Speaker 1: Now, the Shotgun Starting Golf is full of mathematics. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of setup work that we have to do
Speaker 1: in order to make a tournament work. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to demonstrate to you just exactly how we do a
Speaker 1: shotgun start here and alright, alright, alrighte did no man dark.
Speaker 1: You are.
Speaker 2: Readings and welcome to this special Masters Week edition of
Speaker 2: the Shotgun Start. This will be a little different episode,
Speaker 2: a little experiment for the last men's major of the season,
Speaker 2: typically the first men's major of the season. I wrote
Speaker 2: a little essay that we planned to read on the podcast,
Speaker 2: just a short little episode. We printed it, put the
Speaker 2: transcript of it, so to speak, on the Friday dot com.
Speaker 2: So it is an article, but we wanted to bring
Speaker 2: it to you more in an audio as an audio essay.
Speaker 2: And this is presented by Bixby Coffee, our good friends,
Speaker 2: our og sponsor, the people who brought you the Bixby House.
Speaker 2: They are going to be launching a special Shotgun Start
Speaker 2: Holiday blend that will be live on their website Bixbycoffee
Speaker 2: dot Com Wednesday night. The Holiday Roast per Miles Fisher,
Speaker 2: the co founder of Bixby Coffee. It's a unique blend
Speaker 2: of specialty coffee from Nicaragua and Peru, two big hitters
Speaker 2: in the specialty coffee scene. And it's got hints of cinnamon, milk,
Speaker 2: chocolate and toasted gram crackers which I can get on
Speaker 2: board with for the holiday season. It's roasted and shipped
Speaker 2: the day you order. It has a special SGS logo
Speaker 2: and it's a specific holiday blend and for club subscribers.
Speaker 2: Club members, you can just email Paulina at High Hi
Speaker 2: Hi at Bixbycoffee dot com and she'll take care of
Speaker 2: everything for you. If you want to send it as
Speaker 2: a gift to a friend or family member, she'll just
Speaker 2: add the charge to your club account, figure out the
Speaker 2: address you want, a special holiday note you want to
Speaker 2: send as the gift. She'll take care of everything. That's
Speaker 2: if you're a club member a subscriber already the Shotgun
Speaker 2: Start Blend. Email Paulina at high at Bixbycoffee dot com.
Speaker 2: You don't have to enter any credit card information. She'll
Speaker 2: just take care of it, get it off to the
Speaker 2: address the recipient you want, and with a special holiday
Speaker 2: note so that'll be on on the website Bixbycoffee dot com. Wednesday,
Speaker 2: November eleventh. All right, so this is an essay I wrote.
Speaker 2: Obviously this is a unique Masters maybe a Master's we
Speaker 2: didn't expect and certainly we didn't anticipate at the start
Speaker 2: of this year. We figured we bring it to you
Speaker 2: as really a micro addition to the full week of
Speaker 2: Masters podcasts. The title on the Fridagg dot com is
Speaker 2: process over Results, Appreciating a Master's unlike any other. Cleveland
Speaker 2: Indians tweeted happy birthday wishes to Raje Davis a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago. In the tweet, the tribe referred to a
Speaker 2: player who hit just thirteen career home runs for the
Speaker 2: team as the man, the myth, the Cleveland Legend. The
Speaker 2: incongruity of an outpouring of birthday love for a thirteen
Speaker 2: career home run legend made me pause and smile. He
Speaker 2: played less than two years with the team a few
Speaker 2: years back, but he has adored there now and forever,
Speaker 2: and he did not need a decade long relationship with
Speaker 2: the team putting up all star numbers. Raj Davis is,
Speaker 2: of course, the player who choked up on the bat
Speaker 2: for a two to two pitch from the Evil one
Speaker 2: hundred mile per hour throwing a roll as Chapman and
Speaker 2: took him deep to tie Game seven of the World
Speaker 2: Series when Hope was just about lost. The Tribe then
Speaker 2: lost the game and the series to take ownership from
Speaker 2: the Cubs of the longest title drought professional baseball. It
Speaker 2: was a crushing end too, a crushing series, but that
Speaker 2: home run and the feelings that followed it will be
Speaker 2: remembered and celebrated for us. If you just look at
Speaker 2: the leader boarder Wikipedia page for the twenty eighteen Masters,
Speaker 2: you'll read that Jordan Speed finished a respectable third place.
