seen anything quite like it on a golf course.

The terrain feels like some massive golfing homestead. In overall area, the course is more than twice the size of the Old Course at St Andrews. St Andrews is notoriously compact in the layout of its 18 holes, all holes contiguous with another, but imagine if there were only nine holes on that hallowed strip from the Auld Toon to the Eden estuary: that would be a lot of room for each hole, and thus it is at Augusta.

The course and its holes have been so well documented down the years. Thousands of articles, books and television hours have burned it onto the armchair viewers’ psyche, but you’ll never be prepared for your first view of it in the flesh. Augusta National is unique in other ways that are not immediately visible to the naked eye. Very rarely do consecutive holes have the same par: 9, 10 and 11, and 17 and 18, are the only two stretches where this happens, all par-4s. On every other stretch consecutive pars differ, providing a great test and much variety. Similarly, from exact tee to exact green, no two consecutive holes go in the same direction. It’s the ultimate examination.

I walked back to the first tee as Greg Norman, Bernhard Langer and Lee Westwood appeared. You’d think from his reception that Greg was a multiple winner of the green jacket, instead of a guy who three times had one arm in the sleeve of sport’s most coveted piece of clothing before Jack Nicklaus, Larry Mize and Nick Faldo ripped it off his back. Norman smashed his tee shot right down the middle, delighting the fans. As he walked from the tee, cheers and shouts rung out. This would happen for the rest of the day, every time I saw Norman. Apart from the top players like Phil and Tiger, the only other players who were consistently encouraged and greeted by the majority of fans were Greg, Fred Couples, Rory McIlroy and Rocco Mediate.

I’m equally mesmerised by Norman’s reception and the awfulness of Bernhard Langer’s golf shirt. It’s black, fawn and red, and looks like something a Formula One driver would wear on his day off. Or the kind of thing a mother would put on her seven-year-old son – in the 1970s. Langer has won The Masters twice, but the encouragement he receives compared to Greg is miniscule. Maybe a better choice of clothing would help.

The starting time of 10:01 is left free, a gap to allow play to get away smoothly, so I head to the golf shop.

On my first trip in 2007 I made a beeline for the shop, but this time I was only buying for friends. Just as well, because my last three visits went $900, $400, $200 spent: very easy to do in an Aladdin’s Cave of kit with golf’s most famous logo, the yellow badge in the outline of the USA, pin placed at Augusta. Although the logo is instantly recognisable, many accept it without knowing what it represents. One Masters Champion of yesteryear referred to it in his autobiography as the ‘funny little badge in the shape of Augusta National’. Oh dear.

Although most people interested in golf recognise it, the same cannot be said for others. A few years ago my dad was accosted by a lady in the local garden centre, asking where she could find a certain plant. The lady took his Masters slipover for the logo of the store. A mildly ridiculous incident, although there’s a nice charm in the thought that the former Berckmans’ nursery is still showing up in horticultural outlets around the globe.

The shop was mobbed, kit flying off the shelves. Just as well it is restocked on a half-hourly basis. Just about the only thing they didn’t appear to have was something I saw in the University of Michigan shop in Ann Arbor – a musical pizza cutter. I’d like to see this added to the merchandise, provided it plays the CBS music used for the broadcasts, or perhaps the dulcet tones of Jimmy Nantz, CBS sportscaster: ‘Here we are in the Butler Kitchen for the green pepper ceremony, with my good friends, cheese and tomato’.

The other item they don’t and never will sell in the shop is the coveted green jacket, the most prestigious piece of clothing in sport. Although personally I wouldn’t normally be seen dead in a $250 sports coat, never mind a bright green one (it’s pantone 342 for all you chromophiles out there), I would make an exception for the Hamilton Tailoring Company of Cincinnati’s tropical-weight wool jacket, even with its nasty rayon lining.

