Crashing Augusta

I once shot 84 on a tough course and, like all duffers, dream that one day my errant drives will straighten and my wayward putts will fall effortlessly into the cup. Golf tempts us with the possibility of perfection, even for just a single hole, and this keeps us coming back after all the shanks and screams. Fanatical by nature, we golfers buy countless training gimmicks and videos and books in the vain hope that our swing might one day turn sweet. But perhaps I'm more fanatical than some. I've gotten on an airplane and flown cross-country in the faint hope that I might see, smell, hear and feel golf perfection in the presence of the sport's masters--in their own house of worship.

Against all advice and reason, I stand outside the gates of the world's most exclusive golf tournament--the National, as it's known locally, the most prestigious four days of golf in the world. Every reasonable person I know has told me it's absurd to attempt to attend the Masters if you're not a corporate executive or the guest of a corporation or happen to have several thousand extra dollars to blow. That I've made it this far is itself a miracle. I've actually secured a crash pad; last night I slept like a baby on an air mattress in the screened porch of a little brick house I'm sharing with seven guys half a mile from the course in Augusta, Georgia. You can't beat the price; my share of the week's lodging and a golf cart (rented on impulse from a local) comes to a bargain $425.

But here's the real challenge: The badge, or tournament pass, for the Masters costs $3,500 to $5,000 or more and is harder to come by than a Super Bowl ticket. Price alone does not convey the Masters' exclusivity. Here in the Deep South, where a courtly deference--"Yes, suh!"--fills the air like the pervasive scent of magnolia blossoms, Northern principles do not apply.

Headed by chairman William "Hootie" Johnson, the Augusta National Golf Club is defined by its own rules. When the thunderous drives of a certain gifted player began soaring over the sand trap on 18, the National expanded the trap and lengthened the hole. As for Hootie's headline-grabbing preference for excluding women, "Well, we've adopted a new policy," he proclaimed during his annual Masters news conference in 2005. "We don't talk about club matters, period," he explained, flanked by a lineup of mute members wearing the traditional green jackets. "I said we have a new policy. We don't talk about club matters, period." This is a pretty good idea when your organization excludes all women and counts just a handful of blacks as members while wholeheartedly embracing billionaires (10) and the nation's richest, most powerful white men.

Hi, Mom. I'm in!

The Masters is more than a sporting event. Augustans are proud of their golf, but they also love telling tales about those other popular Southern pastimes, guns and violence: the one about the time long ago when "some blacks were shot" for having made the mistake of fishing in one of the course's creeks, or the time a drunken lunatic crashed the main gate, roared up famed Magnolia Avenue and at gunpoint took five hostages in the pro shop, demanding to see the visiting President Reagan. But most of all, practically everyone in town wants to tell you about Allen Caldwell. In 1997, the year of Tiger Woods's first Masters triumph, Caldwell became the local partner of a hospitality club directly across from Magnolia, took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance from prospective customers for tournament passes and watched in horror as prices skyrocketed to an unprecedented $11,000 a ticket. When he couldn't meet his obligations, he walked into his yard on the first night of the tournament and put a shotgun to his head.

Shotguns aside, I'm not paying $11,000, let alone $3,500, for a badge. Hootie isn't about to ask me to join the National, nor do I have a chance in hell of getting onto the Masters' patron list, a classically Southern system of vetting fans that began in 1934 when legendary co-founders Bobby Jones and iron-willed Clifford Roberts launched the tournament. Masters patrons receive an unheard-of license in modern sport: lifetime tickets to an internationally celebrated event. Once christened a patron, you have the opportunity each year to purchase for a nominal fee--not long ago it was $100; now it's $175--a tournament, or series, badge, which provides the holder with entry to the four days of competition, from Thursday to Sunday. (Passes to the Monday through Wednesday practice rounds are distributed through a weighted drawing with its own set of rules.) Early in its history the National sought patrons by soliciting members of golf clubs within 225 miles of Augusta. At first, during the Depression, it was tough to find takers, given that only the rich could take weekdays off to watch a golf tournament. Indeed, though the patron list remained exclusive (the working classes rarely belonged to golf clubs), tickets were practically being given away down on Augusta's Broad Street until television and Arnold Palmer made the Masters a must-see event in the early 1960s.

