Sunday, April 1, 2007

Masters Previews

I can never read too much about my favorite tournament of the year, the Masters. I subscribe to several golf publications and I always look forward to the Masters issues. For the past several years, Sports Illustrated has sent its Golf Plus subscribers a very nice, informative separate magazine devoted almost entirely to the Masters. This year’s edition includes the pick of an anonymous PGA Tour pro to win the tournament – Aaron Baddeley – and a profile on Billy Payne, the new chairman of Augusta National. There is a feature on sportswriter O.B. Keeler, who chronicled Bobby Jones, a trivia contest and a look at Masters rookies.

GolfWorld weighs in with a retrospective on Ben Hogan’s final Masters in 1967 as well as the requisite profile of Billy Payne. There is a nice little sidebar that speculates on the birth of the green jacket – Jones may have taken the idea from a novel by English writer G.K. Chesterton. The magazine also has its own Masters trivia section as well as a look at the town of Augusta outside the tournament grounds. Did you know that one of the city’s major businesses is golf cart manufacturer E-Z-Go?

Hitting range balls while wondering whatever happened to Billy Joe Patton.