The Masters I'm Glad I Missed

I never should have tried to go to Augusta last spring, but eventually I had no choice. On Tuesday morning, I had just found my seat on the plane when my mom called. You shouldn’t go, she said. Dad isn’t doing well.

Right then, the doors closed.

The trip to the Masters was already a precarious idea. It was the most important week on our work calendar, and the hospice nurse believed Dad had time, so my mom and siblings insisted I try. The decision seems absurd now, because I never even made it past the airport. Unable to get off the plane when my mom called, I flew to Augusta, then walked right to the ticket desk to secure the next flight home.

People in my field have this habit of marking important moments by golf tournaments. I can tell you I was married the weekend of the 2001 Open Championship at Royal Lytham (won by David Duval), and that I missed the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst (Michael Campbell) because we had just welcomed our first son. My second son was born in January, but I still remember telling one of my best friends we were expecting while walking the second hole of the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont (Angel Cabrera).

My dad died on Wednesday night before the first round of the 2025 Masters. The date will always be painful to remember. I couldn’t tell you what happened the first three days of the tournament. But there’s a reason it will also go down as one of my favorites.

My dad was a graceful tennis player, and a marathoner with comically large calves, but golf confounded him. He loved the game, but it frustrated him enough that he stopped playing for decades, only to resume in earnest once my brother and I caught the bug. Even into his 80s, he’d drive 45 minutes for lessons and to driving ranges where he could find a quiet stall at the end of the row.

Watching sports was always easier—whatever my brother and I were playing, and then his grandkids, and whatever was on TV. Dad was so superstitious watching the New York Rangers, he insisted we switch seats whenever the Rangers were down a goal going into the third period, and that we not even think of moving whenever they were ahead. “I should probably warn you,” I remember telling a friend before he came over to watch. “My family is kind of weird.”

When it came to golf, Dad would pepper me with questions about various trends and whoever was in contention. Sometimes I’d be sitting next to him, but he’d also call me frequently when I was on site at a major. “What’s his story?”, he’d ask of a player on the leaderboard, and I’d attempt to condense a tour pro’s entire existence into a few succinct bites: Long hitter. Streaky putter. Bad divorce.

He formed his own opinions. Dad admired Tiger’s intensity, found Phil Mickelson too smug and was perceptive enough to lock in on Scottie Scheffler when he was just another promising pro. “This fellow Scheffler is two strokes back. Is he a good guy?”—the question framed as if Scottie and I just had lunch.

Family gatherings would revert to the same pattern. We’d show up at my parents’ place, where Dad would greet everyone and ask about their lives. Then when the small talk mounted, he’d disappear. You’d find him in the TV room, a grandkid or two by his side, glued to whatever broadcast.

“Hold on a second,” he’d say whenever conversation distracted from the drama. “This is a big shot.”

The week was a blur. Dad died on a Wednesday, and we had his funeral on a Friday. Friends and family flowed in and out of our parents’ apartment for several days, but Sunday loomed. It would have been my dad’s 90th birthday, and it was also the final round of the Masters.

One of the surreal dynamics of this past year is how many narratives began with my dad as a central character and ended with him absent. At the beginning of that week, we thought he’d be there to watch, however fleeting his energy and attention. Dad couldn’t follow much at the end, but you could tell certain words still registered. Augusta. Bryson. Rory.

Like his sportswriter son, he rooted for the best story—the underdog and the emotionally invested. If he was alive and healthy I would have been in Augusta and he would have called me on Sunday morning to ask for my assessment of the leaderboard. McIlroy ahead by two, the career Grand Slam at stake. What did I think? In those moments I knew as much as he did.

Now, the rest of us were huddled in front of the same TV watching the final round. My mom, my brother and sister. Grandkids and their boyfriends and girlfriends, plus cousins and friends who grew up understanding how our family hung on these moments.

In the next room were trays of food and ample couches and chairs for everyone, but here we crammed in and found spots on the floor, crying earlier but now reacting to the action as if the green jacket would be ours to keep. If my dad was there he would have told my cousin Michael to stop talking over the TV, and he might have suggested we switch seats after Rory missed his par putt on 18. Then Rory knocked his approach tight in the playoff, and we screamed.

It was the type of Masters I’d normally hate to miss, but I couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.