by Tom Coyne
Never, ever quit.
I pitch balls around the park and give myself a lot of putts, too tired to scoop them out of the holes, and I don’t bother writing down any of my scores. It might seem a shame to play so many epic layouts and cap the trip with a stroll around a rough trail of sixty-yard offerings, but it’s an ideal final round for me. It’s proof that I still love this game, and a relief that I haven’t exhausted its possibilities. And it’s an answer to Scott’s question: Not yet.
Lifetime
I dreamed about the call. I imagined it coming via the rattling bell of a red rotary phone, even though nobody owned those anymore. But back when I started dreaming of playing there, back when I was a kid, they still did. As years went by and my golf world expanded, I accepted that all my travels hadn’t made the call any more likely. I consoled myself with the lie that going there would spoil the dream and ruin April for me, that it was better to appreciate it from beneath its pedestal than to poke around its corners and find it wanting. So I didn’t want the call, not until I got it, and when it came, I was unsure how to feel, how to act, unwilling to trust the words I was hearing. What do you do when the impossible dream comes true? Well, now I know: You text every person in your contact list who has ever heard of golf, and some who haven’t, THE AUGUSTA NATIONAL. Smiley face.
In Scotland, I had set out to find the round of my life. What I discovered there was the friend who would take me to it. I designed a trip that began in the southeast corner of England and ended in Edinburgh, but there was another plot unfurling, and these pilgrims had farther to journey. My itinerary, it turned out, had been too modest; I needed a map large enough for a Scottish golf trip that ended in Georgia.
Penn came through in a way that, in the long history of games, few sportsmen have been able to triumph. Jordan, Jeter, Flutie, and Woods had nothing on Penn when it came to clutch. He reached out to a close friend whose close friend was a member of Augusta National, and suddenly Scott and I were booking plane tickets on a week’s notice, temporarily immune to all notions of cost and calendar conflicts. Penn even planned to go off and play another course during our visit, sacrificing his spot at Augusta for the two other members of his Scottish Highlands caravan. Doing so would allow Scott to put his one-hundredth golf ball on the wall and finish his life’s list, and would teach me something about the people with whom you connect and the things you do for them as your lives roll forward.
• • •
Under bright-blue Southern skies, we make a left turn that I cannot quite believe, pulling our tires up to a gatehouse where we’re told we will be granted passage on this Wednesday in late October. A very serious security guard lowers tank-deflecting ramparts into the pavement, and we turtle our way down Magnolia Lane. If there was ever a stretch of road that required no speed limit, this was it, the famed aisle leading to Augusta’s white church of a clubhouse. I film the whole drive, the footage nearly ruined by the giggles of an off-camera dork who can’t stop saying, “Wow,” and “Wow,” and “Dude, wow.” That dork is me, professor turned linguistic imbecile by the sanctity of my surroundings.
In the parking lot, we meet our host, whom I resist hugging, and the day quickly becomes an exercise in restraint—restraining myself from scooping up range balls for Christmas gifts (unblemished Augusta ProV1s), resisting leaving the pro shop shelves bare, holding myself back from trying on that green jacket hanging there in my host’s locker, mere inches from my fingertips. I keep it together through our morning trip around the par 3 course, through lunch in the clubhouse where two other members are dining with their guests (a sign by the entrance denotes which members are on the property—a total of three on the day we visited), to our afternoon round on the big course, where I try to catalog every swing and step. I’ve met design pundits who think Augusta is an overrated layout, and I pray for their darkened and irredeemable souls. My gut is a hurricane of nerves and memories as I walk the center of each fairway, whether my ball is there or not. I know I can stalk the edges with the patrons every April, so I make sure to enjoy the view from the middle and remember as I go.
