Going To The Masters: Beyond My Wildest Dreams
- thebogeymenpod
- 8 hours ago
- 8 min read
This April, two Irishmen achieved lifelong dreams of theirs, sure Rory winning The Masters and completing the career grand slam is a slightly more historic feat than me just attending The Masters, but it’s all relative isn’t it?
In November 2024 I threw out a silly question to my wife, already convinced I knew the answer I asked “Would you want to go to The Masters next year?” but to my surprise the dream wasn’t shot down instantly, we looked into how much tickets cost going through a tour operator and eventually agreed, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity like honestly how many people do you know that have been to Augusta?
Eventually the big trip came and on the 5th April we flew from Dublin headed to Augusta, we flew and drove through thunderous storms on the Sunday and Monday. I think seven people texted me or sent photos of The Masters’ announcement that due to those storms that patron’s won’t have access to The Masters on Monday and fear from a deep place inside me began to bubble up and my heart sank a little as I feared the worst ‘what if this storm continues tomorrow?’ ‘What if we don’t get to Augusta?’ ‘Will we get tickets for Wednesday?’ ‘Will our tickets be honoured at all?’. After what was supposed to be a two hour drive, which took 4 hours because of Tornado warnings and storms we arrived at Augusta, picked up our tickets and went for dinner in the Chop House, which if you’re going to The Masters is a great place for a steak.
Dinner ended and by 11pm on Monday nerves had turned to excitement as the weather forecast was on our side and after a poor night’s sleep we arose at 4am and jumped in the car. Cops and stewards guided us into the carpark and as we pulled up to park a whopping 200 metres from the entrance gate at 6:15am we joined the queue of equally nerdy golf fans. Even my wife who has no interest in golf has bought into the contagious excitement in the air.
As dawn approached the North gate of Augusta National opened at 7am, the first wave of a few hundred golfers crossed the threshold and became patrons, some for the first time, some returning, we were in the second wave and my feet touched down on Augusta National ground just after sunrise did at 7:05am.
We made our way through the security turnstiles, bumped into Chad Mumm from Netflix who I had interviewed a few weeks before and reached the Augusta National practice grounds and my first impressions were not what I had expected. I thought seeing the iconic greens and fairways and flags and sandwiches would awaken a giddiness in me similar to what I felt as a child when I first went to Disneyland. This wasn’t the case, I had an overwhelming sense of peace, a calmness that felt almost spiritual or religious, similar I imagine to what visiting the sistine chapel is like for a devout Catholic or visiting the holy city of Mecca for a Muslim. I tried to take in everything the golden sunlight hitting the bunkers, the yellow flag dancing in the breeze and the communal happiness of everyone on site.
My wife, always the brains of the operation, suggested we queue for the merchandise store first thing so that we can enjoy the rest of the day at our leisure and 100% that was the right call, we queued up and bought what we wanted and needed to get for ourselves, friends and family before returning to the car, dropped our bags off and re-entered the course, by this time it’s now 9:45am and we haven’t eaten a thing so you all know what we did next, the hits just kept coming, these iconic experiences that I am so thankful for. We filled our arms with everything we could carry: Pimento Cheese sandwiches, club sandwiches, BBQ pulled pork baps, warm tomato pies, which are just empanadas, egg salad sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, fruit bowls, peach ice-cream sandwiches and of course soft drinks and beers in the collectable plastic cups.
I’m not a big fan of cold cheese so the pimento sandwich was nice but I wouldn’t have more than one. The chicken sandwich is good, it’s a cold breaded chicken fillet in a brioche bun, it would be nicer if the chicken was warm, for me the best sandwich was the BBQ pulled pork. The Masters introduced a new tomato pie that is very good. I had about 3 of those. The best food item by a long shot was the peach ice-cream sandwiches! Vanilla ice-cream with peach flavour and some peach chunks in between 2 cookies, I still have dreams about this ice-cream!
Now fully fuelled, we made our way onto the historic fairways. We walked every hole 1 to 18, following Dustin Johnson and Joaquin Niemann, then Corey Conners, Freddie Couples, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas but as special as it is to see those superstars, the real celebrities are the holes themselves, seeing how big the bunker on the 1st fairway is, the massive elevation drop on 10, the falloff behind the back of 6 green were more exciting than anything else.
