There is nothing more fun than watching old folks sing a song from their youth.  Watching Freddie shoot 67 at Augusta National today to take the second round lead of the Masters at 5 under par is about as fun as it gets.  He sure looked like he was having a good time singing that tune.

In his Los Angeles Times article today Bill Dwyre says, “With a golf club in his hands, Couples is 52 going on 30………In senior citizen centers all over the country, they were high-fiving each other with walking sticks and demanding extra warm milk”.

Augusta National brings out the best in Freddie’s game it always has.  He made the cut there about a bazillion times in a row and won the Green Jacket in 1992.  As Dwyre points out, Freddie has earned well over $2 million walking among these azalea bushes.

If you doubt that he can win this thing just note the spring in his Eccos and the magic in his putting stafff.  In his own words, “Can I win? I believe I can, yes”.

If it was cool to see Jack win the Masters in 1986 at 45 years old, how awesome would it be if Freddie pulled off the same at age 52?  Adrenaline meet nostalgia.  Freddie is seven years younger but this has that misty feel of Watson at Turnberry in 2009.  We just hope that father time doesn’t pay Freddie a rude visit between now and the final hike up 18 on Sunday.

Any way you look at it, there will be legions of Grecian Formula fans rooting for Freddie to keep hope alive for another two days.  Freddie in a Green Jacket when the Fat Lady Sings……that would be cool indeed.

(Click to read Bill Dwyre’s “Putting, Not Puttering, Couples Shares Masters Lead”)

Bill Dwyre

Los Angeles Times

April, 2012

For an amateur who has had the privilege to play The Masters their experience at this revered place began in “The Crow’s Nest”, a secluded living space in the upper reaches of the Augusta National clubhouse.  Many of those amateurs return to play again, many of them become winners of the coveted Green Jacket.  But for all of them, the first Masters memories they have are of this cloistered living space and times of discovery shared with other young men they lived with that week in Georgia.

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Dave Kindred’s wonderful Golf Digest article “Boys To Men” describes the experience of living Masters week as an amateur in the Crow’s Nest at Augusta National.  Through stories told by the young players who carry first images of the place indelibly etched in their minds, he reveals what a rite of passage it is for a player to unveil the mysteries that surround the hallowed place that Bobby Jones built.

Stairway to heaven? (Don Furore golfdigest.com)

The challenge begins with finding the Crow’s Nest.  There are no signs, no directions offered to where it is-just that it is on top of the clubhouse above the second floor.  They eventually discover through a door on the second floor marked TELEPHONE, down a hall, another innocuous looking door that when opened reveals a carpeted stairway that looks like it is ascending to heaven.  Appropriately there is a portrait of Bobby Jones himself staring down at them from above at the top of the stairway.

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The rooms are simple but somewhat surreal.  Kindred says, “If not a dorm room–the place whispers rather than shouts–it might be your grandmother’s place: quiet, cozy, immaculate. Its ancient timbers are painted a white as pure as that of the robes, fringed bedspreads and bathroom ceramics. Sunlight falls in from the high cupola’s four sets of windows. The room is all shining whites and Masters greens.”

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These are stories of 20 year olds who are living a childhood dream of playing in a major tournament and the last thing they were thinking about was decorum and rules.  Indiscretion has them climbing on to the roof in their skivvies to check the morning weather or walking into prohibited places like the Champions locker room or hastily trying to make it to their tee time and nearly running down Gene Sarazen or Byron Nelson in the hallway or staying out so late that they have to clandestinely climb the fence to get back on the property.

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The black and whites on the wall make you realize this is a place of great history.  “Lloyd Mangrum signs autographs for wounded soldiers. Gene Sarazen and Byron Nelson walk to the sixth green. Lean and hungry, his arms a blacksmith’s, Arnold Palmer stands in a fairway, young, strong and alive.”

