I have attended two Super Bowls. I have been to the World Series and the WNBA Finals. I have seen a Copa America semifinal game featuring Lionel Messi, and a Knicks playoff game at the Garden. I was there when Liverpool beat Manchester United 7-0 at Anfield. I have been in the building for three MLB no-hitters. As a kid, my dad brought me to the Rose Bowl and NCAA Tournament games.
But I have never experienced anything like the Masters.
Everything that people say about Augusta National—the sanctified golf course, shrouded by forest in Augusta, Georgia—is true. You’ve never seen shades of green quite like the ones you see there. The club’s insistence on banning cell phones from the premises during the Masters makes it feel frozen in time, like you could be in 1975 or 2025. It is surely the only place in the world that can make thousands of straight men care about azaleas this much. But above all that, the uniqueness lies in one pretty undeniable fact: Everyone at the Masters is in a great mood. Particularly for the midweek crowd, who are watching the most prestigious golf tournament in the world rather than sending emails or attending Zoom meetings, there’s a collective sense that, outside these 365 acres, nothing else matters or even exists. For Wednesday’s practice sessions and par-3 exhibition, plus Thursday’s opening round, the seismic pressure and swarming crowds of the weekend haven’t yet arrived. Everything’s pretty blissed out—the social acceptability of a 10 a.m. vodka lemonade certainly helps in that regard, as does being able to stroll around puffing a cigar—and it’s not just the patrons who feel that way.
“I’m glad to be here. It’s really cool,” golfer Ludvig Åberg told me on Wednesday. The 25-year-old Swede entered his second Masters ranked fifth in the world—and finished the tournament on Sunday with a respectable seventh-place finish. “It gives you some nice little feelings and makes you feel good. There’s so many stories about Augusta, like myths. Is this really true? Is this how it is? Is this what they do? There’s so many things that we don’t really know!”
While walking the grounds last week—blessed with the type of Goldilocks sunshine that puts a smile on your face, but not an overwhelming layer of sweat—my mind kept returning to that tweet that called the event Coachella for dads. That really is an apt comparison: As someone who’s been to both, I think the Masters really is much more similar to Coachella (or even Disneyland) than it is to any other sporting event. Also, I was literally there with my dad, an avid golfer who wriggled out of his own work obligations, dropped everything, and happily flew across the country to experience the mecca of golf for himself. Rather than braving the sea of Vineyard Vines, Zyn-popping bros, and Southern belles in their best floral dresses by myself, I got to do it with the man who raised me, returning the favor for all those games he took me to when I was younger.
As guests of Mercedes-Benz, we did admittedly get a different taste of Augusta than most fans. After flying into Atlanta on Tuesday evening—me from New York, my dad from Seattle—we were greeted at the airport with an AMG GT 63, the type of machine capable of turning an auto agnostic like me into something resembling a gearhead. Cruising the streets of Atlanta to get to our hotel was one thing, but the next morning—when we set out for the two-and-a-half-hour drive on eastbound I-20 toward Augusta—I suddenly understood the appeal of serious horsepower like never before. The car came with plenty of bells and whistles, of course, from massage chairs to a button that sprays air-freshening perfume throughout the cabin. But at the end of the day, the objective is still to get from point A to point B, and there are very few ways to legally do that faster than in the GT 63. Driving through the Georgia pines, soaring past various creeks while listening to Al Green and Creedence Clearwater Revival, I felt the marriage of luxury and power that makes the model so special. Before moving to New York and giving up on driving, I used to whip around the Pacific Northwest in outdated cars that had been scratched by parking-lot bumps and bruises, or were literally stapled together by our resident family car guy. But this Wednesday morning on a trafficless interstate, turning heads with our Arabian grey exterior and easy pickup, perfectly demonstrated why people fall in love with the open road, and why a Mercedes performance car is the ideal place to do that.