Leaving the shop and temptation behind, I checked my purchases and went to grab some food, another unique experience at Augusta National. The prices are stuck in the 1950s and it’s an open secret that the food is sold at a loss. The Tournament Committee wants everyone to have a great time, nobody is ripped off. You can spend more in a day on food at the other majors than you’ll spend all week at The Masters.

Being at Augusta National each year, The Masters is a five-star symposium for all of those involved in the world of golf, and the old oak next to the clubhouse is the meeting place of choice. As I stand under it, a member’s guest appears from the lawn enclosure, wearing tatty combat shorts and even tattier sneakers. It was good of him to make the effort, I thought. Quite the dandy. The spectator mix is surprisingly diverse. The mysticism surrounding tickets encourages the expectation that most patrons will be silver-haired, perma-tanned, minty-breathed billionaires wearing cashmere, and Rolex Yachtmasters. While that is true of some, the spectator profile is much more heterogeneous. Some look rich, many look as if they couldn’t afford the bus fare to the end of the road.

I watch the world go by and games tee off, content to soak up the sun and listen to the quiet babble of excited patrons. As I contemplate how lucky I am, I spot Bob Rotella making his way down the first hole, off to track Padraig Harrington’s progress. I own all his books, CDs and even a putting DVD featuring Brad Faxon (I need to get out more). I notice Dr Bob’s wearing a pass that reads, ‘JERRY BELLIS’, in an effort to stop fans pestering him. Bellis is the President of Titleist Golf Balls. I wonder if Dr Bob would be able to stay in the moment if I went up and said, ‘Hey, Jerry, great to meet you finally, we’ve only ever spoken over the phone or exchanged emails’? Maybe next time. Realising I have now been meandering for the best part of five hours – the beauty of Augusta does that to you – I decide I need to get out onto the course again.

As I watched the field begin this year’s Masters, out on the course some were lighting it up. With little or no form to speak of, Chad Campbell had broken a Masters record and birdied the first five holes. Hunter Mahan had made gains at two of his first six, and Englishman Ross Fisher had birdied four of the first eight. The consequence of a small field – 96 players – is that it’s packed with quality. After Norman’s game, I watched, in succession, Rose, Stenson, Cabrera; Vijay Singh, Ogilvy, Els; Weir, Harrington, Imada; Mickelson, Villegas and Furyk. No wonder I wasn’t in a hurry, as each one sent that pristine white ball into the flawless, sharp blue sky, before returning it to terra firma, the rich, deep green of the first fairway.

Wandering down to Amen Corner, I’m thrilled to see the most famous stretch of golf on the globe. It’s a popular place to be, so I take a seat in the Observation Stand. Winston Churchill2 described Russia as a ‘riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’: he might as well have been describing the wind down at the lowest part of the course. It’s not uncommon to see the flag limp at 11, fluttering at 12, and then five seconds later the opposite is the case. With a green only 10 yards deep in the middle at the 12th, it’s your worst golfing nightmare.

Norman, Langer and Westwood come to the tee. Again, Norman’s greeted like a champion and I decide to follow the group for a while. At the 15th I notice two gents sitting in chairs, apparently with a theodolite at their disposal, as well as a clipboard containing a set of notes that would put Mission Control during the Apollo 13 crisis to shame. I ask them what they are up to.

‘We’re just doin’ a bit of work for the club,’ one replies in the friendly but direct tone of a policeman at work. I get the message. I move along. I follow Norman’s game down to the 15th green, walk round the back of the stand to the 16th tee, and find myself with a perfect view straight up the length of the short hole. It’s a beautiful sight and one of my favourite holes on the course, as much for its look as its playability.

