At Augusta, cellphones out of bounds
Bringing a smartphone to the Masters can be a pretty dumb move.
Atlanta’s Scott Feight learned the hard way on his first and only trip to Augusta National Golf Club about 10 years ago.
Feight, who runs a nonprofit organization that decorates hospitals with artwork, is no good Samaritan in the eyes of the men and women who help run the world’s most famous golf tournament.
Feight’s mistake?
Feight said he was given the opportunity to buy two badges to attend a practice round with his father, who unknowingly tried to bring a cellphone into the hallowed grounds.
Feight and his father were still allowed to attend the practice round, albeit after checking the phone. A few months later, Feight told The Associated Press he received a note from the club saying his badge-buying privileges had been revoked. Permanently.
“I’m cursed for life,” Feight said, somewhat jokingly.
Augusta’s ban of cellphones is rigid and not likely to change anytime soon as long as Chairman Billy Payne is in charge.
Yes, players can use them, but only in the locker room.
They’re also permitted in the media center, though a constantly streaming message on the video board warns reporters not to even think of taking their devices out of the building.
Feight knows.
The logo
When it comes to sports nicknames, Jerry West may have them all beat — it doesn’t get much cooler than “The Logo.” But the man whose silhouette adorns the NBA’s graphic representation said he thinks it’s high time someone else was handed the honor.
“I wish that it had never gotten out that I’m the logo,” West, 78, said on ESPN’s The
Jump on Friday. “I really do. I’ve said it more than once, and it’s flattering if that’s me — and I know it is me — but it is flattering.
“But to me, I played in a time when they first started to try to market the league. There were five people that they were going to consider, and I didn’t find out about it until the late commissioner [J. Walter Kennedy] told me about it… .
“Again, it’s flattering. But if I were the NBA, I would be embarrassed about it. I really would.”
The logo was created in 1969 by a designer and former high school basketball star named Alan Siegel, who told the Los Angeles Times in 2010 that none of the “40 or 50 designs” he showed Kennedy featured anyone other than West. A childhood friend of the legendary sports reporter Dick Schaap, Siegel was allowed access to Sport magazine’s photo archives and found what he wanted in a photo by Wen Roberts.
“It had a nice flavor to it,” Siegel told the Times, “so I took that picture and we traced it. It was perfect. It was vertical and it had a sense of movement. It was just one of those things that clicked.”