Tuesday, April 14, 2009

I return to you a different person, worn smooth from wandering the hallowed grounds of Augusta, made full by one too many pimento sandwiches, wiser, tired, baked by the merciless Georgian sun, and privy at last to the darkest rituals of golf. What I knew about the Masters was culled from television footage and hearsay, and experiencing it firsthand was like watching the televised footage and hearing the hearsay, times 20.

The grounds were immaculate. Outside the club, you had your potholes and your Arby’s and your camo’d camper parked in front of a Fresh Market peddling “official” John Daly merchandise. Inside, however, it was picturesque, like someone had taken nature and improved upon it. Normally I don’t support trees or even sunshine, but it was easy to shelve my principles and soak up the gorgeous weather, along with three sandwiches and cup after commemorative cup of drink. It was gluttony, albeit the classiest kind, and the line between want and need blurred for an afternoon.

What was even more delicious was witnessing how the greats reacted to mistakes. It was comforting, in a way, to see professionals get mad and for a single moment draw from the same pool of frustration I know all too well. It was a confederacy of rage, a shared experience with the difference being, of course, that they were able to lock down their nerves and move onto the next shot quickly. Hats off to them for the ability to do so, too, because I can’t imagine how playing the same course for four days straight could possibly be fun. Apparently someone also changes the locations of all 18 holes every day? It’s, like, thanks a lot, asshole.

And then, just like that, the pleasant weather ended after our day at the Masters, with waves of rain bookending some quality road trip time with the Chief. I had assured Earth Chick I’d bring him home safely, a promise made out of respect for the Incident, and I held to it, cleaving honorably to the velocities prescribed by the highway signs. The odds were stacked in my favor, anyhow, because my automobile has an altogether different relationship with birds. For starters, it’s immune to double bird strikes, mainly because I try to ram into birds in triplicate. And even if we had ended up in the Hudson somehow, it’s likely a flock of geese would’ve descended majestically to lift the car onto dry land, then proceed to shit on it.