Who are these patrons? The National has turned its secrecy into an art form, and on this subject, as with virtually all else, it wisely remains mute. This much the club will say: In 1934 a formal patron mailing list began, and in 1967 the tournament enjoyed its first sellout. Five years later the patron list was closed, and by 1978 the waiting list had become so long that it too was shut. (It opened again briefly in 2000 but then shut once more.) The patron list is a brilliant method of guaranteeing control and standards of behavior. At the top of the list are the members, about 300 rich, supremely connected individuals, all men and nearly all white, who enjoy the privilege of a playing membership at the National. They are knights in this kingdom of golf, with Chairman Hootie Johnson their undisputed king. A long step down are those patrons who, like vassals--their medieval counterparts--receive their badges as grants from a lord. That grant, given to tens of thousands of privileged golf fans, is a lifetime charter to walk the hallowed grounds for four days each April as long as they live--and as long as they remain in the National's good graces. Just as lords required faithfulness from their vassals, so too does the National demand that patrons obey its ironclad rules. Every badge has a number, and if you or anyone using your badge violates the code of conduct laid out by Jones and Roberts, your badge will be taken away forever.

The National clears many millions a year from souvenir sales and television revenue. At the same time, the club promotes the (continued on page 142) Augusta (continued from page 108) nostalgic idea that its golf-loving patrons will share their badge with family and friends so that the roughly 40,000 daily attendees who come to see the tournament and buy memorabilia are a different group each day. Share is the operative term. Get caught selling your badge and you risk a hell hotter than Augusta in August--the permanent loss of your access to this great event. That's the party line, but fundamental economic forces will not be denied. The patron list, bolstered by the National's notorious vengeance toward violators of its precious code, creates the ideal conditions for an absurdly overpriced ticket.

Corporations devour so many of the available Masters badges that it seems ludicrous for an ordinary golf enthusiast even to try to get one. But to my golf-addled mind, the clear financial hurdle only fires my competitive instincts. If you can do Europe on $100 a day, why not try the Masters on the same budget?

The idea of a pilgrimage to Augusta has a dreamlike pull, like a Dodgers fan's fantasy of being able to step back in time to stroll Ebbets Field. Hundreds of thousands of baseball fans make an annual road trip for spring training, which provides a great excuse to spend a beer-fueled week in sunny climes, watching ballplayers up close and closing down bars. The Masters--the first major of the golf season--is like spring training and the World Series at once. How can a true fan resist?

In the 21st century why must the National block out the modern world and shut its gates to the young and the decidedly noncorporate? With roughly half the competitors of most PGA events, the Masters features only the best players in the world, on the best course imaginable. To see them practice, joke around and compete--why should this great opportunity be taken from us, the true fans, and be spirited away by soulless corporations and patrons in thrall?

Why can't we just go?

Monday

My golf cart hums by plain brick homes laced with rental signs and begins the climb up Azalea Avenue, past neighbors holding cardboard $20 Parking signs. The modest structures give way to steroid-pumped, freshly scrubbed corporate hospitality mansions. Dozens of American flags flutter over the massive Azalea Club, complete with its own putting green. Cresting the hill, I pass the vast parking lot of the block-long Whole Life Ministries, and to my left are the Executive Club and VIP Partners. A giant Bud billboard looms, with Sergio Garcia smiling: This is your beer.

Suddenly a motorcycle cop zips toward me. "You fixin' to get a ticket?" he warns, lights flashing.

Zooming down past the hospitality centers, I swing into a yard belonging to a little old lady named Helen Johnson and talk my way past the $20 she wants to charge me to park. Because her plain white house borders die monstrous corporate hospitality mansions, she hopes to sell it for half a million as a teardown, whereas the same house 200 feet away isn't worth more than $100,000. During the year, the corporate houses are empty. "It's not a neighborhood," says Johnson. "It's a ghost town."

Back up the hill at Masters Corner, where Azalea meets Washington, the National's main gate beckons. "Tickets! Anybody need tickets?" "Cold beer, cold soda!" "Extras! Anybody got extras?" Day one of Masters week, and all the essentials can be purchased on this corner. A slender black man hawks plastic badge holders and cigars while high school girls sell bottled water for a buck, and every third person streaming down the sidewalk is doing the one- or two-fingered salute, signaling that they need tickets. A man in a soiled T-shirt and with eyes of wood preaches the gospel through a bullhorn; his daughter, wearing a dowdy frock, hands me the day's leaflet, which has a golf ball on the cover and these words inside: "Bad news #1. You are a sinner."