We spent a good portion of our day sat on the grandstands between 15 green and 16 tee, watching the competitors practice their approaches into the tricky green, particularly interesting when we watched Rory walk off the back of 15 green as Harry Diamond threw balls to different corners and Rory hit delicate little chips towards different corners of the green. This time is always fascinating because we get to see what the players’ strategies are to play certain holes, obviously Rory had intended for his miss to be long all week, as we saw on Thursday and round 1, exactly that happened and he made double, those moments during practice rounds are such fun to watch in my opinion, then it’s matched by a really fun and light hearted experience, just a few yards away on 16 tee where players and some caddies are skimming golf balls across the water to thunderous applause and cheering.
If I could recommend one place for future patrons to sit and watch on a practice day, I’d say sit down behind 6 green, it’s a great sun trap and just one fairway away from the concession stands and some cool beers. We watched player after player some through, some struggled with the green, it’s two tiers and severe greenside run offs. Robert Macintyre and Viktor Hovland are two who I remember really couldn’t get to grips with it, whilst others like Bernhard Langer coasted through making it look easy.
Amen Corner is as beautiful as it looks on television, but it’s all so much bigger in person, the trees are massive and tower from a huge height, the bunkers short of 10 are enormous, as is 11 green, but as beautiful as it is you really get a better view of 11 green, 12 and 13 tee on television. Unlike every other hole you can’t get close to Amen Corner and sure that adds to some of the allure around these holes, but a lot of the magic of Augusta is that you can get up close to these features on every other hole and properly experience the nuances of the green surrounds, the elevation changes and the uneven-ness of the fairways, it would be so special to get close to the 11th green and see how severe the dropoff is to the right of the green.
As we got into the mid-afternoon, Meghan and I took a seat at the driving range. This was a great way to catch some players you specifically want to see, we watched Jason Day, Min Woo Lee and Bryson plying their trade. Each swing was aspiration, and this was a nice chance for us to rally and come up with a plan for the final couple of hours on this hallowed ground. I got a real sense of camaraderie from our fellow patrons, everyone we spoke to was so upbeat about being here and they were all thrilled we were there too “Oh you’re from Ireland?” “It’s your first time here? Isn’t it amazing?!” Everyone was so happy to be here and they were so happy you were there too, I haven’t been to anything like it.
5pm. By this point in the day, our feet are beginning to ache, but we’ve rested at the driving range and agreed that we should go back to holes 11 to 16 and just soak up the magic one last time. Because the course closes at 6:30pm on practice days and Amen Corner is in the furthest corner of the property everyone else was walking off the course as we made our way out so as we crested the 11th fairway to see the green, we were one of maybe 100 people there during golden hour, the sun lit up Amen Corner and it was impossible not to fall in love with the place. Bryson was out practicing on his own and it was such a rare experience to see him completely alone, a very different experience to the “Youtube Bryson” I am very familiar with.
One special final moment we had was on 14 fairway as we were heading out to leave, Viktor Hovland had just teed off and was walking up the fairway, also practicing on his own which was a fact made more poignant because I knew he was searching for something in his golf swing, despite winning on Tour a few weeks prior. There was a beautiful moment as I was halfway across the fairway when I turned to watch Viktor striding toward me and thankfully I had my camera with me. 13 green behind him, Viktor marched alone creating a very small figure as the huge trees towered above him. Someone with a better grasp of the English language could explain it better but I’m glad I got a photo of it. He wasn’t small in a negative sense, it was actually just something poetic as if the course was telling me, the golfers aren’t the icons here - the course is.
It is a lot of money to go, if you’re booking through a tour operator, but if you can, you absolutely must go. There is nothing like it. What made the day all the more special for me was who I spent the day with. My wife is not a golf fan, but even she loved the day and that meant so much to me. It is very rare in life that we get to experience special moments with the people we love most in the world and so throughout the day there were a few moments when I just looked at her and was so thankful that I got to share this day with her, so if you do get to visit Augusta National, go with someone important in your life. It’ll make everything brighter, the greens greener, the ice-cream sweeter and the drinks cooler and as I age and reflect back on my life, these memories I know will be full of colour and warmth and like the patrons I met that day, I hope you too get to experience all the magic that The Masters brings.
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