Tag: Golf Media

(Editor’s note: All week long, Golfweek has celebrated the beautiful walk that makes this game great. We started the week with a piece by columnist Eamon Lynch and we finish it with senior writer Steve DiMeglio. We have more staff selection, too. To see the rest, click here.)

I’ve walked across the Swilcan Bridge and stepped into the Road Hole Bunker at the Home of Golf. Twice ambled through the forest, across the massive sand dunes and along the craggy California coast at Cypress Point Club. High-stepped 190 yards to the green at the 17th hole of the Dinah Shore Tournament Course after my lone hole-in-one – 6-iron, still have the golf ball.

And there have been far too many walks of shame, including the time I staggered onto the photogenic island green at the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass after dumping three in the H2O to lose a match.

But no walk in golf matches the two I’ve taken alongside a caddie wearing white overalls and a green cap. Among the towering Georgia Pines. On a former nursery that became Augusta National Golf Club.

Two bucket-list jackpots hit when my number came up twice in the media lottery to play the Monday after the Masters – in 2008 following Trevor Immelman’s victory, in 2017 after Sergio Garcia won the green jacket.

From the moment you learn you’re one of the few lucky souls to have the magical number, you walk a bit taller and smile a bit more – and make absolutely sure the alarm clock goes off and pray the sun is shining on Monday.

I’ve roamed with delight for hours on end the rims of all 18 holes for 13 years covering the Masters, but on those two Mondays, when all the spectator bleachers already have been dismantled and the roars whistling through the pines have faded, the silence blissfully still rings and the colors still burst.

I could have done with just warming up on the old range in 2008 and the present substitute which is a spectacular homage to getting loose, for no one does antique like Augusta National. You’re left thinking the current practice ground has been in place since Alistair MacKenzie and Bob Jones drew up the first blueprints.

Then you walk through the clubhouse to the tee – the 10th in 2008, the first in 2017. And you tell your playing partners and caddies that you are going to slow play the whole way around. And each time, I never walked slower in my life.

Already on a cloud looking down on Cloud Nine, you ascend even higher when you hit your first fairway in regulation with your first tee shot in 2008. Then your first green in regulation with your second shot. Then run your birdie putt from 20 feet 8 feet by but make the comebacker.

Then you walk Amen Corner.

You discover this huge mound some 40 yards short of the 11th green on the right that TV can’t capture. The elevation change is real on early every hole, especially down the 10th and up the eighth. The sand is as pearly white as you see on TV, the fairways cut as tight as you hear.

Then everything gets even better.

My tee shot on 12 – to the traditional Sunday far-right pin placement – carries Rae’s Creek just far enough to set up a birdie putt from 15 feet. I inched my way across the Ben Hogan Bridge. And then I buried the putt for my first birdie at Augusta National – still have the ball and always will.

My first three-putt came on 13, my first four-putt came on 14. But I didn’t care, for this was not going to be a good walk spoiled. The shank on 15? Hurt for just a second. Par off the pine straw and through the trees on 18? Touchdown. Birdie on 8 from four feet and then on 9 from three feet? Felt like Tiger.

Nine years later was just as grand. Chipped from just in front of the lone Palm tree on the course at the fourth hole. Wrote down a quad at 5. Birdied 7 from short range and 13 with two putts. Four-putted 14 again. Nearly jarred it on 16, the divot but a foot away from the cup.

You dial up some history along the way, too, and try the chip shot from the left of 16 that Tiger holed in 2005 and the one on 11 Larry Mize holed in 1987. You try and sink the putt Jack Nicklaus rolled in on 17 in 1986 and the putts on 18 that Phil Mickelson and Mark O’Meara canned to win a green jacket. You stroll into the pines to where Bubba Watson hit his 40-yard curveball to the 10th green in 2012, you try the Sandy Lyle bunker shot from 1988.

Every step was wonderful each year, all pictures from 10 Instamatic cameras still on hand. I’m can do Rain Man and remember each and every shot to this day.

Each year was the best walk in golf I’ve ever taken, a stroll in an enchanted setting that leads you through history and the wonders of this game.

As the days drew down, you knew you had to take the walk past the massive oak tree on the golf course side of the clubhouse to your car to depart. But as you drive off Magnolia Lane, your mind is still racing with memories that fade ever so slightly. Great memories of great walks.

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