New England golfers heading to the Masters who haven’t shelled out thousands to walk the hallowed grounds may want to follow this tip from Augusta aficionado Jonathan Littman: purchase entry to the vaunted event from “trustworthy hustlers” only.
“I know that’s an oxymoron,” the author of “Crashing Augusta: real life tales of sports men and murder” said in a recent phone interview. “But there are such people” — far from prying eyes in green jackets — from whom Masters-goers may buy tickets.
Littman, who recently published a compilation of five stories he wrote as a contributing editor for Playboy, knows how to do Augusta on the cheap. He spent his first Masters week in 2005 in the company of seven “crazy hustlers” he hooked up with at the Super Bowl. He crashed in a sleeping bag on the porch of a rented house a mile from Augusta National and tooled around town in a rented golf cart.
“My share of the place was $500 for the week, including food and gambling,” Littman said.
Irreverent look at Augusta. As the title of his book suggests, the author’s take on A Tradition Unlike Any Other may be a tad different from that of most Masters worshippers. He painted a vivid portrait of the glories as well as the shady underbelly of an event about which most followers speak in hushed, reverent tones.
For sure, Littman did his share of gushing.
“Walking by the majestic green-rimmed scoreboard, international flags fluttering above, I’m struck by the first truth of the National,” he wrote. “More than a golf course, it resembles a park. Though surrounded by gates and guards, the course rolls down before me, overwhelming with its openness and sunning vistas. It’s more perfect than I imagined.”
Littman did not, however, let the majesty of Masters Week blind him to the controversies you won’t hear from the lips of Jim Nantz. Writing about Augustans’ love of tales about golf as well as “another popular Southern pastime — guns and violence,” Littman told the story of the 1976 “accident” that resulted in the shooting of three African-Americans caught fishing in Rae’s Creek.
The one about…“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…,” Littman wrote.
Or the whole “women need not apply” policy for the ultra-exclusive club that, “while wholeheartedly embracing billionaires (six) and the nation’s richest, most powerful white men,” had two black members at the time of Littman’s original article.
Littman said he set out to tell the whole story of Augusta. “A 12 year-old and two 19-year-olds who happened to be black were shot on the golf course,” he said. “That’s a pretty big deal and part of the legacy of what they have to live with. Obviously, it was a different time but it wasn’t that long ago.”
Mostly, though, the writer wanted to prove that even those who were were not corporate bigwigs could enjoy the Masters first-hand. Littman conquered Augusta for under $100 a day with help from the town’s mayor, his realtor wife, and sheriff. The lawman constantly cautioned the visitor against dealing with scalpers, who were likely to sell stolen tickets — advice the best-selling author cheerfully ignored.
Littman cadged invites for practice rounds from exiting patrons (“spectators” beyond Magnolia Lane). “A little after noon, any fool can buy a ticket for $40 to $60 from the dozens of hustlers wringing the last bucks out of the day’s market,” Littman wrote about Monday’s practice round.
By Tuesday, he negotiated a $20 offer from a departing patron down to $10 for a ticket “that is nothing if not a perishable commodity,” Littman wrote. “It was worth more yesterday than today, and as the minutes tick by on Master’s Corner, you literally hear the dollars drain out of it.”
Tickets to the popular Wednesday practice round and the annual par 3 contest were the toughest to score, going for about $400 in the morning. Biding his time, Littman got in for $40, “four dollars over face value,” by waiting until patrons streamed out at noon.
“My favorite miracle is the Masters par 3 contest,” Littman wrote. With players’ kids and wives caddying — outfitted in white looper suits — the game “is that rare spectacle, a competition purely about fun.”
With scalping legal in Augusta as long as you did your business a half-mile from what locals call The National, Littman extolled the virtues of a yearly experience that turned almost every resident into hawkers. “They figured out how to invest an entire community in a golf tournament through self-interest,” Littman said. “Because of the badge and the wonderful, medieval patron system, just about [every local denizen] can make money off this tournament.”
Littman admired the discretion Augustans used to turn profits by jacking up the rental prices of their homes. “It’s just so beautiful the way it’s done,” Littman said. Hush hush. “They don’t really talk about it, but you rent a home for a week and, instead of costing $2,000, it’s $10,000, but these two badges are on the kitchen table.”
Indeed, Littman suggested that the safest way to get in for the tournament itself was to rent a house with eight buddies and share the badges that come with the rental. But you won’t need the pricey badges for practice rounds, which Littman enjoyed more than the real thing. “You can stand at the ropes and be 15 feet away” from the icons of the game, he said.
Like that one afternoon, when, “as if in a mirage, appears Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, the champions of my youth,” he wrote. “Side by side they climb the steep incline, chatting and laughing, a sight that brings tears to my eyes.”
Another hint from Littman for intrepid fans on practice days: burrow yourself deep in the course and ignore official warnings to exit late in the afternoon.
“It’s 6:30, official closing time on practice days,” he wrote. “I walk toward the Berckmans Road exit, and slowly drift out of the tide of patrons and suddenly realize that I’m invisible, circling about in the middle of the course, deliciously extending my sojourn.”
The green-coated police kicked him out eventually, but in the meantime Littman had the run of his field of dreams. “I’ve snuck under the radar, outstaying even the marshals, slipped into a time warp, virtually alone on one of the world’s most storied golf courses,” he rhapsodized.
Behind-the-scenes peek. Those “plucky enough to stay beyond official closing” will glimpse the “Oz-like quality” of The National behind the curtain: workers mapping out pin placements, painting flowers that dot the spectacular azalea-bedecked backdrop that so wows TV audiences, and (say it ain’t so!) pouring dye into Rae’s Creek.
“They leave nothing to chance,” Littman said.
If the writer were to leave travelers to Augusta with some words of encouragement, they would be these: “Anyone can go to the tournament,” he said, “if they can figure out how to get in.”
You may order “Crashing Augusta” at Amazon.com.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out on the Waggle Room, Boston Golf Examiner, and National Golf Examiner, and GottaGoGolf websites. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
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