Tom Talks

Want to play Augusta National?

   I was walking along the fairway on the first hole Saturday and ran into a man I've known and respected for decades. He is connected, the man is, and he said he was going to play Augusta National Golf Club Monday. He said it as matter of factly as we would talk about going to the driving range.

   I asked him what playing the course was like. And he asked, "Do you want to play?"

   Now, I have not played golf in 25 years. I used to play, however. And then came the worst shot of my life.

   A buddy and I were going to play one Monday morning on a course outside Charlotte. We work together, and a third guy, who was not very popular and you'll see why, asked if he could join us. We said, um, sure. 

   But it rained the day we were supposed to play and my friend and I decided to cancel. So I called the third guy. And third guy said, come on, don't cancel, I never get to play, the rain isn't bad, we'll have fun, please. 

   So we reluctantly agreed to meet him at the golf course. 

   He failed to show up.

   I hit the ball off the first tee as hard as I could and knocked the ball into a field across the street. I played the ball from there, and finished the hole with a 14. I could never get my game back, and after a few more failed rounds I gave my clubs away.

   Augusta National would be a fine place to make a comeback. It would be a column, certainly. But this golf course means too much to too many people, and I'd feel as if I was making a mockery of the course, and of them. 

   So I reluctantly declined.  

Get your Masters badges here

   Ran into a ticket salesman in a parking not near Augusta National Golf Club. Selling tickets for more than face value is legal here as long as you're at least 1,500 feet away from the site of the event.

   The Masters does not sell one-day passes. It sells a four-day badge for a ridiculously low $200. The last year the public had access to the badges was 1972. The more difficult a ticket is to attain, of course, the more valuable it becomes.

   The ticket guy in the parking lot sold badges before the tournament for $2,500. He also sells one-day badges. This eans the people to whom he sells have to return them.

   Offices set up in stores and hotels try to ensure the badges will be returned by obtaining a credit card number. If you buy the badge for one day, and keep it for four, the office will attempt to charge your credit card.

   The guy in the parking lot doesn't do that. He asks for a driver's license or car keys, and he said nobody has stiffed him yet.

  He sold a badge to the Masters Thursday for $600 , Friday for $500, Saturday for $400 to $500 and on Sunday he'll sell them for $300.

   Business, he said smiling, is very good.

Good morning Augusta

   Augusta National Golf Club is as pretty as everybody says, and it's prettiest in the morning. When Ryuji Imada and Stuart Appleby, Saturday's first twosome, tee off at 10:35, there isn't a footprint on the greens. There is only dew.

   Crowds are small, traffic relatively light. Well-dressed men and women walk the course as they sip breakfast beers. Few follow Imada and Appleby. Most tour the course, or stake out a place from which to watch later.

  The sun shines, humidity is non-existent and there is the sense that good things will happen.

Excuse me, columnist coming through

   The security man came reeling around the corner, a one-man offensive line.

   "Excuse me, player coming through!" he said loudly but without yelling, because nobody who works for Augusta National ever yells, probably not even in their own genteel homes. "Player coming through!"

   And I thought, sadly, that nobody will ever say, "Columnist coming through!"

   Nobody will ever say, "Farmer coming through! Accountant coming through! Realtor coming through! Personal trainer coming through!"

   "Attorney coming though?" Don't even think about it.

   All I'm saying is that wouldn't it be cool, one time, to have somebody throw a block for you.

  

Beware the Tiger stampede

   I follow at least 10 threesomes Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club. The Phil Mickelson group attracts a crowd, as do Greg Norman and Chris Evert, as does Sergio Garcia. But the crowd is not overwhelming. If you want a space next to the ropes, and you walk fast enough, you can find it. I can't prove it, but the crowd feels smaller than it did a year ago.

   I'm watching golfers from the media grandstand at No. 18 when somebody says, "What's that?"

   Over in the first tee is what looks like, from up here, a cattle drive. This isn't a gallery. This is a teeming mass. Thousands of people stand five deep, 10 deep. There are no ropes. There are only humans. And in the middle of them is Tiger Woods.

   It's just another reminder of how much the man means to his sport. And how little most of the competition matters.

   *

   The Masters could gouge you if it chose. Hungry? Thirsty? Where else are you going to go?

   But Augusta National does not. Prices are consistently civilized. An imported beer is $3,75, a domestic beer $2.75. Coffee is $2, as is ice cream. For $1.50 you can buy a sausage biscuit or an egg salad, pimento cheese, ham and cheese on rye, tuna salad or turkey sandwich. The sandwiches don't taste as if they were plucked from a machine. They're good.

   *

   I saw a man from my past Thursday. If you are of a certain vintage, he's from your past, too. Playing with Rory Sabbatini and Dustin Johnson was Captain Kangaroo. He use to have a kid's show. Everybody watched. We didn't have video games or computers.

