Friday at the Masters: Even at an international sporting event, reporting still is local

I met the delightful gentleman at the outdoor news conference area by the clubhouse. We were both there to hear from PGA Tour member Akshay Bhatia, who had just finished his first round with Rory McIlroy and Ludvig Åberg.

Bhatia is American by birth, but his parents were born and raised in India. Hence, Krishnaswamy’s interest. Bhatia is one of three known players at the tournament of Indian descent, the other two being American Sahith Theegala and Aaron Rai from England.

Among golf fans in India, “there is a fair amount of affinity” for players such as Bhatia, Theegala and Rai, Krishnaswamy said. They are as close as India can get to claiming players on the PGA Tour.

The sport is growing in popularity, but it pales compared with field hockey and cricket. According to a website for a golf academy in India, there were about 430 courses in the country of 1.5 billion in 2024.

According to what source you trust, there might be more courses in Georgia alone for its 11 million residents.

But having players such as Bhatia, Theegala and Rai in the world’s most famous golf tournament helps.

“They’re really inspiring for the other young golfers in India,” Krishnaswamy said. “People know them. They’re young stars because there’s a lot of media exposing them.”

It’s not entirely unique. It’s common at events like this for media outlets (including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) to take a particular interest in athletes with a connection to their coverage area. But this would seem a different level.

Krishnaswamy’s interest resonated with me. Like Bhatia, I am a child of immigrants (my parents were born and raised in Japan). It tickles me a little bit that outlets in India feel a connection with Bhatia and his fellow golfing members of the Indian diaspora and that they also want to be bridge builders, too.

“It’s really cool,” Bhatia said of reporters like Krishnaswamy traveling thousands of miles to write about him. “Obviously, for Sahith and I and Aaron to be able to build golf more and more in India is very important to us. I think it probably doesn’t get talked about as much as people think.”

Thursday

Good morning from the first round at the Masters.

Hopefully you read my column about Georgia Tech’s Hiroshi Tai, who is playing in his first Masters after earning an automatic invitation by winning the NCAA individual championship last year.

I ended up collecting more quotes and notes in my reporting than I needed, but I wanted to share something from Tech coach Bruce Heppler that I thought was worth sharing.

If you don’t know, Heppler is quite arguably the best coach in any sport in school history. Obviously, the two at the top of the debate are football legends John Heisman and Bobby Dodd. But in Heppler’s first 29 years at Tech, the Yellow Jackets have won 14 ACC titles, gone to the NCAA Championship finals 21 times and finished as runner-up four times and in the top eight 13 times. If Tech could just knock down the door and win the national title, I don’t think there’d be any debate.

Beyond that, every senior has graduated on his watch, and many have gone on to play professionally. Tai is the fifth Tech player to earn a Masters invite as an amateur (following Matt Kuchar in 1998, Andy Ogletree in 2020, Tyler Strafaci in 2021 and Christo Lamprecht in 2024).

Beyond that, through covering Tech for 12 years, I’ve always found him generous with his time, honest, insightful, humble and funny. (We have a lot in common.) (ha ha)

Anyway, my point:

Before Tai’s practice round Wednesday, he gave an interview to Channel 2 Action News’ Zach Klein and me and floored both of us with his perspective on watching one of his players work their way to the world’s most prestigious golf tournament.

First, he said that he didn’t take it for granted, given how much time passed between Kuchar’s appearance and Ogletree’s.

Of course.

But then, he said his view of his players was changed by personal struggles shared by him and wife, Traci.

“We lost a little girl when we first got married,” he said. “And for the longest time, we fought some infertility. It almost felt like these would be my sons, and so I’ve tried to look at it that way. So, yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”

Pardon me. I think there’s something in my eye.

Ultimately, the Hepplers did have two children, Zach and Moriah, but not without continuing difficulty.

“So you start thinking, ‘Well, these are it,‘” he said. “So you’ve got to maybe look at it a little differently than just players on the team.”

It goes a long way to explaining Tech’s success on his watch and the obvious affection that players have long had for him. For instance, Tai asked Heppler to be his caddie in the annual Par 3 Contest on Wednesday as a token of gratitude. It’s a job that often goes to players’ parents and spouses.

“To be able to watch and be around it, to have kind of a front-row seat when people’s dreams come true, there’s not a better job in the whole world,” Heppler said.

Wednesday

My apologies for running behind today. I was in a bit of a rush this morning. I got to the course, went to talk to Georgia Tech golfer Hiroshi Tai and Tech coach Bruce Heppler, then went to the course to watch the former’s practice round and just filed the column.

But, while I was waiting for Tai this morning, I was at the driving range where I saw something that caught my attention — bins of practice balls. (It doesn’t take a lot to interest me.)

It was one more indication that the world that PGA Tour pros inhabit is different from the average weekend golfer’s. The bins, located outside a small shed at the end of the range, were full of balls in green mesh bags available for caddies to grab for their players to use on the range.

No collection of red-striped “assorted brand” balls fished out of a pond here. The bags were placed into 10 bins by brand and model, the two largest for Titleist Pro V1 and ProV1x.

A dozen ProV1x will set the common golfer back $55. At the range, the bags held roughly 50 balls each, free to any player to bash away.

A nice little perk.

Tuesday

The sun’s out, and there’s a slight chill in the air. In short, it looks like a much, much better day is ahead at Augusta National Golf Club after Monday’s rainy, abbreviated downer, which effectively ended at 11:30 a.m. when the club closed the course and (slowly) shooed fans off the grounds.

I just finished a plate of scrambled eggs at the press building dining room, which is a prime example of the way the club does things. The two-story building that is the work area for all media at the tournament seems to spare no expense. It feels a little bit like a hotel, with a beautiful atrium and grand staircase. Security guards open the door for media members as they enter.

Besides a spacious work area with floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the driving range, there’s a restaurant (free of charge) and a veranda.

It’s hard to put this into full context, but basically nothing else exists like this in sports. Part of it is because there’s no major sporting event that’s always in the same place, where it would make sense to construct an edifice like this. But a lot of it is because doing things with no expense spared or detail overlooked is how the club likes to operate.

It’s not a bad place to work for a week.

Monday

Good morning from Augusta National Golf Club, where the story this morning is the drizzle pelting the pristine grounds.

After uncertainty over whether the course would be open at all, the gates opened at 8 a.m., and fans flooded in, most of them to the gift shop.

This is serious business.

I talked with a guy who said he was circling the parking lot earlier in the morning, waiting for word that the course was opening in order to be first in line at the gates.

As literally hundreds of fans (patrons, if you prefer the club’s fancy terminology) waited in line for the gift shop for their Masters merchandise, my guy was already headed back to his car holding several large bags of gifts. Not a first-timer, clearly.

I spoke with two other fans who were in line for the gift shop. It was their first time at the Masters after 20 years of trying to get in through the lottery. And, having made it, their first mission was to buy mementos before heading onto the course.

It is a funny thing about this tournament. It’s almost as if you have to go back home with something emblazoned with the Masters logo or were you really there?

Nothing like a Masters gnome to prove your attendance.

Sunday

With a hankering for both a pimento cheese sandwich and a truly unique sporting event, I’m bound for Augusta National Golf Club.

It is nothing less than a gigantic privilege to be contributing columns this week to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s coverage of the Masters. I’m looking forward to being on site starting Monday as my colleagues and I deliver stories and images from this one-of-a-kind event that transcends golf and even sport.

If you’ve never been to the Masters, it truly is something else. The tournament field is world class, the grounds are magnificent, the history is palpable, and the sandwiches are dirt cheap.