It’s an outstanding golfing arena in a natural amphitheatre, with water, the green and three bunkers flanking the front, left and right, towering trees and a lot of people: beautiful. And what you see is basically what you get. A big green, severely sloped from front to back with a ridge that runs virtually across the middle from right to left. In my dreams I hit a nicely drawn 7-iron that finds the middle of the green and bleeds down into the hole for an ace. In reality, I’m likely to come up off the shot slightly early – looking for the ace – and hit a necky cut into the front right bunker, leaving me with a world of pain. Given it’s the third last hole of the tournament, it has to be one of the greatest arenas in sport. A guy comes past, asking if this hole is 6. 6 is a par-3 down the hill at the back of the 16th green. As we know, 16 is one of the most famous short holes in golf. Okay, they are next to each other, but so are Manhattan and New Jersey.

A friend had put me in contact with South African Richard Sterne’s caddy, Ritchie Blair, so I head back to the clubhouse to catch his game playing the back nine, hoping to gain some insight into how the players approach golf’s most famous holes. And as luck would have it, Chad Campbell is in the game behind.

I cross from 16 to 17, over 7, across 3, 2 and 8, and as I get through the trees and round to the 9th, the Dane Soren Kjeldsen, Sean O’Hair and Sterne are walking down to their drives on the bottom right-hand side of the fairway. There are some marshals trying to identify who’s who. These gentlemen are part of the scoring and stats teams, collating shots hit, fairways found.

‘Is that O’Hair or Sterne?’ one asks the other.

‘I’m not sure, not too sure,’ comes the assured response.

O’Hair was all over TV a fortnight ago, surrendering a 5-shot lead to Tiger at Bay Hill. There wasn’t exactly a dearth of coverage on this. O’Hair is also a blonde, 6ft 2in. In sharp contrast, Richard Sterne was not all over the media recently, has dark hair, is 5ft 7in and is South African. As if this is some sort of comedy routine just for me, they now focus, having left the previous conundrum unsolved, on Soren Kjeldsen.

‘How do you pronounce THAT name?’

‘It’s Kenjerson.’

Nobody’s perfect, but that’s not even close. I leave Abbott and Costello to it and continue onwards.

The 10th hole blew me away when I first saw it. The hole encapsulates what Augusta is all about – vastness; precision; change; ornamental beauty. Running from virtually the practice putting green, away from the clubhouse, straight down a steep hill with a drop of about 100 feet, banking to the left towards the green, the 10th is massive in every sense. It started life as the 1st hole, a relatively short and easy par-4, the original green nestling in the trough beyond and below the large fairway bunker. However, a combination of early, damp starts and the green’s location saw it moved by architect Perry Maxwell up onto the plateau where it currently resides, nestled in a natural amphitheatre of tall, majestic pines. The morning dew also meant the hole became the 10th in 1935, and the new green was first used in the Masters in 1937.

Those who govern Augusta National have always embraced change, but they also understand a good thing when they see it. The relocation of the 10th green renders the fairway bunker useless for the pros, it’s too far back from the putting surface, but the ornamental, variegated splash of feldspar is the perfect counterpoint to the massive green fairway. It’s one of the most beautiful parts of the course. About 100 yards shy of the bunker the fairway tilts dramatically, a slingshot towards the green.

I followed the three-ball down the 10th, hoping that Ritchie, Sterne’s caddy, would be able to enlighten me on some of the playing secrets at Augusta National. Raymond Russell (1996 winner of the European Tour’s Cannes Open) had put me in touch, and I’d managed to grab Ritchie before proceedings started. I wondered how he’d come to caddy for the world number 56 who’d finished 25th in his first Masters the previous year. Disillusioned with his job working for a large Japanese electronics firm back home near Glasgow, Ritchie was about to resign but was made redundant instead. This gave him the opportunity to do some looping on the local Scottish circuit, making his way onto the European Tour where, after a few years, he picked up Sterne’s bag. From a drab factory in Scotland’s industrial heartland to the hallowed fairways of Augusta National: sweet.

