The Power of Prayer

In 1984, at the age of 14, I became a golfer.  That was the year our family moved to a small town in central Illinois and my parents bought a home on a golf course making it very easy for me to take up the game.  I met my first friends in that town playing golf.  One Sunday afternoon one of my new friends invited me over to his grandmother’s home for lunch. His grandmother’s house was full of people gathered around the television watching golf. I had no idea golf was a televised sport or that people loved it so much they would gather to watch it like the Super Bowl. 

The memory of this particular Sunday afternoon stands out very clearly because the tournament being televised was “The Masters”. What would become more important later in life was that the tournament being played was held at Augusta National Golf Club. I don’t really remember much about the golfers on TV that day but the golf course I was being introduced to had me completely mesmerized. It looked like a fantasy golf course with impossibly long holes, diabolical greens, powdered sugar bunkers, and hidden creeks all surrounded by a magical forest of pine trees and exotic flowering bushes. If someone would have told me the course used indoor/outdoor carpet instead of grass for the fairways and greens, I would have believed without the slightest incredulity.

As my passion for playing golf continued so did my interest in the Masters golf tournament and Augusta National Golf Club. I would come to learn that Augusta National was possibly the most exclusive club in the world and the Masters the most coveted of all tournaments to win. Every year for the rest of my life the month of April would be synonymous with the Masters.

Tickets to attend the Masters tournament are nearly impossible to get.  At one time you could only get them if you or your family had annual passes, which were passed down from generation-to-generation. In recent years the members of Augusta National revised their ticket policy so the likelihood of getting tickets would change from impossible to highly unlikely by creating a lottery system open to every person on the planet regardless of their interest in the game or knowledge of Masters history. Over the last decade or so the lottery process was moved to an online system so prospective attendees could easily register for tickets. I have attempted to get tickets this way for many years and I would always ask friends, family and co-workers to register on my behalf. I always wondered if any of these people would actually give me the tickets if they were selected. To me it would be the emotional equivalent of a surrogate mother handing over her newborn baby to someone else to raise. 

I will always consider 2015 to be the luckiest year of my life because it is the year my favorite co-worker of all time, Ann Schuetz, won the opportunity to buy tickets through the lottery system. She was selected to purchase 4 tickets to the Wednesday practice round for the 2016 Masters. Ann called me immediately to let me know she was selected and to offer me the tickets. I was finally going to the Masters!

Oh yeah, 2015 will also be remembered as the year my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Jaden. 

Now back to my story about going to the Masters….

Last Wednesday, around 8:04 A.M. I walked through the gates of Augusta National with my Mom, Dad and 9-year-old son, Tony. I choked back tears when I saw the golf course for the first time. My mother was unable to choke them back.  I knew her tears were for me and the joy I was feeling having arrived at a place that meant so much to me. At last, her son’s dream had come true.

When we were driving to Augusta National that morning I wondered to myself what one thing would happen that day that would stand out as my favorite memory. I felt certain the memory would come from seeing a particular golf hole that had been etched in my memory for 20 or 30 years. Maybe it would be seeing “Amen Corner” holes 11 through 13, which have been the triumph and tragedy of so many competitors since the tournament began in 1934. Maybe it would be seeing Arnold Palmer wearing his green jacket or Tom Watson playing in the Par 3 Contest. 

There was one thing I was really hoping would happen at Augusta National that I had prayed for many times throughout my life. With me that day was my 1986 Sports Illustrated with Jack Nicklaus on the cover.  I was hoping I would have the opportunity to hold it out and have Jack take it from me and sign it.  I realized the likelihood of this happening was remote. I didn’t even know if Jack Nicklaus was going to be there. Why would he? Jack was 76 years old and had not played as a competitor for many years. There was a chance he would play in the annual Par 3 Contest held on Wednesdays. Often, but not always, many former champions return to attend the Champions Dinner and play in this Wednesday event. 

I pray regularly, but always before boarding an airplane. When I got to LAX to fly to Atlanta my prayer was primarily to ask God to keep us safe. I may have also asked God to include Jack Nicklaus in the field at the Par 3 Contest because I assume heaven is from where the invitations come.

Around 3:00 P.M. nearly all of the players had come and gone from the first tee and it looked as though my Sports Illustrated would continue to go un-autographed.  All of a sudden down the path to the first tee came Gary Player, the legendary Black Knight from South Africa who had won the Masters in 1961, 1974 and 1978. Following Gary down the path was Tom Watson a two-time winner of the Masters in 1977 and 1981. My prospects were looking good. All of the groups that day were threesomes and what better person to join Gary and Tom but the legend himself. 

Then I saw him! He was wearing a yellow golf shirt just as he had 30 years earlier when he won his sixth Masters title. Was this fate? Would he sign my magazine? As he came down the path I saw he was signing autographs, but not for everyone.  He was moving fast and the crowd was enormous. Would he make it down to me or just walk to the first tee? He moved closer and I held out my Sports Illustrated. He saw it but never looked up at me. Then he grabbed it. For only a second or two he paused to look at the cover. Then he signed it. Maybe it was my imagination but it looked like he was taking his time writing his name. I wondered if he appreciated that someone would have saved this particular magazine to have it signed on the 30^th anniversary of him winning his sixth Masters. I will never know but I’d like to think so.

On our drive back from Augusta to Atlanta, I was thinking about the question to myself about what one thing would be my favorite memory from the day.  Getting Jack’s autograph was high on the list, but it had tough competition.

I took a picture of my son Tony with Rory Mcllroy. In the picture Tony is holding the current issue of Golf Digest with Rory on the cover, which he had just signed.  My son wondered why I waited 30 years to get an autograph on a magazine cover?  “Look how easy it is, Dad!”

• We saw the spot Bubba Watson hit is famous shot out of the woods on the 10^th hole to win the 2012 Masters in a playoff. 
• We walked the most famous nine holes in golf (10 through 18) in the late afternoon and had the place practically to ourselves. 
• We watched a group of five Masters Champions that included Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Raymond Floyd and Vijay Singh warming up on the practice range while eating pimento and cheese sandwiches that only cost $1.50 each. 
• I heard nine famous “Augusta Roars” given each time a player scored a hole-in-one during the Par 3 Contest.  Nine is a record number of holes-in-one, five being the previous record.

So what was the best thing? Well, in a way it was none of these things individually and all of these things collectively. It was a day with my parents and my son sharing a lifelong dream. My parents introduced me to the game of golf as a child and now I am sharing it with my son. Our day at Augusta National was both a spiritual and physical passing down from one generation to another and to another again the love for a great sport. Golf has given me so much in life including a college scholarship, great friendships, job opportunities and career advancement.  

I don’t know if my son will choose to be a golfer or become passionate about the game of golf but whatever he chooses to do I hope it is something he loves as much as I love golf.  Whatever it is I hope it is something we can share together all of our lives and that he can share with his children someday, too.

Patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet.

~ Aristotle