I expect I’ll be asked about favorite holes or my performance on Amen Corner, so I note that the descent on ten to a ball in the fairway, a hole that takes you from the tips of the pine trees down to their roots, has to be one of the best walks in sports. On eleven, I make a snazzy par from the right side of the green, and on twelve, the famed par 3 guarded by a dream-crushing creek, I make par when my tee shot hangs beautifully on the bank. Scott takes my picture as I climb the half-moon of Hogan Bridge in my golden Nicklaus golf shirt (Criquet Shirts named it “The ’86” for Nicklaus’s Masters miracle, and it made my wardrobe selection surprisingly easy), my arms raised like a champion as I trail behind my caddie in his crisp white jumpsuit. On thirteen, I make bogey with a smile after chunking a wedge into the tributary of Rae’s Creek, and I hit it over the back of fifteen in two, managing a meek par 5 from there.
I have a half dozen birdie putts inside ten feet. I don’t make one, and I don’t stop grinning until I’m well off the property. As I swipe through the photographs of the day, my smiles make me look like I’m about to giggle out a secret, as if I’m trying to hide from the camera the fact that I’m surreptitiously shit-faced. My eyes look a little crazy in the shot of me reclining in a wicker chair on the patio; same for the photo in which I’m posed beside the Masters trophy, a giant silver rendering of the clubhouse of which the annual winner receives a replica. And for good reason, because I felt crazy. How could I not, after being given a tour of the champions’ locker room, where winners now have to share lockers (Jordan Spieth and Arnold Palmer seemed the standout locker pairing); and grabbing a pack of Augusta National matches from the Crow’s Nest, where they still have ashtrays and a rotary phone; and taking pictures of Eisenhower’s desk overlooking the course, untouched, the framed black-and-white of his wife angled toward his chair; and going down into the cellar, where the fallen tree they named after him has been crafted into a wide table for wine tastings, next to where Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts’s favorite bottles still sit in storage, their names penciled on the labels under a thin film of dust? It’s just too much. I feel unhinged, in the most wonderful possible way.
On a day that exceeds impossible expectations, it seems appropriate that I sign for a score of 80, the same tally from both Bruntsfield and my first round at Littlestone. It’s a reminder of where this round really began, and how I found my way to Georgia by sticking pins into a map of Scotland.
It was a long road and an endless round, the sort of journey on which you expect to learn who you are. I haven’t—not yet, and that’s fine. There are plenty of miles left to try, and I am trying. But, better than knowing something as capricious and uncertain as who I am, I know where I am. I’m not at the Augusta National, behind the clubhouse, standing beneath a centuries-old oak with thick arms bowing toward tight green grass, a storied meeting spot where friends have found one another since the Masters began—I’ll see you at the old oak tree. I’m not here, in Georgia. I’m not in Scotland. I’m not on the links. I’m not jabbing my fingers at a keyboard in a white-walled office in Philadelphia with scorecards scattered across a desk, where two little girls on the other side of the door argue over who gets to pick dessert. I’m not in any of these places, because I am where I know that I have always been, and where I hope to remain for the rest of my hours, safe and well in the lap of the Gods.
The Scores
COURSE
YARDS
PAR
SCORE
Littlestone Golf Club
6,632
71
80
Royal Cinque Ports
