Discovering Augusta’s curious sense of paradise

Unique venue’s first impression surpasses great expectations

You never forget your first time. Don’t laugh now but mine was last Wednesday at a turnstile in a dawn-lit carpark. A genial, older gentleman with wispish grey hair and a light southern twang. He fondled my credential. I smiled nervously and pretended I’d done this before.

“Welcome to Augusta National,” he said. “Enjoy The Masters.”

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Now. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ re familiar with Augusta National and the Masters; the self-perpetuating mythology, the history, the nomenclature.

(Don’t mention the azaleas. Don’t mention the azaleas. Do not, under any circumstances, mention the azaleas.)

If not, it’s that golf tournament that looks like someone turned up the colour contrast on your telly.

On Wednesday, we went all the way. Consummated the relationship. Popped our Augusta cherry. Obviously, it’s a hardship to have to miss the Leinster football quarter-finals but these are the sacrifices one must make.

Anyway. Wednesday, 7.20am ET. In through the gates off Washington Street in the dim Georgia morning light, past the polite but firm security checks, sharp left turn and across the first sighting of those pink flowery things (absolutely do not mention the azaleas) across into the media centre that looks like it could double as the Queen of Sheeba’s spring residence.

Yeah, yeah. We get it. Nobody cares how Augusta National – or anyone else – look after journalists.

Why would they? Even the mention of it here is self-indulgence on a pathological scale.

But listen, the toilets flush automatically when you stand up and they have free bags of Skittles. I mean, come on?

Every morning this short walk. Every morning Augusta smacks you between the eyes with its green-ness. It’s obsessively maintained aesthetic.

And the people. The people are just so god-damn polite.

“Y’all have a great day now.” That accent. So ubiquitous in culture, and so parodied, the reflex is to suspect that the people here are putting it on. It’s contagious. By Friday, we were whistlin’ dixie ourselves coming in through the gates.

First morning. Wednesday. Practice day. Daily goal: try not to look too much like a greenhorn.

Our colleague, a gnarled Augusta veteran whose name is being withheld to protect his anonymity, plonked down and proffered some advice.

PK: “Don’t sit in here all day drinking f***ing coffee. Get out on the course.” Right so.

From the media centre, a two-minute shuttle journey through an underground tunnel brings you to Augusta’s central hub.

To your right, a gigantic manual scoreboard. You turn left and walk the hill towards the first tee box and there it is. Umph. Augusta National reveals itself like an unexpected blow to the solar plexus.

Wide – so, so wide – muscular dark green fairways. Plunging valleys. The course darts off in different directions, elevations. Peaks and dips, the scale of which you just don’t expect.

Century

Doesn’t matter how many Masters you’ve watched. Augusta National is not a place that can be fully appreciated through a two-dimensional medium. It was built in 1930 but almost a century later, it works extraordinarily well as a natural stadium.

The hills beside tee boxes make it possible to see, even on the first when the crowd is ten deep for Tiger. You can plot our own route, divert from front nine to back easily.

People mill about easily though. You forget sometimes that once attained through a lottery, tickets for this tournament are then kept year on year and passed on to relatives or friends. The familiarity isn’t just the course. It’s the people.

Mostly, the people here look like they’re half-expecting to tee it up themselves.

Q: How do you know someone is a golf fan?

A: They look like a golf fan.

You wouldn’t confuse Augusta’s patronage for, say, the firm at Millwall or the crowd at the Ally Pally. But it’s easy to see why this place is what it is.

Most of us who identify as sporting enthusiasts are suckers for an iconic venue.

Logically, all hurling games should be played in Thurles, just as all snooker tournaments should be held in front of the knowledgeable crowd™ at The Crucible.

The playing of anything resembling serious tennis should be strictly confined to the grass of Wimbledon or, at a stretch, that orangey-brown clay gear at Roland Garros. Often it’s as much about place that the venue is in as the venue itself.

Italia ’90 wasn’t just Big Jack, Packie, Paul McGrath and the boys in green, was it? It was Baggio and Schillaci. The Pope and Pavarotti. It was Nessun Dorma. The whole shebang. The essential Italian-ness of it all.