Sterne was down the middle at the 10th, having driven with a three-wood, the extra loft allowing a bit more control and the ability to turn the ball right to left down the dogleg, landing at the ideal spot, 250 yards out, giving the desired kick down and round the corner. Par. At the 11th the pin is cut in the very front tongue, only a few yards on the green. It’s a very narrow target to be going at with a long iron on this devilish 505-yard hole that will play the hardest all week. Just missing the green right, he faces a very slick pitch, water behind the hole, and although he hits a good chip, Richard makes bogey.

At the next hole, the 12th, the wind is, as ever, a key factor. Gauging what the others did and how the wind affected them, Sterne hits a hard 9-iron, but there’s very little room for error and his ball travels further than he anticipated, landing long and left in the flowers and shrubbery behind the green. Fortunately, after a few minutes of searching, O’Hair’s caddy finds the ball. Double bogey.

By now Sean O’Hair is 2 under and moving nicely. This is ideal, as I’ve placed a small wager on him this week at fairly long odds. Although pumped at Bay Hill by Woods, O’Hair’s swing is modern, highly repetitive, and he’s one of the few under-30s to have multiple wins on the PGA Tour. I believe he’s one day destined for a major. As O’Hair and co. make their way to the 13th tee, I watch Campbell play the 12th. He’s still at 5-under after his electric start, but he stripes his short iron, emailing his ball straight into Golden Bell’s inbox – a matter of feet away, he taps in for birdie and moves to 6-under.

At the 13th Sterne hits a good drive but it’s up the right side, not a boomer down and round the corner, so it’s a cautious shot or a very risky tonk onto the green. He lays up, hits a good pitch that’s pin high but fails to feed down the slope left of the pin, otherwise he’d have been close. He almost holes his 20-footer for birdie but has to settle for par. It’s not Richard’s best stretch, and the simple equation of missing the green at 11, going long at 12 and failing to birdie 13 means he’s played the famous Amen Corner in 3 over. He’s now level for the tournament. Poor positioning and hitting the wrong shot at the wrong time kill you at Augusta National.

O’Hair birdies to make up for a blip at 12, and they proceed to the 14th tee behind me and to the right. Again I hang back and watch Andres Romero, Boo Weekley and Chad. Romero is having, at best, a mixed round. He bogeyed the eagleable 2nd, holed his second for eagle at the 3rd, and bogeyed 6, 7 and 12. He birdies 13, as he did 11. The Argentine’s scorecard is like a high school maths exam, while Weekley must be dreaming of huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’: he’s plus-2. Campbell birdies the 13th to get to 7-under, and the fans are going wild, getting right behind him, urging him to go really low.

I follow Campbell up the 14th, the straightaway, bunkerless, 440-yard par-4. He hits a lovely drive, a great approach into about eight feet and he strokes it in; 8-under and hotter than a phosphorous grenade. He’s now picked up quite a following as news of his peerless golf continues to spread.

At the 15th Sterne’s hit a big drive of around 300 yards, leaving around 220 to the middle of a green that is well downhill and very shallow, only 15 paces deep at the left side. Coming in high to the green is always good, the softest possible landing, and initially they discuss a 5-wood, but soon reckon this is too much club. After debating the relative merits of a 3 or 4-iron, Richard hits a 4 onto the green and makes birdie. Back on track. Unfortunately, at the next Richard goes straight at the pin, which is cut front left, and his ball catches the slope and drops into the pond. It was merely a yard or two from being a great shot, but again he pays the ultimate penalty.

At this point it’s time for me to stop following this three-ball, as the game behind has history in the making.

Would I have the chance to see history made on my first major day of the year? Campbell had continued his flag-hunting at the long 15th, picking up his ninth bird. After starting with five in a row, he’s just had four on the trot. Finishing on his current tally would equal Augusta National’s course record, 63. Going one better would give him something nobody had ever achieved in a major: 62.

The hillside left of 16 was packed with anxious fans waiting to see if Campbell could maintain his form. I stood on the walkway left of the pond, between the two sections of seated patrons, making sure I wasn’t impeding anyone’s view. Although there were thousands surrounding the green, there was absolute quiet. Even the female friend of Andres Romero stopped her incessant Spanish chatter and watched.