Scalping tickets is legal in Georgia but not here at the National gates. "You've got to be 2,600 feet from the property," says Ronald Strength, sheriff of Richmond County, a law-and-order man to his bones who, I've been told, won't wear the same shirt again till he has worn the other 17 in his closet. Twenty-six hundred feet means the no-scalp zone extends half a mile from the gates of the National. "We're snatching 'em up," Strength says of the scalpers. "We've got plainclothes guys working outside, as well as uniforms. We seize a lot of tickets."

But the sheriff's story doesn't match what's right before my eyes. Masters Corner is a bustling bazaar with more than 50 scalpers and patrons wheeling and dealing in plain view of a laconic deputy leaning on his squad car. Does the sheriff really want to arrest locals? From what I can see, they're the scalpers most likely to sell to a cop (and selling, not buying, of course, is what gets you busted). The professional scalpers are planning ahead. "Wednesdays? Anybody got Wednesdays?" they shout, looking to buy tickets to the popular par-three tournament. Meanwhile fans with extra tickets won through the weighted drawing roam the block, looking to sell their $31 Monday practice-round dckets for $350 or more.

The azalea-adorned ticket was worth more yesterday than today, and on Masters Corner you can hear the dollars drain out of it as surely as the sun rises. By 10:30 A.M., the $300 asking price slips to $250. Fifteen minutes later it's $200; then it's like air rushing out of a balloon. A distraught mother wheels up her handicapped daughter, whose head hangs limply. "Hold on half an hour," a scalper suggests. "I'll give you a couple for free." Suddenly a saintly patron appears, laying a pair in the daughter's lap, an act of random kindnes; that brings tears to Mom's eyes.

A little after noon any fool can buy a ticket for $40 to $60--precisely what the National doesn't want you to do. "Do not try to buy a ticket from anybody out there," the sheriff warns. "That ticket could be stolen. And of course, one can not get in with that ticket."

I catch a patron exiting who has had his fill for the day. I slap him a $20 and he slips me his ticket. "Drink it or toss it!" the security guards call out near the main gate. As I gulp down my water, the guard reminds me to have my ticket in my hand. I approach the second security line. What if the sherif is right? "If a ticket has been reported lost or stolen," he told me, "Augusta National immediately voids that ticket, and you will be stopped at the gate."

I'm inside the main gate, but then... busted. The body scanner screams, and the guard comes over and orders me to spread my legs. His wand rattles around me like an angry snake. The scan has detected my cell phone, and I'm forced to check it at a stand. My ticket presents no problem, how ever, and I pass through the last checkpoint I take just a few steps before an official barks at me, "Keep your ticket visible!"

Instinct and economy drive me past the mobbed, cavernous shopping pavilion where countless fans will spend million: on souvenirs this week, the only authorized time official Masters memorabilia can be purchased. As I walk by the majestic green-rimmed Scoreboard, international flags fluttering above, I'm struck by the first truth of the National. More than a golf course, it resembles a park. The course rolls down before me, overwhelming in its openness and stunning vistas. The guys in my house warned me that the greens tilt with the whimsy of a roller coaster and that I'd find it "a lot more hilly than you see on TV." But it's more perfect than I imagined: The rough looks better than most fairways, and the fairways seem like glassy putting surfaces, reminding me of pristine polo grounds, grass so endless and flawless it speaks of wealth.

But the National is no walk in the park Everywhere you look and everywhere you don't, officials are watching--marshals, volunteers, MiGs (men in green jackets) and undercover agents of the Masters police. Beware. Even if you outfox perimeter security, disaster may await. "Before you step on that course, there is Augusta National signage everywhere about what you can take in," advises the sheriff. "There really is no reason to say you didn't know you couldn't take in a cell phone or camera." And if you slip a cell in, he warns, "it will be seized." The sheriff isn't kidding. I've heard desperate tales of grown men pleading not to have their badge numbers taken down after a cell phone was found in their possession.

How serious are they about all these rules? On an isolated section of the course, I break into a trot to test the "no running" rule, and within seconds a cart appears, the driver saying, "What do you think you're doing?" Drop a cigarette butt and it's likely to be still burning when one of the litter boys--squadrons of teenagers in numbered bright-yellow jumpsuits and green-inscribed caps--stabs it with his litter lance.

