Today is an important Thursday in the golf world: the opening round of the Masters. We have a slideshow on the homepage, titled “Springtime in Augusta.” (That would be Georgia, not Maine. I imagine it’s still winter in Augusta, Me.) I have a little post on our new sports blog, “Right Field.” (Cute, huh?) It tells about the agony of picking ten Masters highlights for this slideshow. These are not the top ten highlights, mind you. I keep stressing this, defensively. They’re just ten highlights. A top ten would have been the death of me — kind of like picking the ten greatest novels or something.

Little walk down Memory Lane? Not too far down: This piece appeared in the National Review of May 4, 2009. Called “The Hills Are Alive” — Augusta National has hills — it describes a first visit to the course and the tournament (namely, mine). They never invite me, you know. I mean, the Masters committee never invites me to play in the tournament. So frustrating. What are they afraid of?

Quick, name a famous soprano from Augusta, Ga. Jessye Norman, right. And name the only Augusta native to win the tournament. Larry Mize, right — in 1987. Chipped in on Greg Norman in a playoff. If I remember correctly, Mize never got to play the course until he was invited to play in the Masters. He had done a lot of looking through the fence. A really nice story, even if much of the world bled for Norman, on that Sunday in 1987.