Augusta

Earlier this year, my very good friend John, who now lives in Milwaukee, told me he had won tickets to go to Monday's practise round at the Masters. This is a big deal. He's been in that lottery for the last 7 years, and only now won it.

From left to right: Me, Dave, John and his brother Tom.

As far as I can tell, there are only a few ways you can get to see Augusta National Golf Course in person:

• you're very connected and know someone who can get you tickets
• you're one of the 50 best golfers in the world
• you've won the tournament before
• you get a special invite from Hootie Johnson
• you win the lottery

So pretty much, this was my only real chance to get to see Augusta National in person!!!

I wangled my trip to Chicago so that I could fly home "via Atlanta" (my boss is very understanding...). We played golf for a few days - then on the Sunday night we drove to Augusta.

As we got closer, we got more and more excited - like kids on the way to Disneyland. I even took a picture of the sign on the highway as we drove past:

And truth be told, in a way it is a bit like Disneyland - a golf "fantasy". Everything is pristine and beautiful - not a single weed can be found, the greens are perfect, the azaleas are beautiful.

For me, the highlight of the day was following Ernie and Sergio for 3 holes of their practise round.I yelled out to Ernie as he walked past "This time, it's your year Ernie! Good luck!". Hmm... that didn't work out so well... but at least he was in the mix until the end. You can see me (well, my striped shirt anyway) standing in the background next to Sergio's tee shot in the second photo:

Well, that about wraps it up.