Warning signs dominate the course: Quiet please. Autograph seeking beyond this point prohibited. Authorized personnel only. And rules are printed on the back of my ticket: "All Augusta National Incorporated and tournament policies, signs, verbal instructions of tournament officials, and traditional customs of etiquette, decorum and behavior should be observed at all times. Protests of all types are forbidden. Violation of these policies will subject the ticket holder to removal from the grounds and ticket purchaser to permanent loss of credential(s)."

They aren't kidding about removal from the grounds. Remember that story about "some blacks" getting shot for fishing at the National? That was in 1976, the year after a pro named Lee Elder became the first black player invited to the Masters. Three black kids--two 19-year-olds and a 12-year-old--made the cardinal mistake of fishing in Rae's Creek in front of the 12th green. Charlie Young, a National security guard, shot all of them: one in the chest, another in the leg and the 12-year-old in the leg and arm. The kids lived. The National said the pump-action riot gun "was discharged quite by accident."

The extreme order of the National has its advantages, however. There may be no better sporting event in the world at which to take a piss. Tidy concrete bathrooms strategically located about the grounds are so clean as to border on sublime. No stink, no stench, just lovely chemical smells fill the air. Please do not throw cigarettes, trash, etc., in the urinal a sign announces, and amazingly it is obeyed. When I relieve myself in the massive trough, I feel as if I'm driving one down a pristine white fairway, not a cigarette butt in sight.

Everything works in harmony here, but it is a Kafkaesque exercise to try to understand it. Query the men aiming the GPS ShotLink ball-tracking equipment at the 13th green and they reply, "We don't know what we're doing."

Same with two women in light-blue caps and blue pants, driving big carts.

"What do you do?"

"All kinds of things," they say in unison.

"What kinds of things would that be?"

They glance at each other and laugh nervously. "All kinds of things."

The National doesn't bend, doesn't talk. "Those are their rules," the sheriff says. "No, sir. When they set 'em, that's what they're gonna go by." Like so many in this city, the sheriff admires the National's ironclad code of silence. "You will not get members talking. It doesn't happen. I gotta respect that."

Tuesday

By around one P.M. on Tuesday, a departing patron wants $20 for her ticket. "How about $10?" I venture and hold firm, gaining entrance for the price of a movie. I buy three dainty turkey sandwiches wrapped in green gauze at the efficient food concession. Throw in a bag of chips and a bottle of water and I've got my afternoon's nourishment for about $6.

While I'm walking along the 18th hole, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, the champions of my youth, appear as if in a mirage. Side by side they climb the steep incline, chatting and laughing, a sight that brings tears to my eyes. It's late enough that the gallery consists of me, another fan and a couple of marshals. Nicklaus pulls out his stick and swings smoothly; the applause by the green registers a worthy effort. The legends playact for the gallery. Nicklaus pockets his par, then strides off toward the clubhouse, so close I could touch him.

The Southern plantation--style clubhouse hugs the ground in an inviting way, its wide veranda and simple white colonnade opening onto the lawn that rolls toward the famous gnarled Big Oak Tree, the bucolic setting for media interviews over the decades. There I see José María Olazábal and Arnold Palmer heartily shake hands, the singsong cadence of the ebullient Spaniard ringing, "Ar-nee! Ar-nee!" This area is off-limits to ordinary patrons, but a mother with two kids sneaks inside the green rope and corners Palmer lor a photo while Dad gushes, "This is the greatest golfer ever."

The secret of the National is that it's not about the golf. You can see the same players on great courses half a dozen times a year for small change. The wise fan takes in the National's setting and inhales the past. The Masters is as much about famous men as it is about golf, and no member symbolizes the history and power of the place more than Dwight D. Eisenhower. Tall tales lend the course weight and stature, and you aren't getting your money's worth if you don't take the time to absorb at least a few of the Masters myths. Talk to enough folks here and you will hear wonderful tales of Eisenhower. It is fact, for instance, that club founder Clifford Roberts kept a toothbrush and pajamas at the White House for his frequent visits there. John Boone, the courtly co-owner of a major golf cart distributor and a frequent National guest, tells a great Eisenhower tale. One evening a member friend invited Boone to putt on the practice green by the Eisenhower cabin, where the general and president used to stay during his frequent extended visits.

The subject of Ike's large role in the history of the National came up, and the member said, "John, most people don't realize that President Eisenhower was a member of this club before he became president."

Boone replied, "No, I didn't know that."

It was dusk, and Boone thought he was in heaven. "Sitting out there, looking at the sun setting, looking down across the 18th green, out down by the number-seven tee box and Amen Corner--it just takes your breath away," he says. The clubhouse glowed, the Big Oak Tree in stark silhouette.

