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AUGUSTA, Georgia – The last time Tiger Woods was at Augusta National Golf Club, he was surrounded by more humans than he probably had ever surrounded him in his mega-famous life. The 18th fairway was rimmed like the parting of the Red Sea for the 43-year-old in a red golf jersey as he won his 15th major and fifth green jacket. If people were walls, they would have been impenetrable. Too deep to count, too delusional to care.
Wednesday at the Augusta National Golf Club, it’s likely Tiger Woods has never been surrounded by fewer people, at least not in this particular environment. Woods – the 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2019 champion – left at 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday with 1992 champion Fred Couples and 2013 champion Adam Scott. Nineteen people watched them hit their tee shots on the first hole.
Being at the Masters on the afternoon of April 14 was one of the greatest spectator experiences of all time for a million reasons. But it was also so dreamlike, so supernatural that it was almost difficult to understand correctly. Part of me wonders if it would have been easier to contextualize through a TV screen.
It has been a wonderful Sunday and I am certainly grateful to have been there. There are times throughout that day – the way he put before his round, the way he looked on No.12, the ace he almost made on No.16 – that I will remember as long as I cover this stupid sport. But this Wednesday, with three of the 52 men who have already worn the green jacket appearing around Augusta National with little fanfare while trying to get their metal detectors to work on a nugget or two the day before the 84th Masters, well, how many people have gotten to experience this?
I had an 11 o’clock appointment that I was supposed to attend and I didn’t have my phone (obviously). I gave up the tougher nomination than Phil Mickelson to the 2014 Ryder Cup presser. How many people, I thought, Have you ever had a front row seat for maybe the best player of all time playing maybe the best course in the world?
I was not deceived.
The couples took on the role of ringmaster. He was loud and funny, and that played out well for the constantly rotating group of 20-25 people walking the top nine with those three. Adam Scott pounded the conductors. Many of them. He was missing the right then the left, and Couples would tell him to punch another one until he finally found the middle.
Woods was calm but as engaging and dynamic as I have ever seen him. He’s also pushed and pushed a place he’s conquered so many times and yet remains such a mystery to anyone who’s ever played there. And damn, if it wasn’t cooler for me than winning my fifth green jacket last year.
On the second tee, in a small alcove that allows fairly small groups of people, the couples drive in on the long par-5. Tiger smiles and says, “See Freddie, you carried the bunker over there.” The bunker is 320 yards away and Couples had no chance to cover it. He said, very seriously, “No, I think that’s short” and only realized the joke a second before Woods and Scott started to cackle.
Tiger made his way into the second green like I imagine a great musician tries different paths with a song she polishes. He hit chips with one wedge and then stopped them on the edge of the hill on his way down to the Sunday hairpin with another. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but I’m much more interested in documentaries than blockbusters anyway.
On the third tee, Couples addressed his audience. “You all tested COVID, right ?!” We all nodded. Someone – maybe a caddy, maybe Tiger – whispered something to him, and he turned around. “You all tested negative for COVID, right ?! Tiger yelled.
More of the same on the third green. Woods dropped balls in the center of the green and put them in all three corners – working the lines, feeling the ground. I know this sounds like absolute stupidity, but I was delighted. It might be silly if it was someone else, but someone else didn’t win five times there and twist the Rubik’s Cube in the right direction more often. .
It started to rain on No.4 which only improved it. Woods hammered sand blows into a bunker and commented on the gravity of the sand. He was trying to stop those spinning shots under a right rear pin in the form of a disc that his junior, Joe LaCava, had dropped to the ground. Try to have the right feeling. It was like watching Peyton Manning dissect the movie or Stephen Curry hitting 3s in an open gym. It’s not for everyone, but I took advantage of it.
Couples walked to the fifth tee with their phones – which they hold like they’ve just seen a phone for the first time yesterday – and their camera on. He was talking about hitting driver-3-wood in par-4. Tiger was having fun, and all three of them cursed their shots and the weather. There were six of us on that back tee at # 5. Tiger’s swing felt like water. He looked good.
There are no ropes at Augusta National this week, only green spray paint to show you where you can and can’t walk. On most holes the limits are fairly liberal. It removes the animal nature golf course ropes from the zoo and makes it look like the scene has been dissolved and the actors are now performing in the audience. It was experiential. Like one of those $ 20,000 trips, people who buy too much income spare for a 15 minute session with Tiger. Only if this session was at Augusta National.
Couples, animated, showed Woods a video on his phone in the fifth fairway. I thought about (but not for long!) What this could be. It turns out he was long haul champion Kyle Berkshire. This led to a lengthy chat with Scott’s younger brother, John Limanti, who himself used to immerse himself in the long drive scene. Couples and Woods asked him about technique, his longest journeys and which parts of his body were the most stressed. He got pretty nerdy, which is normally when Tiger hits his stride.
The sun started to scorch the rain and a swirling misty kind of haze rose just beyond the fifth green. It was more surreal than the march to # 15 last year; Tiger Woods, joking about long drive techniques and putts on the spikes and chutes of one of the scariest greens on the golf course before packing his bag and heading for sixth.
The trio finished their nine, chatting, comparing gear and probably enjoying a solitude that is rarely offered to them, especially this week at this location. And while no one wants a world without bosses at this tournament, for a unique week in this bizarre year, it was a subtle joy to see.
On the eve of a November Masters, three champions – and it seemed important that this group were just champions – were on their playing field, fiddling with what works (and what doesn’t) and trying to remember. how it feels to be alone on this property on the weekend.
I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, as if I accidentally fell on the tour without paying for it.
It won’t be like that on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday because they will be in Tournament mode, and it will be more or less the same as what we get every week. What we had last year but without all the noise.
But on Wednesday, as everyone settled down for the biggest event of the year, I got to look behind a curtain where only the men who have been outfitted for a jacket have secrets and see what they can. dig up from a place where the well has no bottom. And it all happened there, in the open.
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