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It is like sleeping in a museum  with voices of the past  whispering from the rafters. This article is a scrapbook of the compiled memories of greats like Nicklaus, Watson, and Crenshaw and lesser greats like Billy Andrade, David Chung, and Don Cherry.  Recollections of youthful fascination and discovery provide a unique perspective on the eve of the annual ritual we call The Masters.

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(Click to read Dave Kindred’s Golf Digest article ‘Boys to Men’)

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Dave Kindred

Golf Digest April, 2012

Ginni Rometty is the new CEO of IBM and one of the main architects of the reinvention of this old line technology giant. Under her influence IBM has embraced cloud technology as the centerpiece of their product and service offerings and , as a result,  their company shares are at the highest valuation in their history.

As their new ad campaign boasts this makes her the #1 IBMer in a lot of ways.  She is entitled to all the spoils that go with responsibility she has embraced, including a membership in one of the most exclusive all boys fraternities in the country, Augusta National Golf Club.

Augusta National has a history of extending membership to the chief executive of IBM, one of the main sponsors of The Masters each year, as well as the top executives of other fortune 500 companies like Coke, GE, Rockwell, and more.  As Sally Jenkins points out in this Washington Post article, “Inherited money doesn’t get you into Augusta, nor does status or reputation alone.  The best way to become a member is to shark your way to the top of a large American Company…..Rometty earned her way into a winner’s circle that is genderless.  Her defining characteristic is not that she’s a woman but that she has a talent for corporate victory”.

By process alone it seems that Augusta National has an opportunity to put into it’s rear view mirror past criticism of it’s penchant for male only membership.  Most important, they can do this on their own terms and not “at the point of a bayonet” as Hootie Johnson characterized it back in 2002 when women’s rights advocate Martha Burk tried to force it on them through her unsuccessful parking lot demonstrations down the street from the club entrance.

Seems to me that if the membership committee of Augusta National really means what it has said in the past, women will eventually be members of this austere club, this is their opportunity to pull it off seamlessly, without fanfare, and for a reason that fits with their policies.  As Sally concludes, “If Rometty does slip on a (green) blazer, it will be quietly, for the simple reason that, in business, she plays from the tips”.

(Click to read Sally Jenkins article about Augusta National and Ginni Rometty)

Sally Jenkins

Washington Post

March, 2012

In his Golf World column, Final Say, Roland Merullo talks about the reason there is such a bond of deep friendship created by those who regularly play golf together.  Nowhere else do we relate to people of such diverse interests, political and social views, and income standings.  It is a wonder that we can spend four hours regularly with people who think so differently from us, yet golf seems to create a bridge of tolerance and shared purpose that gets beyond all that.

True friendships are built with a measure of humility.  Merullo points out that the game dishes out humble pie without regard to who you are. “The moment you set foot on the first tee you’re signing up to periodically make a fool of yourself. Nobody escapes.”  When we watch Ernie gag a three-footer to lose a championship we can feel his pain because we have experienced that pain-in front of others we know well-so many times before.

That protective shell  we wear to ward off the slings and arrows that life throws at us every day has to be permeated if we are to establish real relationships with our friends.  It does not take  but a few holes on the golf course to get a good sense of someone in your group and, as he says, “if you tee it up with someone 30 times a year for decades you can probably sketch out a map of his DNA”.

In the end knowing whether a person will be there when you need them has a lot to do with witnessing how they handle the expected and the unexpected.  Appropriately put “every golf outing includes moments of failure, disappointment, even heartbreak.  How we face those things speaks volumes about the creature we are underneath the mask of the personality”.

It has occurred to me many times that when I want a piece of solid and objective advice I will pick up the phone and call someone who I have befriended through golf.  There is something about the authenticity of their advice I can embrace because we have read or misread a putt for each other in a two-man team competition and hold no malice from the result.  Golf does provide a unique platform for experiencing such things together with people we have come to trust.

(Click here to read Roland Merullo’s Golf World article)

Roland Merullo

Golf World

March, 2012