After arriving at our Augusta lodging and changing into country-club-approved attire, we were driven to a Mercedes-sponsored hospitality cabin right off the 10th fairway, kicking off our first day inside the fabled course. While my dad has had the golf bug since before I was born, I’ve somehow avoided getting bitten. Still, seeing the Masters from the inside gave me whatever the opposite of Paris syndrome is called. As a sensory experience, it exceeds your expectations right away. I promise you have never set foot on softer grass, or been in a place as technologically-bare since the smartphone was invented. (By the way, if you are planning on making the trip at some point, make sure to bring a watch or risk never knowing what time it is—ever.) Everything is so well manicured and particular that it forces you to consider your every move, from the volume of your voice to the speed of your footsteps. To that point, when I tried to make a quick bathroom break and return to my seat before anyone snatched it, one of the attendants hit me with the universal, palms down motion to slow down. And he was right: what’s the rush anyway? Being at Augusta National breeds a sense of reverence, not unlike seeing a beautiful piece of art in an opulent museum. Why wouldn’t you want to indulge, take in the sights, and be as present as you can?
“I think you should allow yourself to enjoy it and soak it in,” Åberg said. “Not necessarily when you’re hitting the shots or when you’re over a putt. But when you’re walking, take an extra look up at the view around yourself. I think that’s very important. The golf fan inside of me loves it.”
Wednesday is the silliest, loosest day of Masters week, during which you can hear players openly talk smack during their practice rounds and watch their preschool-aged children caddy during the par-3 contest. There’s a lot of laughs, is what I’m saying, and immersing in the par-3 course felt akin to the smaller stages at Coachella where you enjoy a more downbeat 4 p.m. set before the headliners get going. Dad and I were lucky enough to be standing right behind the fourth tee box for Tom Hoge’s silky hole-in-one. Again, as someone who doesn’t follow, play, or think much about golf, I was captivated by the natural ease with which the professionals swing an iron. Golf is a legendarily difficult game, but you’d never know it from watching these guys—even the ones who ended the weekend nowhere near the leaderboard. I can only hope to one day make blogging look as effortless as Åberg’s drives.
On Thursday, when the real tournament got underway, Mercedes gave my pops and I the chance to begin the morning by doing something straight out of an Action Bronson song: We drove a Maybach EQS down Magnolia Lane.
Making that sort of entrance really set the tone for the day, and undoubtedly gave me the confidence to pull off my next move. Outside the Mercedes cabin—home to the friendliest bartenders I’ve ever encountered, and some truly impeccable fried chicken—there is also a replica of the putting green on the 18th hole. For those courageous enough to attempt, a steward is there to guide you through a trio of putts, explaining how to read the twisting, turning bends for each one. The first one was maybe eight to ten feet with a left-to-right break. When Dad’s putt went begging, he joked to our temporary caddy that I, the non-golfer, would probably have beginner’s luck on his side. And wouldn’t you know it: I stepped right up and gave my ball a little tap, knowing almost right away that it had the correct pace. Draino.
The golf gods gave us several other strokes of good fortune. One first-time Masters participant, the 24-year-old, bucket-hatted lefty Joe Highsmith, just so happens to be a member of the same club in Tacoma as my dad, giving us an obvious person to follow on Thursday. We watched him tackle Amen Corner, navigate the narrow fairways and impossibly deep sand traps, and deal with an understandable case of nerves that sent one shot into the gallery. But the personal connection—what a miraculous circumstance that someone my dad knew qualified for the Masters the same year I was able to bring him—gave this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity even more sentimental value. Highsmith shot four over par on Thursday and rebounded nicely with an even round on Friday, which wasn’t enough to keep him from missing the cut. But scanning the full list of players who didn’t make it to the weekend—including past champions Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, along with big names like Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau—you’re reminded that while the Masters is a literal walk in the park for the spectators, it’s a real beast for anyone holding a club.
“I’ve gotten more familiar with the golf course,” Åberg told me. “But it’s still sort of hollowed ground. You almost tiptoe around.”
I could go on and on about the two days I was granted access to golf heaven, both on an individual level and the privilege of doing it with my golf-obsessed father. I flew back to LaGuardia on Friday with a full mental scrapbook, a fuller heart, and the lingering question of whether this will be the thing that finally gets me into this sport. (I did watch a bit of it on Saturday and Sunday, but I still think one cannot fully lock in to a golf tournament on TV unless they play themselves or are a tad older than me.) That being said, there were a handful of moments that I will never forget, and can now be immortalized for as long as the internet exists.
- Plopping down in a chair in the front row on the 18th green for what felt like well over an hour—the only way for my also-watchless father and me to judge the passage of time was by the position of the sun, like some sort of old-world explorers—and snickering as everyone two-putted.