Speaker 2: He did not win, and he did not set any
Speaker 2: notable records. The number sixty four next to his final
Speaker 2: round is a low one, but it tells us so
Speaker 2: little about the day and why I remember it. Speth,
Speaker 2: who feels like he has twenty five years of history
Speaker 2: with the tournament he's played just six times, started nine
Speaker 2: shots back then he went out in thirty one, and
Speaker 2: the crowd started peeling off the final pairing of Pat
Speaker 2: Reed and Rory McElroy With that Augustus Speed walk toward history.
Speaker 2: Each birdy was a loud conversion ritual for the belief
Speaker 2: that something historic was happening. The nine shot deficit was
Speaker 2: then fully erased at the sixteenth pole. Even alcohol cannot
Speaker 2: make khaki clad dads lose their inhibitions the way he
Speaker 2: speeds thirty three foot putt to tie the Masters? Did
Speaker 2: I know? I'll never forget that scene where there I
Speaker 2: watched from what I heard who I watched, with the
Speaker 2: laughter with a couple of golf media types from jokes
Speaker 2: I am not yet allowed to retell, was interrupted by
Speaker 2: the ball going in the hole and all of us
Speaker 2: incredulously shouting curse words into a wall of louder noise.
Speaker 2: The sixty four on the Wikipedia page doesn't tell the
Speaker 2: story of that putt, the story of that scene, speed
Speaker 2: mouthing are you kidding me to his caddy after it
Speaker 2: went in, the belief that he might shoot sixty two
Speaker 2: or maybe sixty one for the greatest major round ever,
Speaker 2: and then the heartrending moment his ball clipped the tree
Speaker 2: off the eighteenth tee to seal just a sixty four
Speaker 2: for just a third place finish, in a moment rife
Speaker 2: with the bait shows and tweets, where wind loss results
Speaker 2: must be contextualized in the terms of what it all
Speaker 2: means for legacies or who should be fired. It's easy
Speaker 2: to forget why we spend so much time watching sports.
Speaker 2: Will be much more efficient and beneficial to our health
Speaker 2: to just check the box score leaderboards on Saturday and
Speaker 2: Sunday nights. The primary value we derived from hours watching
Speaker 2: sports was the manichean result. There's pain, amusement, anxiety, tension, heartbreak, joy,
Speaker 2: and memories from the smaller moments of competition. There's Raj's
Speaker 2: homer before a loss, and speeds putt before a third
Speaker 2: place finished, and there's the minutes we lived immediately following them.
Speaker 2: The Masters thrives from these smaller moments in the larger competition.
Speaker 2: More than any golf tournament. The Masters is bigger than
Speaker 2: the players in the field and bigger than the result.
Speaker 2: Certain editions are amplified by the results, such as Jack
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty six or Tiger in Was that just
Speaker 2: last year? But the tournament has become this powerhouse sports event,
Speaker 2: enjoyed simply for what it is year over year and
Speaker 2: tradition after tradition, and less for the specifics of who
Speaker 2: is involved in how they finish. This ranges from the
Speaker 2: little familiar details and annual sits to the unexpected you
Speaker 2: may have never seen before on a course and at
Speaker 2: a tournament you know so well. Tiger won the Masters
Speaker 2: last year, but Zach Johnson accidentally bunted his driver off
Speaker 2: the tea marker on maybe the most famous par five
Speaker 2: tea box in golf. Both were celebrated as part of
Speaker 2: the twenty nineteen Masters Experience. And now we're going to
Speaker 2: have those opportunities again in a year when that once
Speaker 2: seemed unlikely. The Masters is still the Masters, whether it's
Speaker 2: won by Tiger Woods and the greatest comeback of all
Speaker 2: time or by zj over cold and dreary four days.
Speaker 2: The Masters is still the Masters, whether it's April or November.
Speaker 2: This is why I find myself making a commitment to
Speaker 2: enjoy the hell out of every second of it. This year,
Speaker 2: I will focus on in delight in every bryceon histrionic recoil,
Speaker 2: the Rory run you know it's coming, and speed run
Speaker 2: it might be shorter, but you know it's coming too,
Speaker 2: and every pace of the strut of a raigning champ
Speaker 2: we never thought we'd see again. I'll find pleasure in
Speaker 2: the eccentricities of this November exercise, finding the opportunity to
Speaker 2: appreciate the rarity of Augusta National in the fall, and
Speaker 2: the camera shots we could get with no patrons in
Speaker 2: the way. A coping mechanism of mine in this no
Speaker 2: good year has been trying to find the unexpected opportunities
Speaker 2: born out of awful circumstances. That does not mean it's
Speaker 2: better this way, or that it's not been an awful year.
