Ken Green's 1989 Masters Diary

Golf's angry man takes a 90 m.p.h. tour of the Masters

Green finished tied for 11th in '89.

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By Ken Green

With Guy Yocom

Photo By Stephen Szurlej

April 1989

This article originally appeared in the April 1990 issue of Golf Digest.

Editor's note: First you take golf's strongest bastion of conservatism, the Augusta National Golf Club. Add a liberal helping of the PGA Tour's resident iconoclast, Ken Green. Blend thoroughly, let stand for one week. Yield: A volatile concoction that makes for a lively 1989 Masters Tournament.

Last April, Ken Green agreed to convey his thoughts on the Masters following each day's play. His unexpurgated journal, which follows, tells you as much about the man as about the Masters.

Wednesday, April 5
The Masters starts tomorrow and I'm praying my luck will change. I've lost one tournament this week already, something my friends and I call the Nip Open. I've rented two houses north of Augusta for myself and a dozen close friends and relatives, and to kill time we set up a little golf course around the yards. Playing in two-man teams, we nipped little wedge shots to various "holes" such as the mailbox, barbecue, chicken coop, mailpost and a drain. My partner and I got into a three-hole playoff and lost. I hit a hell of a shot on one hole, though. My ball was lodged against the tire of one of our rental cars and I had to stand on the hood to play it. I hit the target -- the barbecue -- from 20 yards away. The fans went wild.

I sure hope I play better in the Masters than I did in the Nip Open, but my main goal is to relax and have fun. The houses cost $3,500 for the week, but it's well worth it. It's such a great week for my friends. Unfortunately, my wife, Ellen, and the kids aren't here because Brad, who is 5, had to take some tests at school.

My practice rounds have been good. I've played them with Mark Calcavecchia and we've had our usual bets going. We play a basic $20 nassau with automatic one-down presses. Then there're the side bets. If you hit 12 out of 14 fairways off the tee, you win $50. Same thing if you hit 15 greens or more in regulation. Finally, we go to the back of every green after we hole out and take one putt at the hole. If you drain it, you win $100. "Calc" beat me for $80 on the nassau, but I made a drain-o on him and came out $20 ahead. On the year, though, he's just drilled me. He's got about $500 of my money.

The Par-3 Tournament was held this afternoon and that was a lot of fun, too. It's the best part of the week. Calc and I had a match-of-cards bet with Paul Azinger and Ray Floyd, and we beat them.

Like I said, my main goal this week is to have fun. I haven't played very much this year and part of my problem is that I've been uptight. I know I'll play better if I relax, which is always easy when I have my Connecticut buddies with me. On Monday, we had our annual "Grand Prix" car race. The way it works is, we get our rental cars and meet at a designated "office" where we "punch in," or register. Then we drive like hell to see who can get home first. There are no rules. I took the early lead but the other guys were threatening, so I floored it. We had to be going 90 miles per hour as we got near home, and we ran a red light or two to get there. One of the entrants, my friend Eric, blew a belt off his car. Nobody was worried about the cops, because no cop could have started his engine and caught us before we got home. I won. It was nip and tuck coming down the home-stretch, but I was the victor.

After we got home we watched the NCAA Championship basketball game between Michigan and Seton Hall. It inspired us, so we went outside for a little three-on-three. I'm not much of a player. We played until about 3 a.m., when the neighbors threatened to call the police.

I've been on good behavior since Monday, though. I can't go out and have a few beers like I did when I was younger, because I end up just getting blown out of my mind. So I watch TV, play cards or play the Pac-Man machine here in the house.

Thursday, April 6
I got up pretty late today, but I'm a night owl anyway, and I love to sleep in. I skipped breakfast this morning, like I always do, then went downtown and got a haircut. Augusta National has a barbershop, but I didn't want to get one there. I don't want a haircut like Hord Hardin's. They give a genuine barber's shave there, too, but after some of the things I've said about the club and the tournament, I'm not so sure I'd trust one of their guys with a straight razor.

I opened this, my third Masters, with a couple of what we pros call "double crosses," meaning you set up to hit the ball one way, then put on a swing move that makes it do just the opposite. It wasn't pretty. I shot 74, two over par, and had to scramble all day. I played with Bill Glasson, who's not ultra-talkative but is a nice guy to play with.

I wasn't nervous at all. As a kid, I always assumed that playing in the Masters would be about as close to heaven as you could get without actually dying, but all that changed when I played here for the first time in 1986.

What I found was, the ideas, attitudes and philosophies of the Augusta National people don't always coincide with mine. Take the way they set the course up. It's a great layout, no doubt about it, but you can't shoot at a lot of the pins, which I don't like. And they wait until the last minute to trick up the greens. They are very undulating, which doesn't go along well with how fast they make them. When you only have to touch the ball to get it rolling 25 feet, putting turns into potluck.

As for the Augusta members here, they are relatively friendly, but at the same time they are very standoffish. They really have to make an effort just to say hello. The atmosphere is stuffy. You sense that they think they're in a different league from everybody else. They are totally caught up in the allure of the private club, so they make up all these strict rules, such as making us pay for Cokes in the locker room. I don't mind paying, but it's inconvenient because I don't always have a pocketful of change. You learn to deal with this stuff. My feeling is, when these people go to visit God, He isn't going to have their rules. The same people the Augusta National people are stepping on are going to be right there with them.