AUGUSTA NATIONAL GOLF CLUB (10th Tee, 8:45 a.m. Monday,. April 10, 2000) — I have snuck my way onto Augusta National. I cannot tell you how, because I must protect my sources. Anyway, that’s irrelevant now. The point is, I’m standing on the 10th tee to begin a round of golf that, in my mind, is going to be a redemption tour.
TO flash back, two years ago I was fortunate enough to have won the annual media lottery to play Augusta National the day after the Masters. It was my fifth Masters and I was finally picked.
Same sadistic Sunday pin placements, same wicked, slate-table greens and, for hackers like me, the same pressure as the real guys faced the day before.
That fateful April day, stricken with a virus-like case of the shanks, I went around Augusta National with tears in my eyes because I had been reduced to a mass of frightened humanity, scared of swinging every club in my bag for fear of where the ball might go.
The result was a humiliating 113. Not what a 12 handicap is seeking — on any course in any conditions.
The house rule states that once you win that lottery and play, you can never enter it again. One round and done. That’s it.
But surely I’d have to play Augusta again. Someday. It’s inhuman to subject a passionate golfer to one chance and done while he’s got the shanks. That’s like bringing a starving guy with his jaw wired shut to a one-time-only lobster buffet.
BACK to yesterday: I had to get back onto Augusta and I made it happen. The problem? I’ve again been battling the shanks all week.
Nevertheless, how many opportunities does one have in life? So I pressed on. Without as much as a practice swing, I crushed a drawing drive off the 10th tee that rolled to the bottom of the fairway hill at precisely 8:45 a.m. yesterday. Even though I had the shanks on my mind, I was exhilarated.
Suddenly, though, I realized after doubling the 10th (a good, nerve-calming double) that Amen Corner awaited immediately. This was the site of my Greg Norman-like meltdown two years ago.
There were demons to be exorcised.
What would transpire for the next 40 minutes or so I can only theorize was by the grace of God. I was heroic through Amen Corner — the place where Vijay Singh nearly lost the Green Jacket he would put on by day’s end Sunday and the place where David Duval positively lost the Masters.
I mashed a drive almost to the drop area on 11, punched a 7-iron to the front of the green and three-putted from about 70 feet for bogey. If you remember, Singh was in the water on his second shot. I was on the green.
On 12, a place where I’d shanked a 6-iron so far right two years ago that I never got a chance to walk over the fabled Hogan’s Bridge, I stiffed a 6-iron over the Rae’s Creek, over the bunker and onto the green to the very place where Duval put his shot Sunday.
After savoring the walk over Hogan’s Bridge and entering the utter serenity of the 12th green, I fixed the ball mark from my shot (never have I taken such pleasure in fixing a ball mark in my life) and two-putted for par.
On 13, I nuked another huge, drawing drive and had 220 to the pin. From there, I flushed a 5-wood over Rae’s Creek and just off the green to the left and ended up parring the hole.
If David Duval had played 13 on Sunday the way I played it yesterday, he might have overtaken Singh for the Masters title.
I’d settled the score; 1-over around Amen Corner after something like nine or 10 over the last time I was there. This was one of the thrills of my life.
What I would do the rest of the round mattered little. I’d conquered Augusta’s daunting Amen Corner.
I would end up shooting a 97 (shaving some 16 shots off the previous effort) and actually found myself playing my way out of the shanks — on Augusta of all places.
I finished the memorable day with only three pars and had 38 putts. But my performance on Amen Corner, and that I was able to stare down the shanks, left me with immeasurable satisfaction.
I left the grounds quietly and with a smile painted to my face.
