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AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | Joe Long slept alone in the Crow’s Nest on Sunday night. Well, somewhat alone. He may have been visited by ghosts.
“At one point the bathroom door wouldn’t open and it felt like someone was holding it,” Long said. “It happened twice and I thought, ‘Is that just me thinking into it?’ In the morning it was fine. It did get me thinking, I’m not gonna lie to you.”
Maybe it was a breeze, and the creaks in the floor were just from the old wood still settling after 167 years. But the 23-year-old Long says despite the first-class room service and privacy, it was spooky. Amateurs have been sleeping in the attic bunkroom atop the oldest concrete-poured structure in the South ever since the Depression forced the club to cancel plans to raze the structure and build some gaudy antebellum mansion in its stead. Eight eventual Masters champions have lodged in the clubhouse Crow’s Nest when they competed as amateurs, but they’re all still alive – Jack Nicklaus, Tommy Aaron, Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw, Craig Stadler, Mark O’Meara, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.
They used to pack bunches of them in the spartan, 30-by-40-foot room crowned by a cupola atop the Augusta National clubhouse. Crenshaw once climbed out on the roof in his underwear to watch Jock Hutchinson and Fred McLeod hit the honorary starting shots. Hubert Green, Bruce Fleisher and Aaron had to climb property walls to get back in. Billy Andrade once turned the wrong way into the Champions locker room and stole a doughnut from Gene Sarazen. They all eavesdropped on muffled conversations from past masters whose voices carry through the floor and some have bumped into a Lord Byron or King Arnie rushing down the stairs.
It now accommodates up to five during tournament week, but COVID restrictions allowed only one at a time. “It’s got that old-school feel to it, which is quite awesome,” Long said. “It was a surreal experience.”
The experience is really what matters for any amateur that qualifies for Augusta these days. We’re a long way from extended hobbyists like Charlie Coe, Frank Stranahan, Billy Joe Patton and Ken Venturi threatening to win the green jacket. The best today’s young amateurs can really hope for is to make the cut, claim the silver medal for beating their peers and get the first taste of something they might take on again as more seasoned professionals. Only one Amateur champion from Britain (Peter McEvoy in 1978) has ever even played the weekend at Augusta since the halfway cut was established.
Long arrived at Augusta with no illusions of grandeur and placed no expectations on himself other than to not let the experience “consume him.” The 2020 Amateur champion at Royal Birkdale last August was just happy to be here at all after suffering a torn muscle in his left glute when he got “chewed up” by a wave trying to take up surfing for the first time in Cape Town, South Africa, where his girlfriend lives. It was six weeks to the day before his tee time at Augusta.
“I loved it but took it a little too far at the end and tore a muscle,” he said sheepishly. “A little bit of excitement and adrenaline is pushing me through this week, honestly. I loved it and I’ll probably do it again but I’m just going to wait until all the golf’s out of the way.”
Then, his best friend from Bristol, England – Lex Aragon, who planned to caddie for him at Augusta – tested positive for COVID-19 and couldn’t travel.
“Luckily, I managed to get my dad (Ian) out here and we can both soak it in,” said Long, who took on experienced local caddie Johnny Chance for the tournament. “It’s memories for life really, which is cool.”
Not many golfers’ memories can claim Augusta National as the first course they’ve played in America. Coming three weeks early to get acclimated, he hit some regional highlights like Peachtree, East Lake, Golf Club of Georgia for the annual Georgia Cup and nearby Sage Valley, as well, but Augusta was the first. “My first full 18 holes was here in America, so the standards are quite high,” he said.
“It can get away from you quite easy out there without doing too much wrong.”
Joe Long
Practice rounds with Sergio García, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Brooks Koepka couldn’t quite prepare Long for the ultimate experience of Thursday’s first round with Bernhard Langer and Will Zalatoris. Long started with four pars before a triple on No. 5 rattled him and he followed it with five successive bogeys and was 11-over par before he stuffed his second shot on 18 to 4 feet, leading to a birdie and a total of 82.
“It can get away from you quite easy out there without doing too much wrong,” he said.
He came out Friday and shaved 10 strokes, making birdies on Nos. 13, 14 and 15 to shoot even-par 72 – a turnaround he credits to watching all his shots from the first round on the Masters app the night before.
“I checked the app last night, and my alignment was way off aiming left,” he said. “I’ve not seen coaches for about probably half a year, so I’m in some bad habits. … I don’t think I missed a fairway (Friday) to be honest with you (officially, it was 13 of 14). Still didn’t really get any putts to drop, but it made it so much easier.
“It was a great feeling. It’s nice to kind of just rectify it and played some solid golf out there today.”
That bodes well for what Long has coming up – the Walker Cup at Seminole Golf Club in May, the US Open at Torrey Pines in June and the Open Championship at Royal St George’s in July.
“It’s helped a lot with kind of experiencing what it’s like at these events, and when things aren’t going your way, you've just got to deal with it, be your own best friend out there,” he said. “It’s only you and the ball at the end of the day, so kind of learnt a lot from that yesterday. … I thought it was kind of a mechanical issue, but it’s just purely setup. I’ve just got to stay on top of that and get enough to go and compete for sure.”
It was an experience Long will cherish – ghosts and all. The best parts?
“You know, probably my shot into 18 (Thursday) was quite cool,” he said. “Kind of after the round, that was quite special. And you know, just some bits of advice from the world’s best golfers, that kind of sticks with me. The amateur dinner, like that experience is just so special. The Crow’s Nest. All those things, they're memories for life. At the end of the day, you can tell your family about it, and that’s pretty amazing. I think that’s what I’ll be taking away from this week for sure.”
The experience didn’t consume Long – he consumed it instead.
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