Content note: What follows is not a humble brag. It’s just a brag.

Like millions of golf fanatics, I enter the Masters ticket lottery every June. And like the vast majority of those entrants, sometime later I have regularly received the “we regret to inform you” email from Augusta National Golf Club letting me know that, sadly, my ticket application was not selected. I have received that message many times.

But after so many rejections, I received the other one, the one that begins with: “Congratulations.” My entry had been selected to receive Monday practice round tickets, and so my son and I were among thousands of humble patrons strolling the immaculate grounds of Augusta National in advance of the 2022 Masters. It’s everything they say. We’re not “fans” at Augusta National. We’re “patrons.” It’s an honorific.

Here we are on the 18th tee — thanks to the green jacketed member, unnamed, who took the picture.

There are countless advice pieces elsewhere about what to do if you ever get lucky enough to go to Augusta National, whether it’s during a practice round or during competition. What follows are the tips I can provide that I never saw elsewhere:

  • No matter how early you have to wake up, no matter how stupid you think it might be to get to the parking lot at 7:00 a.m. when the gates will open an hour later, get there in time for the gates to open. Be a dew sweeper. Your access to the golf course and everything else in those first couple of hours will be worth the effort.
  • Know exactly what you want from the merchandise center before you walk in. You will be stunned at the number of people who seem to be picking things out at random and/or walking in circles. It’s a professional layout — bring a professional approach.
  • Take advantage of the inexpensive concessions…within reason. A buck fifty for a pimento cheese sandwich, three bucks for an Augusta Club (turkey, ham, cheese on a Brioche roll), these are no-brainers. Where it gets dicey is the $5.00 beers served in Masters souvenir cups. You’re going to want to pace yourself there.
  • For God’s sake, don’t stand at the tee with hundreds of other dummies watching your favorite player hit a tee shot. Get out 300 yards ahead of him along the ropes and wait for him to show up to hit the second shot, where you have staked your place on the ropes. This is obvious, and yet most people don’t seem to get it until the tee shot is in the air.
  • Do as the others are doing and refrain from calling out a player’s name or otherwise trying to get his attention. This is a vacation day for you, and an ecstatic one at that, but for the player this is literally his workplace and his job.
  • Once you have walked all 18 holes in the morning — and please, make sure to walk all 18 holes — grab a seat in one of the grandstands and let the afternoon just wash over you. This is golf heaven. We can agree that heaven, if it exists, is not a place where you trudge up and down hills. It’s a place to sit, smell the fragrant breeze, and watch elite golfers struggle to make par. That’s my heaven, anyway.

The likelihood that I’ll ever be on the golf course at Augusta National again is, well, not great. But I got there once, which is one more time than I ever thought I’d get.