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Some Masters Leftovers

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I know you guys are tired of hearing about it, and we’ll get back to Walunelf or OSU’s basketball to-do list tomorrow, but I wanted to share some leftover thoughts from a weekend at Augusta chasing around five OSU guys and a crazy Georgian named Bubba.

Charles Howell is back. After an extremely up and down 2004-2009 (finished as high as 18th on the money list and as low as 69th), he posted his second highest finish in his hometown of Augusta (and best in nine years) and made the cut for the first time since 2007. Bonus points for being one of the best-dressed on Tour which granted, if you saw some of the stuff Ian Poulter and Y.E. Yang were wearing, isn’t saying a ton.

Easter Sunday with Mrs. Pistols

– Random celebrity sighting of the week: Herm Edwards. He was definitely playing to win the concession stand and the merchandise tent and probably the Amen Corner grandstand as well. Also heard Philip Rivers was in attendance but never saw him.

– I realized Bo Van Pelt has tiny Pistol Pete heads stitched into his black golf shoes. This was my favorite random “wait, what?!” moment of the week. BVP is by far my favorite OSU golfer on tour right now and his 64 on Sunday was electrifying (too bad he entered the day 15 strokes back or this ace at #16 would have meant a lot more).

Rickie Fowler greeting his boy Bubba on #10 after the win late Sunday evening was awesome. I was trying to think of another sport where the people you’re playing against would be waiting at the week’s end to hug you and celebrate with you and I couldn’t.

– A soon-to-be multimillionaire NFL quarterback standing in line at 6:30 AM on Easter Sunday with his boys, chomping at the bit for the security guards to open the gates so we could all flood the course in hopes of getting sweet digs on #16 to watch history? Yes, Brandon Weeden was doing that.

– Quote of the week from Hunter Mahan’s caddie, John Wood, on Friday after their round: “swirling winds out here are a motherf—–, and you can quote me on that.” Well okay then, I think I will quote you on that.

Tiger is an embarrassment to Augusta National and the game of golf. He’s a 36-year old child. Drop kicking your club and refusing to take responsibility for your actions? The rebuttal from sportswriters is “but that’s what you and I would do,” the red-herring being that you and I aren’t in fact professional golfers paid millions of dollars to act like professional golfers. As one of the gallery guards once told someone next to me who was trying to duck under some ropes on the course, “sir, I don’t know if you’re aware of where you’re at, but this is the Masters, you need to act like you’re at Augusta National.”

– My friend and I went out on Thursday morning to catch a glimpse of the ceremonial tee shots from Jack, Arnie, and Gary Player. It was pretty incredible. And to find out later that Phil came out seven hours before his tee time to do the same? Somebody gets it.

– Speaking of Phil, my second favorite Mahan-related press exchange happened on Saturday night when somebody asked him what he thought about Mickelson’s chances:

Mahan: Phil loves this place more than any of us.

[nervous laughter from press]

Mahan [smiling]: “I’m serious, he gets off the plane on Monday, puts his green coat on, and comes straight here to hang out. He LOVES it.”

– Also, my favorite random “is this happening?” moment of the week was about three hours later as we walked up the #10 fairway next to the cabins where all of Rory’s nightmares reside, and looked over to see Jack just chilling on the porch sipping on something (possibly an Arnold Palmer?), watching the Masters. Surreal.

– I’m not sure how I didn’t know this or maybe I just forgot it, but Scott Verplank rocks some serious Brooks Brothers gear. If I’m a golfer and I have to choose any sponsor I want, BB is at the top of my list. Plus him, Howell, and Van Pelt have to try and balance out the flat-bills and aquamarine hues emanating from the Mahan/Fowler portion of the course.

– Patrick Cantlay, the amateur from UCLA, is filthy. Hopefully he and Uihlein can duke it out for the next 25 years like they did at last year’s Western Open.

– If you go, and I highly suggest doing anything short of committing a crime to get a badge for the weekend, the pimiento cheese sandwich-sweet tea-chocolate chip cookie combo for $4 is difficult to beat.

– Props to @bdwallis for finding me on TV, tough spot (fast forward to 3:06-3:09)

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