The Masters Opening Tee Shot Ceremony Was a Reminder of Our Own Mortality

AUGUSTA, Ga.—The 88th Masters Tournament began with a fumble. Gary Player needed precious seconds as he bent over and tried to get his golf ball on a peg. The ball and his hands didn’t cooperate at first.

The 88-year-old finally managed it and stood up straight. “I can’t even put the ball on a tee anymore!” he quipped. Thousands of gallery members laughed with him. They were gathered around the first tee on damp Thursday morning to watch a tradition, the Honorary Starters Ceremony.

Ball in place, Player settled into his familiar stance and ripped a drive as well as any 88-year-old probably ever has. The gallery roared.

Jack Nicklaus was introduced next. Thunderous applause rained. He teetered over to the tee and carefully squatted, ball and tee in one hand. “This is the hard part,” said Nicklaus, who accomplished his task without help.

Then he set up, paused, and made a swing that still looked familiar. His shot veered a little left. 

“I hit it!” Nicklaus announced with some glee. The gallery loudly approved the 84-year-old’s effort.

Then it was Tom Watson’s turn. Watson couldn’t resist a little old-time trash talk. “Jack,” he said, turning to Nicklaus, right of the tee box, “You never hit a hook off this tee in your life!”

There was laughter and a quick rebuttal. “That was a neck-pull,” Nicklaus corrected.

Watson, 74, then smashed the best drive of the group. More cheering.

The ceremony was over, except for some official photo-taking. The tee shots didn’t matter, although the balls were recovered and scheduled to be signed by the legends who hit them. 

“They weren’t damaged,” Nicklaus joked a few hours later when he visited a Golf Channel set to talk golf, implying that the seniors didn’t hit the balls hard enough to hurt them.

I got a text later from someone from a younger generation who wrote: “There was something really kind of sad about Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus barely being able to tee up the ball. And then Jack cheering ‘I hit it!’ after his drive. It might be time to let these guys go.”

I understand the sentiment. But this moment is bigger than them.

The ceremony has evolved. Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson used to do the honors. One by one, they passed away. Arnold Palmer used to join Nicklaus and Player in a Big Three moment but he, too, is gone. One of these days, the current three won’t be with us, either.

In the 1980s, Snead and Sarazen used to do more than hit a tee shot. They played a full 18 holes but didn’t report their scores. Then, as Sarazen began to ail, they cut it to nine holes. One year, I saw Sarazen memorably hole a 60-foot putt across the eighth green for a remarkable par. Eventually, he wasn’t able to play nine even while riding in a cart. Thus the ceremony was reduced to a tee shot. Nelson joined in that. 

What the ceremony reminds us of, in reality, is our own mortality. You may want to hold on to the memory of Player’s tee shot Thursday or Nicklaus’ wife, Barbara, standing beside him while dressed in official Masters caddie garb. But as time passes, keeping those memories sharp and clear is as futile as grabbing a handful of smoke. 

The legends chatted with writers after their performance. They covered a wide variety of topics, as they do every year, and had fun doing so. One of them always delivers a rant about the golf ball. This year, Player did the honors. And sometimes, they get serious.

“I don’t believe in legacies,” Player said. “Take one of my all-time heroes, Winston Churchill. He was probably the greatest leader for the last 200 years. If it wasn’t for Churchill, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. And they are defacing his statue in England and calling him a racist.

“So if you think people are going to remember you, you’re dreaming. Everything shall pass.” 

Watson told a story about the Champions Dinner held Tuesday night and how the LIV Golf controversy was the elephant in the room. 

“It was really a wonderful event. We were sitting down and having great stories about Seve Ballesteros and we were laughing and talking. I said to Chairman (Fred) Ridley, ‘Do you mind if I say something about being here together with everybody?’ He said, ‘Please do.’

“Everybody is jovial. They are laughing., They are having a great time. And I got up and I said, ‘Ain’t it good to be together again?’ And there was kind of a pall from the joviality. It quieted down. Then Ray Floyd got up and it was time to leave. I hope the players took that to say, ‘You know, we have to do something.’ It’s a difficult situation for professional golf right now. The players really kind of have control. What do they want to do? I don’t think the PGA Tour or the LIV Tour have an answer. The three of us want to get together like we were at the Champions Dinner—happy, the best players playing against each other. That’s what we want in professional golf and right now, we don’t have it.”

Nicklaus was prompted to discuss two of his most embarrassing moments. The most famous was the time he shanked a shot at the 12th tee in the 1964 Masters.

“It was an 8-iron and I almost killed Bob Jones and Cliff Roberts,” Nicklaus recalled. “Shanked it right over their head. They came down to watch us at the 12th hole. Their cart was out in front on the right side, 20 or 25 yards and I put it right over their heads.”

What do you do after such a disastrous shot, Nicklaus was asked. “Go play the next one—what else can you do?” Nicklaus said. “I almost made a 3.”

His other awkward moment happened at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Nicklaus doesn’t remember the year but a small party with eight or 10 people was going on in his room at the Pebble Beach Lodge when a friend telephoned and said he had someone who wanted to sing “Happy Birthday” to him. 

“A guy got on the phone and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ all the way through and I could barely hear him,” Nicklaus said. “Then he said, ‘Happy birthday, Jack.’ I gave it real business-like, ‘Who am I speaking with, please?’ The guy says, ‘It’s Bing Crosby, Jack.’ I listened to Bing Crosby sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and I don’t even know it.”

These three gents could go on reminiscing at length and often do. Their planned 20-minute media visit turned into 45 minutes and was actually shorter than their sessions from the last few years.

Stories were retold and rekindled, legends were reinvigorated and memories were reignited.  When these men are gone, their knowledge and experiences and stories will disappear with them. 

Thursday morning was a time to savor. We aren’t promised an unlimited supply of moments like these.

A ceremony that began with a small fumble ended with thousands of smiles. The tee shots didn’t matter. The men who struck them did.