"Yeah, he was a member here," Boone's friend continued in a quiet, understated manner. "The story is, it was decided while he was a member here that he was going to be our next president." He gave a little wink and a smile, and that was it.

As the light fades, I fall away from the clubhouse, down the slope, drawn to the belly of the course, the distant hum pulling my eye to another National miracle, a squadron of mowers in perfect Navy bomber formation clipping a fairway in a single pass.

"Time to leave the grounds, sir. Time to exit."

It's 6:30, closing time on practice days. I figure I'm done, so I walk toward the Berckmans Road exit. But as I slowly drift out of the tide of patrons, I suddenly realize I'm invisible, circling the middle of the course, deliciously extending my sojourn. The time is quarter to seven. I've snuck under the radar, outstaying even the marshals, and now I'm virtually alone on the world's most beautiful golf course. It's as though I've slipped into a time warp. Without the crowd it's easy to stroll and dream of Jones, Sarazen, Nelson and Hogan half a century ago and more. Many a visitor has rhapsodized about the rainbow of azaleas and dogwoods that sparkle like precious stones around the 13th green, but I'm more drawn to the sculptural, elemental purity of Alister Mackenzie's majestic design, the rolling, contoured fairways, the elegant columns of pines, the bone-white sand of the traps, ethereal in the dying light.

There is an Oz-like aura about the National, and if you're plucky enough to remain beyond the official closing time, you may be struck by the rarest of visions, the chance to peek behind the wizard's curtain. Though about 40,000 people can flood the grounds during tournament days, at this hour less than a dozen fans remain, and I might as well be a member, ambling about the course as if it were mine.

I approach the undulating 11th green, where no fewer than four playoffs have been decided. A man standing by himself at the ropes says in awe, "There sure is a lot of history at this hole." Up on the green a masked man in a white suit pushes a wide sprayer on two wheels while a second masked man keeps the hose out of his path. A dark layer settles on the green. Perhaps because it's so late, a man who appears to work here actually bothers to explain. "It's some kind of chemical," he says. "They're required by law to wear the masks."

Nature is not enough. Over the years, the National has dyed Rae's Creek blue for the cameras. My favorite story comes from a friend of a member who once performed the iconic Masters job of painting the inside dirt edge of the holes white for the television cameras. The rumor that the National puts its azaleas on ice to time their bloom is a myth.

It is nearly seven o'clock when I make my way past Ike's colonial-revival cabin just off the putting green. The remarkably peaceful atmosphere suggests more questions: Would the ultimate Masters experience be to burrow as far inside as possible? What would it be like to spend the night at the National? A woman who wishes to be known only as the Southern Lady, someone whose family stretches back nine generations in Augusta, can give you the flavor. "You can stand in that place and look all around you, and you won't see any neon signs. No Kentucky Fried, nothing. It's like going back to the womb," she coos. "It's so protected. It's pretty swish, I tell you. Somebody rushes out with a golf cart as you pull up, and they snatch out your suitcases and hang 'em up. Why, they would unpack for you if you wanted 'em to. The service is divine--these old-timey black men waiting on you. Most of them have worked there for years, and they call you by name. The cute thing is, every member, when he goes out there, has his coat, his green coat, hanging in the closet."

What few people realize, though, is that even a member has to know his place amid the byzantine rules or the precious green coat can be taken away. The Southern Lady tells a story of members who committed the error of trading access for money, a great trespass in a club in which the members are multimillionaires and billionaires. "Somebody else might have told you," she says, raising one eyebrow, "that a couple of people I've known over the years have been defrocked." Her lips harden into a demure smile. "They don't write you a letter saying you are no longer a member. I think it's so cute--they just clean out your locker. You go out there, your locker is empty, and that's the end of it."

Wednesday

Zipping a cart up to the course in the morning is the best way to start your Masters day--feeling the breeze on your face, smelling the azaleas and dogwoods. When you drive a golf cart on the streets, strangers wave at you as if you're in a parade, and women strike up conversations.

A little after noon, I swing into Helen Johnson's yard, holding an offering of fresh strawberries and a slice of pie. "Where do you want me to put it?" I ask.

Johnson's eyebrows arch wryly. "Do you really want me to tell you?"