Speaker 2: A Master's in April with fans and roars would have
Speaker 2: been better, and I'm ready to get back to that
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one. But I'm grateful we're having a
Speaker 2: Master's at all. I'm grateful I get to watch the
Speaker 2: shots and the recoils and the competition, regardless of whether
Speaker 2: the winner is not some miracle story or the finish
Speaker 2: is not especially dramatic. I'm committing to the experience of
Speaker 2: the masters and not the hope for a result that
Speaker 2: might make the best documentary someday. What makes the televised
Speaker 2: pro golf tournament so great is that you can come
Speaker 2: and go, put it on his background, and then lock
Speaker 2: in for hours, leap off the couch or nap on
Speaker 2: the couch. It's four days, dozens of broadcasts now and
Speaker 2: hundreds of shots. It's versatile and reliable, and it will
Speaker 2: be there for you to hopefully make this four day
Speaker 2: stretch better. This does not mean I will watch a
Speaker 2: golf tournament unburdened from what's happening in the real world.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful we get this Masters off in what appears
Speaker 2: to be a safe and responsible fashion in a year
Speaker 2: when that seemed tenuous and maybe still does the pandemic
Speaker 2: still rages. I will think about what we've lost and
Speaker 2: who we've lost in the months since March and Easter,
Speaker 2: when we all sat on our couch and watched Tiger
Speaker 2: on a zoom call at jim Nantz instead of the
Speaker 2: originally scheduled Master Sunday. That feels like years and not
Speaker 2: months ago. But now the zoom may come between you
Speaker 2: and family you can't be with while you watch from
Speaker 2: distant couches. Consider this an opportunity for a dry run
Speaker 2: or an entire stand in for the impending holiday you
Speaker 2: might not be able to celebrate with everyone you want
Speaker 2: to this year. A zoom gathering with friends and families
Speaker 2: is better for panning Nick Faldough and hollering about golf
Speaker 2: shots good and bad than it is for some virtual
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving dinner. So throw on the Masters, dial into FaceTime
Speaker 2: or zoom with friends and family coming in out of
Speaker 2: your master's nap with them, Devour your embarrassing attempt at
Speaker 2: a biscuit sandwich judgment, free mute the uncle who starts
Speaker 2: to talk politics. Uniquely, celebrate the uniqueness of this Masters.
Speaker 2: Find the opportunity you can out of these terrible circumstances.
Speaker 2: For me, it will be getting to watch with my
Speaker 2: kids at an age where they can follow what's happening
Speaker 2: for the first time. We'll be having the time and
Speaker 2: a phone not held captive in the media center to
Speaker 2: call my parents, who got me into the game for
Speaker 2: the first time in years. During a Master's Sunday, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll buy some Monster if Tiger gets involved. I might
Speaker 2: try to Makemento cheese sandwiches, even though A I don't
Speaker 2: think they're all that good and B I've never made
Speaker 2: one and probably will fail spectacularly. That doesn't matter. No
Speaker 2: one will ever know if it's terrible, and I will
Speaker 2: be happier than a pig and shit in the process
Speaker 2: of just trying to make it. To celebrate this Masters
Speaker 2: from home, it's the experience over the result. The result
Speaker 2: has never mattered less than the simple fact that The
Speaker 2: Masters is being played and we get to watch it.
Speaker 2: It's the Masters, and we'll deliver those moments over the
Speaker 2: next four days that we're so far from your mind
Speaker 2: back in April. You'll be rewarded with the minutes that follow,
Speaker 2: something like a raje homer or speedth birdie charge along
Speaker 2: the way, or maybe it's just CJ doinking one off
Speaker 2: the team marker. You'll remember it though, and be grateful
Speaker 2: we had it. Thanks again for listening. I know that's
Speaker 2: a little different, but figured we'd experiment in this week
Speaker 2: unlike any other, and we'll be back with our usual
Speaker 2: episodes recapping the action every day. Appreciate your guys listening
Speaker 2: your patronage as to use a word for the week,
Speaker 2: and look forward to taking in this Masters with you all.