7,245
71
81
Prince’s Golf Club
7,228
72
78
Royal St. George’s Golf Club
7,204
70
80
Mullion Golf Club
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6,053
70
74
Perranporth Golf Club
6,296
72
76
Trevose Golf & Country Club
7,112
72
76
Royal North Devon Golf Club
7,045
72
74
St. Enodoc Golf Club
6,547
69
75
Holyhead Golf Club
6,090
71
78
Bull Bay Golf Club
6,276
70
76
Conwy (Caernarvonshire) Golf Club
6,936
72
75
Wallasey Golf Club
6,588
72
76
Royal Liverpool Golf Club Hoylake
6,933
72
76
Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club
180
36
35
Royal Birkdale Golf Club
7,156
70
79
Blackpool North Shore Golf Club
6,444
71
77
Eyemouth Golf Club
6,404
72
70
Dunbar Golf Club
6,560
71
76
Glen Golf Club
6,275
70
76
North Berwick Golf Club
6,506
71
82
Archerfield, Dirleton Links
6,946
72
73
Muirfield
7,245
71
81
Gullane Golf Club, No. 2
6,385
71
69
Renaissance Club
7,303
71
79
Kilspindie Golf Club
5,502
69
72
Kingarrock Hickory Golf
2,022
32
39
Craigielaw Golf Club
6,601
71
74
St. Andrews Links, Eden Course
6,250
70
78
St. Andrews Links, Strathtyrum Course
5,620
69
74
Burntisland Golf House Club
5,993
70
74
Kinghorn Golf Club
5,141
65
74
Lundin Golf Club
6,371
71
74
Leven Links Golf Course
6,551
71
75
The Golf House Club, Elie
6,273
70
73
St. Andrews Links, Jubilee Course
6,742
72
74
Anstruther Golf Club
2,345
31
33
Crail Golfing Society, Balcomie Links
5,861
69
70
Crail Golfing Society, Craighead Links
6,651
72
81
St. Andrews Links, New Course
6,625
71
80
Kingsbarns Golf Links
7,224
72
78
St. Andrews Links, Castle Course
6,759
71
75
Scotscraig Golf Club
6,669
71
73
St. Andrews Links, Old Course
6,721
72
82
St. Andrews Links, Old Course
6,721
72
79
Monifieth Golf Club
6,655
71
74
Carnoustie Golf Club
6,948
72
81
Montrose Golf Links
6,585
71
75
Stonehaven Golf Club
5,103
66
70
Royal Aberdeen Golf Club
6,861
71
77
Murcar Links Golf Club
6,516
71
77
Newburgh on Ythan Golf Club
6,423
72
73
Trump International Golf Links
7,428
72
77
Cruden Bay Golf Club
6,263
70
76
Peterhead Golf Club, Craigewan Links
6,173
70
81
Inverallochy Golf Club
5,436
67
71
Fraserburgh Golf Club
6,308
70
76
Rosehearty Golf Club
2,075
31
33
Royal Tarlair Golf Club
5,894
71
74
Cullen Golf Club
4,623
63
63
Strathlene Buckie Golf Club
5,977
69
77
Buckpool Golf Club
6,169
70
72
Spey Bay Golf Club
6,209
70
75
Moray Golf Club
6,572
71
77
Hopeman Golf Club
5,624
68
81
Covesea Links
2,026
31
31
Nairn Dunbar Golf Club
6,765
72
77
Nairn Golf Club
6,774
72
74
Asta Golf Club
2,251
31
31
Shetland Golf Club
5,562
68
1
Whalsay Golf Club
6,171
71
75
Stromness Golf Club
4,804
65
68
Castle Stuart Golf Links
7,009
72
83
Fortrose & Rosemarkie Golf Club
6,085
71
81
Tarbat Golf Club*
5,298
68
74
Tain Golf Club
6,404
70
74
The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle
6,833
71
77
Golspie Golf Club
6,021
70
80
Royal Dornoch Golf Club, Championship
6,748
70
82
Royal Dornoch Golf Club, Struie
6,265
71
78
Brora Golf Club
6,211
70
77
Wick Golf Club
6,123
69
74
Reay Golf Club
5,854
69
71
Durness Golf Club*
5,555
70
72
Ullapool Golf Club*
5,281
70
73
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Gairloch Golf Club*
4,534
63
64
Skeabost Golf Club*
3,114
62
62
Isle of Skye Golf Club*
4,776
67
66
Traigh Golf Course *
4,912
68
70
Tobermory Golf Club*
4,912
64
67
Carradale Golf Club*
3,920
65
61
Machrihanish Dunes
7,082
72
77
Machrihanish Dunes
7,082
72
82
Machrihanish Golf Club
6,462
70
77
Machrihanish Golf Club
6,462
70
81
Dunaverty Golf Club
4,799
66
75
Shiskine Golf and Tennis Club
2,996
42
44
Trump Turnberry Resort, Ailsa Course
6,725
70
75
Prestwick St. Nicholas Golf Club
6,044
69
74
Prestwick Golf Club
6,908
71
77
Royal Troon
7,208
71
81
Barassie Links
6,852
72
78
Western Gailes Golf Club
7,014
71