The Masters
A late arrival, a ball in Rae's Creek and everything else that happened to our boss during his round at Augusta National
Ben Walton
Speaking from personal experience, winning the Masters Monday Media Lottery is an out-of-body experience. You find out if you've won on Friday morning, and if you do win, you feel like you can ascend directly to heaven. Then you quickly realize that you've got 72 long, loooong hours ahead of you.
Sure, the Masters is still taking place, which is always awesome. But everybody and their mother is coming up to you and congratulating you. Telling you to JUST ENJOY IT. DON'T worry about your score! Making sure you DON'T show up in shorts ... Actually, nobody told me that, hence why I did show up in shorts (they were Peter Millar!) and was promptly told to put on "slacks" when I got out of the car in front of the clubhouse.
Our boss, Sam Weinman, had to deal with all of this last weekend as one of this year's lucky winners, and if you know Sam, that wasn't easy for him. The hardest part comes Monday morning, when you wake up way-too-early like a kid on Christmas morning and realize you still have 3-4 hours until mom and dad wake up and you can open up the presents. And on Media Lottery Day, you can't just get to Augusta National early and start bashing balls or kicking your feet up in the Champions Locker Room. You are allowed to arrive an hour before your scheduled tee time and not a minute sooner.
Naturally, Sam was up and at 'em, passing the time by working out, doing his version of a "cold plunge" in our rental home's pool and rifling through my Loop podcast co-host Stephen Hennessey's golf bag since he didn't have his own sticks. When he arrived with our morning coffee, I asked him how much longer he had until he could arrive. "Still got about two hours," he said without hesitation.
And still, somehow, Sammy Scrambles, as we like to call him, had to scramble to get to Magnolia Lane at his scheduled time, showing up two minutes late. If you know Sam, that is the least surprising thing ever. We had him on this week's episode of The Loop to break down his magical day, which included a fried egg, a ball in Rae's Creek and a whole bunch of three-putts. Please have a listen to our full chat with Sam below, and like and subscribe to The Loop wherever you get your podcasts.
