Other than any week the Pats are on TV, this is my favorite week of the year!

[Shemp]

I've been fortunate to attend the Masters twice. Cameras don't do the place justice. It's like walking into the Land of Oz!

 

[Hawg73]

I had a chance to see a practice round at Augusta and a couple of things about the place really amazed me.

The first was that it is in the middle of kind of a honky-tonk miracle mile stretch of roadway which is very underwhelming and then you park your car in a huge parking lot and you wonder if you're in the right place. Then you walk through a row of trees and on the other side everything suddenly transforms like you stepped through a magic door into an alternate universe.

You walk down to the course and it opens out into this huge oceanic expanse of grass that is not part of the golf course proper and it's comprised of perfect, perfectly green and manicured grass as far as the eye can see. You have to look pretty hard to find a brown blade anywhere. It's mind-boggling because it really serves no purpose other than, apparently, to blow people's minds. It did mine.

The golf course is even more perfect than that and with way more flowers.

Also, something I did not expect was that the food and beverages are cheap as hell. You get a great sandwich for about $2.50 and there is nobody telling you what not to do. It's simply expected that you have fun but don't act up. You are supposed to enjoy yourself and the staff was tremendously capable and more friendly than I had imagined. Beer was abundantly available and ridiculously inexpensive. Spiffy rest rooms whenever you needed one. I figured the place would be stuffy. Dead wrong.

The atmosphere is tremendous. Like a trip into another, better time. I can't imagine what it would be like to watch a tight tournament there, because just seeing the place first-hand was a great experience.

 

[BostonTim]

I had a chance to see a practice round at Augusta and a couple of things about the place really amazed me.

The first was that it is in the middle of kind of a honky-tonk miracle mile stretch of roadway which is very underwhelming and then you park your car in a huge parking lot and you wonder if you're in the right place. Then you walk through a row of trees and on the other side everything suddenly transforms like you stepped through a magic door into an alternate universe.

You walk down to the course and it opens out into this huge oceanic expanse of grass that is not part of the golf course proper and it's comprised of perfect, perfectly green and manicured grass as far as the eye can see. You have to look pretty hard to find a brown blade anywhere. It's mind-boggling because it really serves no purpose other than, apparently, to blow people's minds. It did mine.

The golf course is even more perfect than that and with way more flowers.

Also, something I did not expect was that the food and beverages are cheap as hell. You get a great sandwich for about $2.50 and there is nobody telling you what not to do. It's simply expected that you have fun but don't act up. You are supposed to enjoy yourself and the staff was tremendously capable and more friendly than I had imagined. Beer was abundantly available and ridiculously inexpensive. Spiffy rest rooms whenever you needed one. I figured the place would be stuffy. Dead wrong.

The atmosphere is tremendous. Like a trip into another, better time. I can't imagine what it would be like to watch a tight tournament there, because just seeing the place first-hand was a great experience.

Great memory, Hawgie, nicely told. The Masters has always been on my bucket list. Gonna do it one of these days.

Cheers, BostonTim

 

[Number Cruncher]

It isn't spring until Arnie rips one..... about 30 feet down the first fairway.

 

[BostonTim]

It isn't spring until Arnie rips one..... about 30 feet down the first fairway.

Absent a bad spot, that's ten yards, and a first down.

Cheers, BostonTim