Campbell took the tee and flushed a 7-iron, his ball on a frozen rope, right at the stick. I watched the ball shoot from my right to left, tracking its progress against the backdrop of the trees. It landed right over the flag and stopped 12 feet beyond the pin. A treacherously quick putt, but makeable to get to 10-under.

‘There’s some 70-year-old men going to be pissed off tonight,’ says one patron next to me, referring to the low scoring and the Tournament Committee. The crowd is all on its feet, clapping and cheering, acknowledging Campbell’s play so far and what may come. Chad leaves the tee, tips his hat and nods, almost embarrassed at the attention. I’d met Campbell two years before at Prestwick, and asking him how his round went, you’d never suspect this modest guy was a world-class golfer. It’d be nice if someone so unassuming could make history.

You could cut the air with a knife, it was thick with expectation.

‘Go, Chad, get it to ten, baby,’ shouted one beer-fuelled patron.

The crowd willed his birdie putt into the hole, but it wouldn’t drop: Chad just missed. There were still two holes to go.

Sadly Chad pulled his next two tee shots and made bogeys on both 17 and 18. The dream of a 62 was over, but he’d played great golf and was in the lead at 7-under. If he could continue that form, he was going to have a good week. As well as money on O’Hair, who finished minus-4, I’d also wagered on Jim Furyk, who stamped his own brand of excellence in round one with a 66, one behind Chad. US young gun Hunter Mahan was also there with a 66. Tiger had eked out a 70, tucked in nicely behind the leaders on the first bend.

Later I get chatting with a few caddies and have the chance to congratulate Craig Connelly, Paul Casey’s bagman, on victory last week in the Houston Open, the Englishman’s first win on the PGA Tour. Most of the caddie chat is around how easily the course played today, something borne out by the excellent scoring. This is revelatory; Augusta National demands utmost accuracy. It becomes clear that top caddies have a very different perception from the fan, and even from some very good players. They see golf in a totally different light. Some of the pins that look tricky to me are considered rich pickings.

Recently, some tell me, the experience at The Masters has not been a happy one. Although much talk in the press is of the course’s length and how it is ‘destroying’ the tournament, the consensus among the caddies – and presumably the players – was that length wasn’t the issue; it was the fiery greens that were problematic. When the greens were hard, any approach not landing within a foot or so of where it needed to be spelled misery for player and caddy. Shots that were just off perfect finished on the wrong tier, on the wrong side of a swale, off the side of the green, in a bunker – it was just too penal. And to add insult to injury, this often strained relations between caddy and boss.

As I told one of them, I could in a small way relate to this. When I watched players hit their seconds into the final green, the pin cut on the back tier, in 2007 practice rounds, I could hardly believe what I saw. Of the dozen or so balls that landed on the upper step, all pitched, skidded and ran well beyond the pin, usually off the back of the green. Anything that landed on the bottom of the green or on the upslope was in the lap of the Gods: some skipping up, others checking and staying on the bottom level. To me, sitting and watching this, the test at this one hole alone appeared too severe, especially when most were coming in with long to medium irons.

Leaving the guys to finish up for the night, I decide to head home, hoping to beat the Tiger Rush. As I cut up a walkway parallel to Patron Corridor, Condoleezza Rice passes, saying hello in the process. I’m flabbergasted. As the US Secretary of State she used to be the most powerful woman on earth, and she’s surrounded by a handful of associates whom I presume to be a mix of close protectors, friends and colleagues. She looks like a very nice lady, and you wouldn’t peg her as someone to sanction hours of torture, although I could imagine her sternly telling me to tidy up my bedroom.

It’s just before seven o’clock, I’ve been at Augusta almost 12 hours, and I haven’t even had a single beer. I collect my purchases from the merchandise-checking area and head for the shuttle. Between the receptive greens, the great weather and lots of fine play, especially Chad Campbell’s brush with major destiny, it’s been a great day of golfage.

