Master's Golf Tourny Week... [cue nausea]
When I was younger, I didn't mind people from all over the world flocking to Augusta to see or try to acquire Master's Badges/Tickets for one of the most prestigious golf tournaments. Hell, even Phil "Lefty" Mickelson (sp?) is moving right outside of Augusta, this year, to be closer to the Augusta National... I'm assuming he's moving to "Appling, GA", which is basically considered the suburbs of the suburbs of Disgusta, GA.
I have started to become annoyed with the tourists. Two weeks prior to this week, I've already started seeing people camped out on the side of the "golf route" with signs indicating that they wanted "the practice round tickets and/or the tournament badges"... and that is soooooo pathetic. Someone has to "DIE" on the badge list before those badges become available... the badges belong to the owner of them until they die, they have ONLY "one time" to transfer the badges to another person. Practice round tickets are distributed by a lottery. These aren't free tickets/badges... even the badge-holders have to pay for them every year or they forfeit their badges and another slot on the waiting list opens.
Another thing tourists don't realize is that the Ft. Gordon was the only thing around when Bobby Jones created the Augusta National Golf Course & Master's Tourny ( http://masters.org )... so most badge-holders are high-ranking, retired Army Officers because they were the ones that supported the new golf course and tournament. And people wonder why it's so hard to get tickets/badges... pfft.
I'm not trying to sound negative about an event that brings in a lot of revenue... but that's how I feel, so that's that.
I'm having day surgery, tomorrow and I may be leaving town as soon as I'm released. Let's just leave it at "day surgery" without asking me about it. If I'd wanted to speak of it, I would have mentioned it, back in 2005. I didn't want to seem melodramatic and my prognosis wasn't promising (because I kept refusing treatment) until just recently. Leave it at that, please, because my prognosis, now, is very good. Thanks. :)