There’s no place in the world like it.
Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.
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It is the home of one of the biggest sporting events in the world, The Masters.
It is the perfectly kept course that is golf’s crown jewel.
The azaleas are in full bloom.
There’s no blade of grass too long.
No tree branches protruding where they shouldn’t be.
Three-time Masters winner Phil Mickelson told a story about how seriously Augusta National is when it comes to keeping its course as close to perfect as possible.
“I’ll give you a little Augusta story, if I may, while we’ve got a minute,” Mickelson said at a press conference for LIV Miami.
“I was playing a practice round there one year. It was two weeks prior to the tournament.
“Probably nobody even knows that this happened.
“Two weeks prior to the tournament, I’m playing the 11th hole, I’m back lining up my tee shot, and I see this tree on the left fall over right in the middle of the fairway,” Mickelson said. “Crash down, like right by the group in front of us.
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“They were probably a hundred yards away.
“This massive Georgia pine comes down, rips up the fairway, and so forth.
“By the time I had walked from my tee shot into the fairway, I could hear on the walkie-talkie, ‘Get off of two, get to 11. Get off of four, get to 11.’
“And these hundred workers, I don’t know how many, there were a number of workers piling in, racing to this tree, firing up the chainsaws, and started cutting this thing down.
“So now the limbs, by the time I walk off of 11 green, all the limbs of the tree have been cut off and put on a truck on the back of these carts.
“By the time I got to 15, I looked down there, they were cutting up the trunk, and the entire tree was being brought away.
“By the time I was done, got back to the 18th tee, and looked down, they were re-sodding the fairway.
“Like nobody knew, you couldn’t tell two days later this had happened.
“I just thought, like, if that was my home course, that tree would still be there like three weeks later. And they had this thing removed.
“It was one of the most impressive things I’d seen, their ability to handle stuff like that.
“So I’m sure the course is gonna be in great shape.”
There are no guarantees in life, except for three things.
Death, taxes and Augusta National sparkling and shining during the Masters.