MASTERS FRIDAY: EVERYBODY LOVES ROCCO

Getting back to my hotel on Thursday was a total bind. My focus on getting down to see Arnold Palmer in the morning had meant I hopped off the bus without taking note of when the uplifts were.

To exacerbate my angst, I didn’t have a phone. After I had hung around for the best part of an hour, a kind gent lent me his. The shuttle driver told me he was on his way back through the diabolical traffic, so Ray and I got chatting. He’d been coming to The Masters for a decade, always buying tickets in the open market from the same supplier. This year he’d paid $450 per day (later in the week I’d meet others who paid $1,000). Not cheap, but not a king’s ransom for anyone looking for a once in a lifetime trip.

Ticket prices had definitely been credit-crunched. Ray said 2002 was the height of Tiger Fever, when four-day badges were being traded for around $5000. In 2008, while shadowing Tiger for his entertaining book, Follow the Roar, Bob Smiley pitched up at Augusta without tickets and paid a total of $4,100 to get in Tuesday to Sunday. Out of interest I’d taken a look at prices on the web a couple of weeks prior to the tournament. I found some tickets at $1,300 plus tax for four days, and some at $5,000 plus tax. Ray and I agreed the latter were hoping to snare the unsuspecting.

Many packages advertised come with accommodation, transfers, some golf and The Masters bundled up, taking the pain out of travel. Many include hospitality, food, drink and flat screen TVs at houses nearby. I am told that some of these houses are actually bought just for the week of the event.3 In these pavilions – as the houses are grandiosely called – food and beer flows freely. I put a call in to one company, explained what I was doing and asked if I could come along for a look. I don’t think they quite got it... it’d be $250. I asked if I could pay for half a day. Brian said he’d call me back. I never heard from him again.

I’m sure these packages are great for corporate and frequent visitors, but in the two visits I have made to Augusta, I’ve spent all my time at the course. And the food at The Masters is ridiculously cheap. Some companies will try to take advantage of you. One golf travel company was charging customers $65 per day for a Masters chair, and it wasn’t clear to me if it was theirs to keep after the event. In the shop they are $29 plus tax.

In terms of accommodation, don’t be afraid to slum it. Ritchie, Sterne’s caddy, was staying in a house at $1,000 for the week. Sleeping on the couch were two Italians, there with Ritchie’s housemate and fellow caddy. No big deal usually, but one was Daniele Massaro. Part of the 1982 Italian World Cup winning squad, he also scored two goals for AC Milan against FC Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League Final. Sadly, along with Roberto Baggio and Franco Baresi, Daniele missed a penalty in the 1994 World Cup final, gifting the World Cup to a Brazil team led by Romario. I’m guessing that his nights on Ritchie’s couch at $750 for the week were not his first or last sleepless ones. If he can slum it, so can you, especially when, as everyone floods to Augusta for the week, the local economy has a captive market and hotel room prices go up by a multiple of five.

On Friday morning I arrived 30 minutes before play, so headed round to the practice area. En route I passed a van delivering flowers to the clubhouse. The company name, Floral & Hardy, gave me a chuckle, although I’d have much preferred if they’d been called Stamen Corner. The seats at the range were wet with dew, so I didn’t stay long and wandered back to the first tee. Wandering at Augusta National is one of the perks of attendance. Meandering and walking mindlessly are also fun, it’s just so beautiful.

I watch as Badds, Bubba Watson and Graeme McDowell tee off. I decide to walk up the 1st with the next game, watching Mark O’Meara, D.J. Trahan and Pat Perez, golf’s current answer to an improvised explosive device. Perez won the Bob Hope earlier in the season and has a lot of heart, but he gets so annoyed he makes Colin Montgomerie look like Mother Theresa. He told Golf Magazine the PGA Tour suggested he attend anger management therapy; surely enough to piss anyone off. Annoyingly Pat pars the 1st and doesn’t helicopter any clubs into the trees, snap his putter over his knee or strangle any junior patrons.

