I shot 103.
Each year, the Augusta National Golf Club, the most private of institutions, throws open its doors and has a lawn party.
For one week, Masters week, a lowly sports reporter can wander into the clubhouse as if he owns it and get a table on the veranda overlooking the first tee and eat breakfast with a member -- complete with green jacket -- while making small talk about golf, summers in Maine and the skateboarding grandkids.
In the same spirit, a long Masters tradition is the press lottery in which about 40 names are drawn for the right to play the grand old course on the Monday after the tournament.
Golf fans everywhere woke up last Sunday morning wondering who's going to win the Masters. Golf writers in Augusta woke up wondering who won the press lottery. Tournament? What tournament?
On Sunday, my number came up and I was handed an envelope -- something like a wedding invitation -- asking me to be on the 10th tee at 7:37 a.m. the next day.
Still, the most exclusive golf club has a certain uneasiness about having a bunch of hacking hacks have the run of the place. You're not allowed to make the trip up Magnolia Lane, for example. And you change your shoes on your back bumper, as you would at your local municipal course.
The magic begins only after your identification has been checked and rechecked and you are assigned your caddy clad in white overalls (you can take a cart for $20, compared with the caddy fee of $55 and tip, but it just seems wrong). You make your way to the practice green and start rolling putts where barely 12 hours ago, Augusta chairman Hootie Johnson was trying to put a jacket on Tiger Woods.
The practice range isn't open, which means that at about 7:40 a.m. I wound up for the biggest tee shot of my life cold, having not swung a club in anger since October.
You need all the excuses you can get when your first shot at one of golf's cathedrals shanks off a few trees and comes to rest near the lawn of one of the famous cabins, well back in the woods.
I won't bore you with the shot-by-shot details. Too many shots.
That said, I tripled the 10th and three-putted the 11th for a double bogey. My 8-iron shot from 150 yards out on Golden Bell, the famous par-three 12th hole, flew 145 yards and stuck in a bank above Rae's Creek, Freddie Couples style. My caddy, Gibby, seemed to take a bit too much glee when I asked whether I should have hit a 7-iron. "No," he said, grinning. "You should have hit your 8."
But it's hard to hang your head when you're walking over the the Ben Hogan Bridge (covered in fake grass, by the way), the apex of Amen Corner and a spot only the very good, or very lucky, have ever been, with no doubt about which category is yours.
Playing the day after the 66th Masters was particularly good timing. My routine par on the 13th gave me a three-stroke advantage on Ernie Els, who tripled-bogeyed on Sunday.
And a par out of the woods on the 15th hole gave me a four-stroke advantage over Vijay Singh, who dumped two in the pond with his sand wedge on Sunday.
I even made par (one of four, all thanks to Gibby) after hitting my drive into Eisenhower's Tree on the par-four 17th hole.
The rest of the day was a typical mix of bogeys and double bogeys, but not too many worse than that. Not that it mattered much. Strolling fairways that were sound stages a day before, caddy by your side, is enough to shake off any bungles that would have you scowling at home.
Observations? The greens were a bit slower than I expected, but I was expecting greased sheet metal. The fairways a bit wider, which I know from having to walk back and forth across them so many times. It's very hilly.
What else? Even the low points were interesting, in a behind-the-curtain kind of way, such as my trip to the bathroom hidden in the woods beside the 18th tee.
No urinals! Was I in the ladies? Then my eyes adjusted, and I realized my task was to use the thigh-high trough running like a gutter around the inside of the cinderblock walls.
There's a brief image of Jack Welsh or some other captain of industry making small talk after the interlopers are gone and staring straight ahead while struggling with a case of stage fright.
Whether this contributes to my quintuple-bogey nine, I can't say. The newly designed 18th hole played tougher this year, they tell me.