Wednesday is the par-three tournament, what many patrons consider the ideal day to see the Masters. Not surprisingly it's a tough practice-round ticket, costing $400 in the morning. But by noon patrons are streaming out, and shortly thereafter I pay a scalper $40--$4 over face value. My total cost for three days is now $70.

Of course, you can try your luck at the lottery if you want a cheaper way into the practice rounds. Judging from the folks I talk to, it takes roughly four years for out-of-state applicants to be selected, so the smartest thing to do is to talk every golf buddy you know into sending in an application with the agreement that you'll pool your winnings to cut costs.

Practice days offer little miracles: Vijay Singh at the pristine range behind the clubhouse, standing by two irons he's propped against each other in a gravity-defying triangle, sweeping his arms and hips through a grand arc and blasting one ball after another toward the massive, distant green net; Gary Player playfully skipping a ball over the long glassy pond guarding the 16th and right onto the green, 10 feet from the hole; the top-secret Pin Committee, a clutch of good old boys huddling around on green after green as they test line after line in search of the perfect pin placement for tomorrow's opening round.

Played around two lovely ponds on a quaint practice course just off the clubhouse, the Masters' par-three tournament is a rare spectacle: a competition purely about fun. Children or wives caddie for the players. The jaunty Swede Jesper Parnevik strides by with his two darling little daughters in white caddie suits; he's wearing electric-pink pants and a pink-on-black shirt suitable for clubbing. A bemused middle-aged woman shakes her head and asks, "Is he a wrestler or a golfer?"

The National is known for making it easy for foreign players to qualify--which is a good thing, not only because they dress better and their wives are hot but because they have a lot more fun than the serious, gray-slacked Americans. The par-three tournament is the place for fans to get an autograph. Scenes at the crowd-knotted tees and greens unravel like impromptu comedy skits. On the final hole, Miguel Jiménez grabs a camera, plops on his belly directly before the tee box and aims the lens. Two-time Masters champion José María Olazábal steps to the tee for the long iron over the water. The marshal frets, but there's no time to pull out the rule book; Olazábal draws back without so much as a practice swing, smacks the ball over his friend's head and lands it eight feet from the pin.

Everything beautiful, spontaneous and pure about the Masters can be found on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the days before the tournament. You can get in for $50 or less, snap photos, get autographs, see the golfers in their natural habitat and walk till your legs ache or the guards order you out. The greatest Masters moment is to be virtually alone on the course, and that can happen only during these practice days. They say money can't buy you love. You know what? It can't buy you the Masters, either.

The Tournament

Thursday dawns, and rain and economics wash the scalpers away. From here on, the only way in is with a badge, and unless you're on the corporate dole or are a patron or friend of a patron, that's going to cost you not $10 or $20, or even $200, but thousands.

Are Masters tournament rounds worth the price? To get a fair point of comparison I traveled to Pinehurst, North Carolina, site of the U.S. Open. For four straight days I faithfully walkedthe fabled Pinehurst No. 2 course an average of eight hours, more than seven miles a day.

Compared with the Masters, the Open is downright inclusive; tournament tickets rarely cost more than $100 or $150 a day. The Open's field is far larger than the Masters', which produces the serendipitous, crowd-pleasing, late-qualifying wild cards whom the Masters typically shuts out, such as Jason Gore and New Zealand Maori Michael Campbell. What duffer doesn't love the Tin Cup fantasy that a pro barely skirting by could duel world champions? The Open also attracts more fans and countless more noncorporate types--families, college kids, senior citizens and, yes, blacks.

Security is so haphazard that you can easily sneak in a cell phone or camera, not to mentionwalk in free through the main gate without a ticket. No need to worry about someone reminding you to keep your badge visible or telling you to shut up or to stop running. Then again, I find myself itching to tell the beer-sodden assholes to shut the fuck up, or at least beg some official to halt the stampedes that chase the leaders. "I can't see a fucking thing!" yells a drunken idiot, breaking branches in a tree he's clambered up to watch Tiger's climactic putt on 18. At the National he might have been ordered down at gunpoint, and I would have cheered.

Which is another way of saying that just about every true golf fan dreams of the Masters badge. Getting one isn't simply a question of money. The sheriff may warn against buying one on Washington Road, but then again he may not look at this problem the same way we might. (The National provides him with a badge for helping out with security during the tournament.) So how do you get a badge? The Internet is a crapshoot. A few sites may be legit, but it's hard to know which are one-man sham operations run out of somebody's home.