It’s why multi-country international tournaments are, largely, rubbish. They lack a singular cultural reference point. It’s why no sooner are World Cups in makey-uppey cities in the desert over than they are forgotten.

Augusta is a curious kind of paradise. It is solely about the venue and not at all about the place.

Inside its perimeter walls is Disneyland. Outside is Poundland.

Like in the Simpsons Movie, when a gigantic glass dome is built over Springfield due to it being the most polluted town in the world, but in reverse.

The only visible integration of both worlds is the sign outside Hooters not 100 yards down Washington Road that reads: ‘Meet John Daly Here All Week.’

The Irish here are few and far between. They do, however, make a good stab at making themselves known.

It’s a striking thing about Irish people you come across abroad: their eagerness to enlighten others about their nationality. As though the acquired knowledge of their Irish-ness will brighten everyone’s day.

An acquaintance of ours has a theory – yet to be disproven – that no matter where you are in the world, there’s always a fella in a Mayo jersey.

Augusta is not immune to this phenomenon.

On Wednesday morning, Shane Lowry played nine holes with Tyrrell Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood. They were followed by a smattering of half-interested patrons, one of whom was Irish – of nationality, appearance and manner.

“Lowry boy,” bellowed this man, whose arms were quickly turning the colour of beetroot, presumably seeking reaction

or recognition from Shane. Nothing.

“Go on, Lowry boy,” he went on, increasing volume and adding the missing prefix to his mating call. Still nothing.

Quite what his motives were are unclear. But it seems that as an unmistakably Irish person with an unmistakably Irish accent, and no qualms about using it, beetroot arms assumed that Shane’s eyes would illuminate at the sound of a flat Midlands brogue.

Maybe he’d concede the hole to Hatton and Fleetwood and come over for chat. Yes, Shane would be over for a natter in jig time. Nothing surer.

They’d chew the fat about home, of course. Discover mutual acquaintances.

A bit of Gah talk maybe before exchanging best wishes for the week and noting that yes, now that you mention it, there is a grand stretch in the evenings.

Not a bit of it. Shane is here on business this week.

Us too. You don’t walk in the gates of Augusta without a plan.

Mostly it revolves around watching the two Irish lads, getting somewhere near Tiger, and fulfilling the eight grand or so worth of merchandise requests from friends and family Augusta’s famous pro shop.

The concession stands do a hectic trade. At $1.50 (pimento cheese) or $3 (BBQ chicken) a sandwich, why wouldn’t they?

Spoiler alert: despite its reputation the pimento cheese is brutal. Truly brutal. Favourite Augusta feature? Easy. The ‘Patron Waiting Area’, which is literary an area where people wait for other people. The necessity for which is the snaking queue for the gift shop which, during practice on Wednesday, took about an hour to traverse.

Enforced

Famously, there are no phones allowed on the course, a strictly-enforced rule. So people stand under a sign that says ‘Patron Waiting Area’ while their friend or beloved queues for an hour to buy a garden gnome and they, presumably, question some of their life choices.

It has been observed more than once that Augusta National is like an old testament god: lots of rules and no forgiveness.

The phones rule is a strength rather than a failing, but that line about people missing Italia ’90 because they we were in Italy applies here. In an age of constant and instantaneous digital communication, this place is grid failure.

You can miss a lot of the tournament by being here.

In 2019, some of the loudest roars heard around the 18th green were a couple of minutes after Tiger Woods’ birdies on 13 and 15, when the scoreboard was updated by hand.

It’s the equivalent of finding out a goal has been scored in a match by carrier pigeon.

But Augusta’s idiosyncrasies, its foibles are all part of it. You’re either into this kind of thing or you’re not. It’s easier to envisage the end of the world than the Masters parting with its traditions without good reason.

Honestly, you’d feel short-changed if you came here and it was just like any other golf tournament. This one, as they’re wont to remind us, is unlike any other. What else?

Oh yeah. Lads, the azaleas . . .