Lots of comment this morning about players being uncomfortable at the Masters this year. Geoff Shackelford talks about it today in our Dateline Augusta, quoting players and writers. This comfort thing is mostly related to the course.  Hootie Johnson's  changes, the changes to the changes, yesterday's weather, tough hole locations, etc. The Masters used to have a comfort level that other majors didn't. Players aren't feeling that this week.

But other changes are making non-players a bit uncomfortable. These changes are really about you: Readers. Patrons. Letter-writers. Golfers.  Maybe-golfers.

These changes suggest a significantly different attitude at Augusta and perhaps elsewhere:

Chairman Billy Payne opening an electronic suggestion box for ideas on growing the game..

Free admission for kids to the Masters...

Televising of the Par-3. (Despite some "Cliff Roberts would turn over in his grave" comments.

I'll add the tournament allowing its web site (and golfdigest.com) to send Marty Hackel, Mr. Style, out to talk to patrons about the "scene" here at Augusta...never been done before.

(While we're at it, let's range beyond this major into the next one, the Open, and add the fact the USGA and NBC are cooperating with Golf Digest's effort to put an average player on the US Open course at Torrey Pines. )

I'm sorry, did you say the Masters is asking for suggestions and the USGA has invited one of us hackers to come try it's Open setup? I would have bet large money against either of those things happening a few months ago.

Golf may be finally getting it--golf the Industry and the Game, not Trevor Immelman's round today. Not single-digit guys who play early Sunday morning and would just as soon you find another sport if you're going to mess with their starting time. Golf, the game too many kids don't have time for between soccer and World of Warcraft. Grass roots golf.

The fact is, Arnie's tee shot into the fog yesterday is a pretty fair metaphor for the state of our game. The old game is over and we don't know where the new one is going .  Arnie inspired a lot of us in the press room to find golf and we forget what a pain in the neck we must have been to the proper golfers of the day. We now find ourselves defending their turf.

What Billy Payne has done here may not be perfect. Maybe you're cynical about suggestion boxes. Maybe you've had it with cute kids in white bibs distracting Peter Kostis from important wedge shots.  Maybe mixing promotion with tradition for you is like stirring beer into your bourbon.

Or perhaps, at the other end, you're one of those readers who thinks it's not gone far enough and have decided the whole U.S. Open Contest is a "farce" because the finalists aren't 16-handicaps shooting 130.  We can't please y'all. But as Joe Steranka, the executive director of the PGA told me today, "We can talk about family golf all we want. But televising the Par 3, showing all those kids and their dads, that's more powerful than anything we could ever do."

Here's my suggestion to Chairman Payne: Keep it up. Keep stirring the pot. A Junior Masters? Why not. More international invitees? Of course. Golf in the Olympics? Absolutely. Who knows what will show up in that idea box.

And if it gets uncomfortable for some of us old ones, so be it. Arnie won't be with us forever. Nor will Tiger and let's face it, we want post-Tiger golf to do better than post-Michael basketball.  That will take new new Tigers, new Arnies.... 

It's not going to happen by itself. Send Billy a suggestion.

--Bob Carney

Steve Hummer's Atlanta Journal-Constitution pre-tournament piece on Augusta Chairman Billy Payne is worth a look. Payne's Masters will be an international one, no matter what Monty thinks, and it will be open to children. But it will be as reverential as ever, says Hummer. When one columnist suggested that there would be children running amok at the National, Payne took exception.

"No, that's not going to happen," Payne said confidently during an interview last month. He can't be sure how many children will be on the grounds during the tournament ? there's even a pool going among the membership ? but he seems fairly certain that there will be no breaches of decorum.

Apparently, then, they are not going to install a ball pit next to the Butler Cabin or be offering pony rides at Amen Corner. Nor will Stuart Scott's trademark "Boo-Yeahs" ring through the pines as ESPN takes over airing the Thursday and Friday broadcast from USA Network. Chris Berman will not be commenting on Stewart "Kitchen" Cink or Larry Mize "Eyes Have Seen the Glory."

"I wouldn't respond specifically to any talent," Payne said, ever diplomatically. "I would say the tone of the Augusta broadcast is never going to change. It is respectful. It is in some cases almost reverential as it relates to this beauty. And I know it's going to continue like that."

In Payne's world now, everyone is on that same page.

It's also worth revisiting Dave Kindred's 2007 piece on Payne.

For everything Masters check out our Golf Digest/Golf World coverage. We're working with espn.com and masters.org.

--Bob Carney

Golf World's Bunker story about the Masters admitting children 8-16 for free, drew a fast, unfettered response from Toronto reader Jim Szabo:

"And here is Tiger putting on 18 for the win"................"Waaaaaaa, Daddy I wanna go home!!!!"  

The decision to allow each patron to bring a child between 8 - 16 free on Masters tournament days is a HUGE mistake.  Sure, you want to interest the next generation but not during the Masters!!!  Let them do it during practice rounds when the atmosphere is much looser and players will not be bothered by the "quick to be bored" kids being dragged around by daddy.  It is going to be a disaster.  Save this letter and publish it the Monday after the Masters along with my "I told you so" letter.  It is going to be a nightmare.  Picture it.  It is already a tight squeeze due to the limited land that the course sits on and now you are going to potentially double the amount of spectators!!!  And the extra 25,000 or so are going to be children!!  Wake up!!  Have you never been to a child's birthday party???
 
I have been a patron at the Masters for many years and I look forward to that week more than Christmas itself.  However, I am not looking forward to sharing it with 25,000 kids. 

Jim, Jim, Jim. You sound like W.C. Fields: "I never met a kid I liked."

Things will be better than you think because:

1. There won't be 25,000 kids since only the "named" ticketholder may bring a child. If your wife and you each attend but the badges are in your name, only you may bring a child. If you give the badge to your cousin for a day, he may not bring a child.
2. Augusta has plenty of room. It sits on 365 acres.  This year it's added a 2,000-person seating area on hole 16.
3. At the Masters attendees seem to know how to act;  they'll know how to manage their children. I took my son last year and at one point, much sooner than I'd hoped, he was done. We left. But he was bragging about being there later.

Augusta seems to be saying, show kids the best of the game and the real competition--they can watch the Par-3 on TV--and maybe they'll get as taken with golf and the Masters as we are. Good for Billy.

--Bob Carney