And there's the fine print on the Masters badge: "Ticket(s) may not be sold or rented through/to ticket brokers, travel agents or scalpers." I find it intriguing that the National appears to be concerned mainly about who profits. The language is designed to prohibit outsiders from dealing in tickets. Locals, meanwhile, seem to fall into the Augusta catch-22. There's nothing in writing or Georgia law that says a patron can't rent or sell his badge to a nonbroker as long as the transaction takes place half a mile from the gates--out of sight, out of mind.

The surest way to get a safe badge is to spend a small fortune renting a house. To see how that's done, I climb into the plush leather front seat of a BMW with a true Southern blonde whose pleasant face graces Augusta billboards: Gwen Fulcher Young not only is the charming wife of the former mayor of Augusta but also happens to be one of the town's top real estate agents. We're headed to what locals call the Hill or Summerville--lovely oak-and-magnolia-draped streets and nearly 100-year-old homes with grand porches and million-dollar breezes. Young rattles off the Masters-week rental prices for some of these classic mansions; one went for $32,000, another for $37,000. Young prefers not to be quoted on ticket prices, but she, like others, does explain that when corporate guests arrive, more often than not the badges are there on the kitchen table. That is how they do it in Augusta.

Suspecting Summerville may be beyond my means, Young drives me to Westlake, where CBS Sports often rents a cul-de-sac. Young dubs it nouveau riche. There "fresh and clean" homes rent for $5,000 to $20,000 a week. Spicing her tour with social commentary, Young is not a gal to hold back. "Here in the South, we like to be invited. We don't push our way in," she says of Martha Burk's ill-fated fight to get the National to admit women. "What is it that Groucho Marx said? Who'd want to be a member of a club that'd let him in? That's kind of how we thought about the National. If they didn't want a woman to be in, who'd want to be a member? And after all they've said about it, who'd want to be in there anyway?"

Back in the Hill stands another premier Masters housing option, the venerable Partridge Inn, once the site of a gala reception for President Harding. Celebrated for its magnolia-draped balconies and popular bar, the Partridge charges less than $125 a night in the off-season. During the Masters that price leaps several times to between $4,500 and $6,000 for the week. Oh, the tournament package rate gets you lodging, breakfast and a shuttle to the course, but what it really gets you is a local source for a badge. As a gentleman at the hotel explains, "The locals who have access to the badges aren't really selling them to you. They're renting them to you." And as he so aptly puts it, "They trust me."

Translation: To properly rent a badge, you first need a reputable real-estate agent and a mortgage. Dropping five grand on a hotel room may be the safest way to rent a badge with a clean chain of title. The folks at the Partridge will even help you navigate the confusing rental process--lock in your order prematurely and you'll likely pay extra; too late and it may cost another grand. Reserve your room by November and make "arrangements" through the hotel to secure your badge shortly after Christmas, and your rent will be around $2,700 instead of $3,100 to $3,500 or more.

I've heard a lot of badge stories, and they're all bad. The sheriff's right. Buy one on Washington Road and you may have just paid thousands for a pink slip one of his deputies will hand you as a receipt for your confiscated "stolen" badge. Because the National mails out badges at the same time each year, thieves throughout the region can seize on this quirk and swipe them right from mailboxes. Patrons then report the thefts to the National, which issues new badges and cancels the stolen ones. But mailbox thieves perhaps aren't the only ones doing the swindling. It is thought that some enterprising patrons invent fictional thefts, then sell badges falsely reported as stolen, passing on bum badges to fans and brokers alike while doubling their profits. Neither the National nor the sheriff will comment, but there's little doubt that untold numbers of badges sold are worthless.

Beware of scalpers, who have been known to sell Monday practice tickets on Tuesday or palm off the past year's tickets on newcomers. Some will walk a fan in with a badge for a few hundred dollars and then release him inside without it like a goldfish into the sea. It's a lousy scam--the Masters police will likely nail the trespasser in minutes. The patient fan waits for Sunday afternoon, when early-departing patrons auction their badges at Masters Corner for a few hundred dollars each.

Here's how I'd get a badge on my own nickel. I'd phone Young and rent a house with seven or eight guys, filling the hours between strolls on the grounds with golf, poker and merrymaking at the local watering holes--a golfer's spring break. I'd advise my buddies to share Thursday and Friday badges, which cost about half the full four-day tournament rate, because the weekend action is on the back nine and you're most likely to be watching the back of people's heads. But you won't catch me renting, leasing or purchasing a badge. Three days is a hell of a lot of walking, golf and spectacle. I'd rather apply the thousands I'd save to carousing at other sporting events.