   Kangaroo was struggling. I don't cheer anymore at sporting events; I've spent too many years pretending to be professionally impartial. But I wanted to scream, "Come on, Kangaroo! Don't quit, Kangaroo! Tiger is (after six holes) over par, too, Kangaroo! Do it for Mr. Moose, Kangaroo! Do it for Mr. Green Jeans!"

   Alas, my support didn't help. Craig Stadler finished five over par.

Ozzie Smith flips over Augusta

   I pulled into Augusta late Wednesday afternoon and drove to a restaurant down the street from the house in which we stay. At first, I was worried I might be kicked out; I was the one who wasn't wearing a sweater vest. But they let me stay, although I did eat outside.

   Halfway into my first draft beer, which I will not put on my expense account, a group walked out the door and one customer shouted, "Ozzie!"

   Nice call. It was Ozzie Smith.

  Ozzie was one of the great defensive shortstops of all time, and he could hit a little, too. He was known for his backflips, and now a fan was flipping over him. How would he respond?

  Graciously, it turns out. Lean and compact, Ozzie left his group, walked to the man who called his name and spent at least five minutes talking to the customers at his table. They identified themselves as Ohioans and fans of the Cincinnati Reds. And still Ozzie, who played for St. Louis and before that for San Diego, stayed. He laughed and talked and, although his friends were waiting, was in no hurry to leave.

   I had always admired Ozzie from a distance. Now that he was 10 yards away, I admired him more.

  

  

Monday night in front of the TV

    Monday night was sports sensory overload. At various times, the tel evision was filled by North Carolina, the New York Yankees, the New York Mets,the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the computer filled with updates from Seattle-Minnesota, Detroit-Toronto and the games from the West Coast.

   I'm not one of those guys who watches sports on TV every night or follows every game on my laptop. I'd rather do something than watch other people do something. But some nights, I love being a spectator, and Monday was one of them.

   So I watched the new-look Yankees get rolled the same way the old-look Yankees did, watched the Mets' bullpen do something I'm unaccustomed to seeing, which is successfully closing a game, watched an NCAA championship that was less a contest than a coronation.

   When the games ended, sports did not. I dreamed about former Carolina cornerback Ken Lucas. There was a press conference and everybody was ripping him, even the nice reporters, and I would defend him. Then a new reporter would walk in and rip Lucas and I'd have to defend him all over again. The press conference never did begin. I never said my dreams were interesting.

   So here's what I conclude. (A) It's OK to sometimes sit on a sofa and eat in front of the TV and do nothing all evening but immerse yourself in sports; and (B) fresh air probably is a good thing, too.

    

  

Had the NBA called, the Tar Heels would have answered

   The great myth of the 2009 NCAA men's college basketball tournament is that North Carolina's starters selflessly turned down the NBA so they could come back to campus this season and win a championship.

   Truth is, the NBA wasn't particularly interested. Tyler Hansbrough likely would have been a late first-round pick. But point guard Ty Lawson's postseason escapades undermined his once secure spot in the lottery, and the league expressed little interest in Wayne Ellington or Danny Green.

   It's a good story, the veterans returning for another year of higher education. But had the NBA salivated over the prospects of the Tar Heels, some, most or all would have turned pro.   

Cutler wasn't coming to Charlotte, Peppers wasn't going to Denver

   Several readers emailed to ask the same question: Why don't the Panthers trade Julius Peppers to Denver for Jay Cutler.

   They didn't trade Peppers for Cutler for the same reason they won't trade Jeff King for Peyton Manning. The Broncos wouldn't have made the deal. As inept as Denver's defense is, it wanted draft picks and a young potential starter at quarterback. The Panthers best pick is at the end of the second round, and they don't have a young quarterback who has established himself as a starter. They don't have what Denver wanted.

   Remember, too, that the Broncos could trade Cutler to anybody they wanted. The Panthers can trade Peppers only to a team that he wants.

   Meanwhile, most of the people I talk to around the league expect Peppers to play for Carolina next season. I don't. I think the Panthers trade him before the draft.

   Who do they trade him to?

   Not Denver.

Pardon Jack Johnson

     Jack Johnson was Muhammad Ali first. He was an exceptional boxer; the man was legendary for his ability to avoid punches. But the government ultimately got to him. Johnson was convicted under the Mann Act, an odious piece of legislation, for having consensual sex with a white woman with whom he crossed state lines.

   We hear about what baseball player Hank Aaron went through, the things he had to listen to, as he worked his way from the Deep South to the Major Leagues. But what Johnson was subjected to is almost unfathomable in its cruelty and hate.

   Much of the country shuddered at the idea that a black man could win the coveted heavyweight boxing championship. Boxing was huge in 1908, the year Johnson won the title. To get it back in white hands,  promoters scoured the country for a Great White Hope. But Johnson held the championship until 1915.

   Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has long tried to clean up boxing, and Rep. Peter King of New York, are, via a congressional resolution, trying to convince President Obama to pardon Johnson.

   I hope it happens. If you have any interest in the Johnson legend, or a curiousity about what it was like to be a black champion in the early 1900s, ead "Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes," a superb biography.