Hazards, Traps, and Preferred Lies

Any golfers out there? All of the above are golf terms. Hazards refer to things like water that might be in the way of your perfect shot. Traps refer to little pockets of sand here and there that will trap your ball and add to your score. For information on Preferred Lies, see the "Tiger Woods" section of this post below. Over spring break last week, we visited family in Augusta, GA, home of the Augusta National Golf Course where the Masters is played. This is the most special place for golfers in the country, maybe even the whole world. It is the greenest emerald of all the Greens. Fortunately for us, we arrived there the week before the Masters tournament, thereby avoiding the great pilgrimage made by rich golfers (is there any other kind?) to their mecca.

Golf is a mystery to me. Wanting to play the game is not so much a mystery as wanting to watch people play the game. My husband informs me that the spectators in attendance will have paid $700 per day for the privilege of waiting in a horrendous line of traffic (then probably having to turn around and go elsewhere to find parking), and then cramming themselves into a large crowd of people, all of whom are walking around in the heat, following other people who are attempting to knock a little white ball into a hole, 18 monotonous times, over a 4-hour period. Why would they do this?!? Could it be just to admire the beauty of this famous course? Below are two lovely photos that show how this might be tempting:

It doesn't look at all the same from outside the fancy gates. Our view was of a high hedge, clearly intended to keep out the prying eyes of the riff-raff. They have a category of green highway signs that we had not encountered before in our many travels: "Golf traffic" signs.

By the time we left for home at 7:30 on Monday morning, the lines had begun. We passed an enormous line of cars waiting for their turn on the exit ramp that would lead them to the signs saying, "Lot full", where they could then queue up for the next traffic torture session. And the real tournament doesn't even start until tomorrow. One other possible draw for this peculiar spectatorship (Mom, is that a word?) is the presence of the notorious Tiger Woods. One headline today stated, "Guards on Lookout for Tiger's Girls." The guards referred to are Tiger's personal guards whose lofty assignment this week is to watch for any of his former exploits who might have it in mind to show up and make an embarrassing scene. The guards each have a stack of photos to use as a reference for these identifications. That's no small task.

We are very glad to have escaped the hazards and traps of Augusta this week. If I'm lucky, Eric will enjoy the Masters on TV without any need for companionship from me. Won't the reporters have fun asking Tiger about his "preferred lies" this tournament? Here's the first line of the definition of this term: "Preferred lies is a condition that exists by local rule only and under which golfers are, on certain parts of a golf course, allowed to improve their lies without penalty." Love that--"improve their lies." (If you want greater details on this in golf terminology, follow this clue, but really, why would you care?)