But as fate would have it, I know a guy with a badge who's coming back early Thursday afternoon. As long as I bring it back intact and don't get busted for misbehaving, cell phoning or any other patron malfeasance, I'm free to borrow this almighty slice of paper encased in plastic and walk the grounds.

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Thursday and Friday on the rain-sodden grounds of Augusta, I discover a golf tournament can be an awful lot (concluded on page 149)Augusta(continued from page 146) of walking and waiting. On the ninth fairway Phil Mickelson glances at his watch as his interminably slow partner checks the wind and instructs his caddie to step off the distance, which is a lot of steps and about as exciting as you'd expect watching a man in a white jumpsuit walk would be. At the 10th tee Mickelson removes his glove to eat a snack, then slips it back on before settling down to some serious ball juggling on his driver's clubface.

He's still juggling when I can stand no more and begin walking out along the first fairway, where Tiger Woods also waits, hand on bag, then on hip, one foot tucked behind the other, conveying ease, power and confidence even though at the moment he's playing for shit. Only half a dozen fans are out here. Then Woods swings as if he's chopping wood, harder than I would have imagined. The ball pops straight up, caroms down, hits the pin and skids into the bunker.

Woods looks up at the darkening sky as if seeking some golf god. His hand slowly pushes his cap back off his head. He turns and chucks his failed stick at his bag. And then it gets worse. He climbs into the trap, and his ball flies out hard, punctuated by "Shit!" It lands on the back fringe, a long way from the pin. He gets a good look and misses the putt. Bogie.

At the second hole, the crowd hushes, and bodies press forward. Woods draws the club back, and then something horrible and strange happens. His swing goes wild, all arms and muscle. The clubhead smacks dirt first, and the ball flies into the air like a pop-up in a girls' softball game. A weird hush ripples through the spectators. Woods duffed his drive! Swept into the stunned crowd, I walk along the ropes behind Woods, following him to where his ball rests in the cart path, about 160 yards short of where it should be. He takes a drop--once, twice, till he gets it right. Then he hits another crappy shot, and I have an epiphany: Even the greatest player in the world can play like crap.

The funny thing is, the very next day, after more rain and a weather delay, I find myself wandering the second hole, right at the cart path where Woods found himself the previous afternoon. On the right side of the fairway sits a clump of marshals in yellow folding chairs, chewing cigars. By coincidence, when the delay lifts, Woods is on the tee, just where I saw him yesterday. One of the marshals rises, removes his cigar and bellows across the fairway to the corresponding marshals.

"Hey, boys! You may want to move when Tiger gets up to hit!"

The marshals howl, slapping one another. But before Woods can prove them wrong, the voice of God comes over the loudspeakers. "Dangerous weather is approaching. Lightning. Play will not be resumed. We ask everyone to seek shelter and leave the grounds immediately."

The man next to me kicks the mud. "How beautiful is that?" he moans. "I had to cut a deal with my wife just to get out here." I too am crestfallen, and I didn't even pay a nickel to get in. "Careful with the weather, folks," a marshal says, guiding us toward the gates. "It's coming on."

My Masters road trip has come to an end. I have no interest in forking over nearly a thousand dollars for another day at the Masters and can't get an early badge return on the weekend. Saturday morning I settle up with my housemates, my share of the $3,000 house rental, golf cart and week's food bill coming to $505. Throw in a Masters shirt and cap, $70 dollars for practice rounds and a dozen National sandwiches, and my total hits $694, pennies more than $99 a day, all inclusive, for a week at the world's most costly golf tournament.

That afternoon I wave good-bye to Helen Johnson, hitch a ride to Atlanta and head for the airport and a flight back to California, though not without second thoughts. The die-hard fan in me wonders if perhaps I ought to have stayed. But I'm following the solid advice of patrons who told me that Sunday is the day to watch it on TV. So instead of spending a thousand on a badge, I spend a glorious morning on a pristine beach, dipping my toes in the Pacific, and late in the day, like tens of millions of other Americans, I catch the final holes on television and witness yet another Masters miracle comeback. Tiger's Nike-emblazoned ball hangs on the lip for an eternity before dropping into the cup on 16 for a bird, setting up another historic finish, and I discover too late that my heart hasn't left Augusta.