Thursday at Augusta

Welcome to the first day of the 2007 Masters, where before you enter the course, you can buy a green leather duffel bag at the pro shop, if you have an extra $550 amid the pocket lint…

Even people who watch lots of golf don’t always understand why flying balls at flagsticks isn’t always a great idea. At Augusta National, knowledge isn’t power. It’s more important than that.

Take the 170-yard, par-3 16th. The pin today is back left. You have about 6 feet of green in front of you, before you find the slope and the pond. No one who hits the slope escapes the pond. If you’re 10 feet long shooting at the flag, you’re in the rough, chipping downhill. It’d be easier to stop a bug flying at your windshield on I-75 than stopping that chip close to the hole.

The pros that aren’t insane don’t aim at that flag. They aim at least 20 yards to the right and hope the ball catches the downhill slope toward the hole. The uninitiated might think that’s a stupid or gutless shot. It’s the best shot.

Same at the par-3 6th, where the Thursday pin is traditionally tucked way back and right. There’s about 40 square feet of flat ground around the pin. The smart play is center of the green and two-putt par. And so on. Almost every hole here demands some sort of pinpoint approach. It’s usually not firing right at the stick.

Number Five is the Forgotten Hole here. Really: How many times have you seen it televised? How much history has been made here? Nobody goes to 5, because it’s so easy to walk across the 4th and 7th fairways to get to behind the No. 6 green…5 is loud (it abuts busy Berckmans Road), boring (easy tee shot, big green) and out of the way.

By the way: The Masters “badge’’ this year is $175, if you can get one, which you can’t. The badge (not a ticket, just like patrons aren’t “fans’’) gets you in all week, beginning Monday. Best deal in sports. But as the Augusta Chronicle puts it, “The patron list is fully subscribed.’’ I think that means the toonamint is sold out.

Is the TV looping the bird noises yet? I cover this almost every year, so I’m not watching TV, but I’ve heard from people who’ve been here and leave early, to watch the coverage in the later afternoon, report hearing the same chirps from a certain hole at least five hours after they heard them in person. Maybe they just have social birds at Augusta National…

Personal observation: The Masters doesn’t release attendance figures, but I’m guessing the number of “patrons’’ at the practice rounds has doubled at least in the last 20 years. They say the number of “badges’’ has not changed, but the naked eye disputes that. Maybe the “patrons’’ are just larger than they used to be, from scarfing all those pimiento cheese sandwiches…

The pollen here hits you in waves. I brushed yellow off my car this morning…

Best Place to See Azaleas… the path down from the elevated 6th tee to the crosswalk on the 6th fairway. You slice down the middle of a grove of them so thick, they look steroid-ed. From a distance, “patrons’’ passing through the mass of pink, red, white and purple look like a knife, slicing a psychedelic cake…

Another Masters pleasantry: No hordes of people walking the middle of the fairways, carrying signs. The permanence of the toonamint allows for permanent leaderboards. More than half the holes have one.

Only the players use port-a-potties. The “patrons’’ enjoy permanent loos. They’re green. You might have guessed. By the way, it’s one of the few public places where the men’s line is wa-a-a-y longer than the women’s.
The Masters has rows of pay phones, each with its own local phone book. The phone areas are always jammed, given that cells aren’t allowed.

See you tomorrow, when it starts getting serious.