So The Masters tees off starting today, more than seven Months after its customary early April/weekend after the Final Four slot. Most golf and sports fans have been waiting with bated breath on the return of this storied, annual event. I am not one of them. Never have been. Thank God.
I'm sorry, but I just don't get the big deal with this thing. People talk in hushed tones about the sacredness of Augusta National. There so many weird quirks about the course I find off-putting. Each hole is named after a tree; pieces of nature (put there by meticulous architects) are given this hushed reverence as if ordained by God, such as Rae's Creek and The Big Oak Tree. Ordinary buildings and events get spun into hallowed traditions because it's The Masters!!! The Champions Dinner is just a fucking dinner, OK? And Butler Cabin is just a fucking cabin, too. People talk about the greens being a perfect, uh, green. And did you know the bunkers aren't filled with sand, but instead North Carolina feldspar? It kind of looks white on TV, and so the white-on-green gives the course a psychedelic palette that makes Augusta National first among equals! Holy shit!
The, uh, formalism of the golf course and the tournament, which is demanded by the membership of Augusta National, cuts mostly in a bad way. The few rules surrounding the Masters that are good -- only four minutes of commercials per hour; only three companies allowed to run commercials (as of press time they are AT&T, IBM, and Mercedes-Benz); no cellphones or photography allowed by fans ... excuse me, patrons watching The Masters in person -- are more than overshadowed by onerous control. If I scream, "Holy shit!" in the "gallery," I will be thrown out. Broadcasters have been barred from being part of the coverage if membership claims they are not acting in accordance to the rules of the golf club. That's fucking censorship.
And oh, don't get me started on their racist, sexist beginnings. I'm not just talking about 2002, where women launched a boycott because Augusta at the time did not invite women to be part of the membership. People who defended the course's membership and First Amendment right to peaceably assemble how they wanted to didn't understand that it wasn't the women protesting who were snowflakes. Hootie (God, what a stupid, fucking Southern nickname) Johnson decided not to ignore a letter by a chairwoman of a feminist organization asking why there wasn't a female member at Augusta and instead made a huge goddamn deal about it, stating that there wouldn't be a woman invited to join Augusta "at the point of a bayonet." If Hootie didn't flip out like a bitch, the controversy, sexist as it was, would have died a quiet death. Instead, his snowflakiness turned up the scrutiny on this famous yet shunning group until they finally admitted two women in 2012.
Oh, by the way, August had no Black members until 1990. No Blacks were allowed to golf there until Lee Elder was permitted to in 1975. But while there couldn't be Black golfers, Augusta actually demanded that the caddies be Black since the course's inception and for the longest time. Up to such a point but no farther, I guess the thinking went. And Augusta basically tying up its entire recent history to Tiger Woods doesn't change its past plantation mindset.
But ooooh, the green jacket!!! And that tinkly music that makes golf fans want to jerk off in their pants, wow!!! The stifling "standards" of the golf membership is strict enough. The preciousness with which all of these rules and conventions are held by adoring golf fans is what really sets me over the edge. This is just a fucking goddamn golf tournament, indistinguishable from any other pretty, well-maintained golf course in the Twin Cities. Jesus fucking Christ, get your heads out of your asses.
I will set foot on the holy ground of August if I ever am hired to work The Masters. But if I get ever get a ticket (for free; I have no desire to pay for one), I will scream and fart until I get hauled out of there by Pinkerton, the security firm that appears to walk the golf course and enforces Augusta's rules. The hold this tournament and this golf course has on people fucking astounds me.
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