After my grandfather died at the age of 92 in November 2020, we met with a priest to discuss plans for his funeral. We really had only one special request for the ceremony: My mom wanted to play “Augusta,” the Masters theme song, before the processional, as family and friends waded into the church. The priest hesitated, knowing he was about to deliver bad news to a group of people who had already gotten enough of it. No, I’m sorry, he insisted nonetheless. We can play only religious music. And to that we responded, Well, to Pa, the sounds of Augusta National were about as religious as you could get.
The Masters isn’t just a golf tournament. It isn’t just a major championship. There’s something about that particular plot of land in Georgia that pauses time yet honors its passing in the same measure. The same weekend in April every year, on the same hallowed ground. You can set your life to it and watch in awe as years and generations pass while it remains. A boy who listened to the magnolias sway and Arnold Palmer win in 1960 becomes a father who watches his child behold Jack Nicklaus in 1986, becomes a grandfather whose grandkid can’t take his or her eyes off of Tiger Woods and his rolling, rolling, rolling golf ball in 2005. Sports can do many great things, but above all, they can be a conduit—a way for us to feel things we cannot describe, for us to embrace even if we may not be nearby, for us to remember, even when those in the memories are gone. It doesn’t matter who wins the tournament. As soon as the CBS cameras float down Magnolia Lane to the piano keys of “Augusta” and the familiar voice of Jim Nantz, as soon as Jack tees off, Gary Player wiggles those old legs, and the Georgia fog rises off the earth, something magical happens.
Golf was my grandfather’s life. He lived in Rochester, New York, for the first five decades of his life, and when he retired in the early 1990s, he told his wife he was moving to North Carolina—she could come if she wanted. She did, and together they migrated to a small neighborhood outside of Wilmington that was filled mostly with retirees—and was a mere cart ride from a golf course. The house sat 100 yards or so away from the sixth hole. From then on, Pa played about six times a week, weather permitting (although, if you ever called him, he would assure you that the weather was perfect).
He was maddeningly good at the game. I could outdrive him from a young age, but he knew exactly where his ball was going. His drives—hit with one of those old drivers made out of God knows what—would start left and cut back into the fairway, nestling into a safe patch of grass. Every time. He’d poke his way down a hole, tap in for par or bogey, and move on to the next one to do it all over again. On days when he shot his age or better—which happened more and more often as the years went by—he’d call my mom and proudly boast. I’d tell her what a distinct advantage it is to play the same course every single day for 300 days out of the year, maybe out of jealousy, but mostly out of sheer amusement over his persistent exuberance.
And if golf was his life, the Masters was his heart. He attended the tournament in person three times: in 1978 (when Player won), ’79 (Fuzzy Zoeller), and ’89 (Nick Faldo). My grandmother actually visited Augusta National one more time than he did, in 1981 (Tom Watson). She always did have a knack for outdoing her husband in the sport that he nudged her to love (she also had a hole-in-one in her lifetime, something he never accomplished). Pa’s birthday was in August, but the Masters was what truly marked the years for him. For a time, he was a factory worker for the company that once made the badge tickets for the Masters, and he managed to scoop up any defective ones and pass them off as the real thing. We all find our own way to get to Amen Corner.
More on the Masters
Masters week was a semi-holiday in our household because of how much it meant to him. If he was back in town for Easter or something else, we would all sit on the couch and watch the final round on Sunday. He would marvel at Phil Mickelson’s brazen ball-striking (the man loved Phil), tell me stories about Jack or Larry Mize, and grimace when putts cruelly slipped across the edge of a hole. That putt just cost him $125,000, he’d say with a glint in his eye. And when he was in North Carolina, we still watched like that, knowing that 750 miles away, he was doing the same thing. After the tournament ended, we’d call him and listen to what he thought about what just happened.
I have a weekly reminder in my phone that I set up more than a decade ago. Every Thursday at 7 p.m., the alert buzzes: “Call Pa.” Almost five years since his death, I haven’t been able to bring myself to turn it off. I dream of hearing his voice and the funny things he’d say with it, of trying—trying—to explain to him what LIV Golf is, of telling him how his granddaughter just started crawling. The truth is that I can’t remember many of the post-round conversations we had, as badly as I want to. I can’t say for certain what he thought about Tiger winning in 2019—my favorite Masters—or Bubba Watson’s escape from the 10th-hole trees in 2012. What I can remember is the time we spent together on his course in North Carolina. How I’d sit on his lap in the driver’s seat of his golf cart on the way to the clubhouse, him telling me to “put the pedal to the metal.” How he’d try—try—to teach me that going for the pin isn’t always the smartest idea. How he’d continuously tell me to “let the club do the work” and clap his hands together with one sharp smack anytime I actually managed to pull that off.
What I can remember is how watching the Masters with him felt. Like spring was just beginning, even if this particular Sunday might never end. That unique sensation of passing something on, of sharing something. The safety of knowing that what we meant to each other was without question—because the Masters would express the inexpressible.
And on his final days on this planet, the Masters came to him. It certainly didn’t feel this way in 2020. But looking back now and knowing that Pa wouldn’t make it to another spring, the fact that the tournament was played in November that year, just a week before he passed away, instead of its usual April date due to COVID, feels something like fate. Like two old friends getting together one more time, then saying goodbye forever.
The priest did eventually relent, and on that day, we played “Augusta” in God’s house. I had downloaded an hour-long loop of the song to my phone (another thing I refuse to delete), and we connected it to a speaker to let it ring out—at a respectable volume; this is golf, after all—in front of the baptismal font. As people filtered into the church, and as the song’s strings swooned, everything felt right. Like being on the couch on a Masters Sunday, one more time.