Watching D.J. hit his approach off a beastly 320-yard drive, the guy next to me provides encouragement. Jim, along with his buddy, Allen, from Clemson, South Carolina is, like Trahan, a Clemson alumnus. He doesn’t know D.J., but his son does, and it turns out that this is Jim’s 47th straight Masters. He barely looks old enough to be 47, never mind a patron of such long standing. His first tournament was in 1962, Arnold Palmer’s third green jacket. Just a boy then, Jim was watching Palmer play one of the short holes, and as he saw Arnie discard his cigarette butt, asked a marshal to pick it up and give it to him.

A few years ago, Jim ran into Arnold up at the clubhouse and told him the story, and how he still had the cigarette butt.

‘Really? What was I smoking?’ teased Arnie.

‘L&Ms.’

‘You got it,’ replied the great man.

D.J. secured par and went on his way. In a recent edition of the TV magazine show, Inside the PGA Tour, Trahan stated a wish to win majors. Compared with some US players’ unwillingness to compete in all the majors available to them, I like his style. And he’s obviously not daft. He described the putting test at the Bob Hope as a challenge ‘in and of itself’. I love that the 15th club in D.J.’s bag is a book of idioms.

Walking down the left side of the 2nd, I run into O’Meara’s coach, Bruce Davidson, formerly of Kings Links in Aberdeen. I last saw him in a bar in Machrihanish on Scotland’s west coast about ten years ago; he had a Scottish accent then. He’s surprised to learn I’ve twice heard him mentioned on TV as O’Meara’s new coach. I tell him the last time was just over a week ago, when Keith Fergus holed his second shot on the penultimate hole of the Champions Tour Cap Cana event to beat O’Meara and Andy Bean by a shot. I commiserate with him on the narrow miss: and he tells me he also coaches Keith Fergus. Nice work.

Bruce continues to follow O’Meara, but I stay and watch Freddie Couples, Rocco Mediate and amateur Jack Newman. The 2nd green is a mini-amphitheatre, the bank behind the green allowing all patrons a clear view of the green and the wide, lush fairway beyond. Rocco’s birdie putt drops, and he shrugs and shudders his shoulders, looking skywards to indicate his good fortune. In a world of mainly anodyne, faceless pros, this amounts to extreme histrionics in modern golf. That’s why we love Rocco, the golfing everyman.

I follow the game up the 3rd, one of my favourites. The hole remains virtually as it was when the course was first built, and at a mere 350 yards, it’s arguably the most old fashioned, and it’s the shortest par-4 on the course by 90 yards (both the 14th and 17th measure 440 yards). From the tee one can see the crest of the fairway and the complex of bunkers to the left of the landing area – four bunkers flank the left side and run for around 30 yards. The fairway is narrow by Augusta standards at this point, and trees and rough hog the right side. To take the bunkers out of play it’s a 233-yard lay-up or a 280-yard carry up the hill. Then the problems can begin.

This green is an isosceles; the narrow end to the left is 11 yards deep, it’s 19 in the middle and 29 yards on the right side. The pin placement dictates how to approach, and demands accuracy. Anything long or big presents a very tough up-and-down for the pro, never mind the Average Joe. Unless the ball is directly below the cup on any given day, there’s probably not an easy straight putt on this entire green. Over the bunkers and down to the left the fairway falls away sharply, so any chip from there is both blind and challenging, up a steep bank. It’s a superb hole that shows that length doesn’t have to be a factor. On meeting Bobby Jones during his early Masters years, Gary Player remarked that he found this hole, despite its length and apparent innocuousness, very difficult to birdie. Mr Jones replied that was because the hole wasn’t meant to be birdied. Simple. This comment alone sums up the strategy put into Augusta National’s design.