The Invitations For Monday's Show...

Eat your heart out, tech journalists getting an ipad for review before Saturday's launch. I bet you didn't get one of these:

Good evening,
 
I hope this e-mail finds all of you well. I’m writing tonight in regards to the Tiger Woods interview on Monday at 2 p.m.
 
Augusta National has taken great care to reserve space for those accredited Board members of the GWAA and AGW. I’d like to offer each of you a seat in the room, provided you will be here and interested in attending. Other accredited Board members not on this e-mail were likely already tapped by their respective publications to attend or not able to be present.
 
Please reply to this e-mail with your level of interest at your earliest convenience. It will be a pleasure to see you all very soon.
 
All the best,
 
Steve Ethun
Director of Communications
Augusta National Golf Club
2604 Washington Road
Augusta, GA 30904

One can only imagine the hilarious seat chart they've got going right now, with GWAA and AGW board members, the one seat from each outlet and of course, the various riff-raff seat fillers.

"What %$#@!&^%$ fool put a %$#@!&^%$ bunker right in the %$#@!&^%$ center of the fairway?"

It didn't make the story, but another fun trace of the Old Course in the original Augusta National design came on the eleventh hole. It existed for a few years back when the tee was to the right of the tenth green, and when the hole doglegged right. It played much shorter then with a fairway sloped away from the tee. (Long before Hootie made an awful mess of it (right image).)

Jones and MacKenzie planned a 415-yard dogleg right par-4 where drives down the left side were rewarded with a better angle to the green. To inject the ultimate St. Andrewsian touch, Jones insisted on a small, blind pot bunker in the fairway center. He found out on opening day in 1932 that not everyone was enamored with the mystery, vagaries and quirk of the Old Course.

In The Making of The Masters, David Owen shares the story of Jones’s father, Colonel Bob Jones, driving into the bunker while playing with his son and Clifford Roberts.

“When the Colonel found his ball in the sand, he shouted, ‘What goddamned fool put a goddamned bunker right in the goddamned center of the fairway?’ or words to that effect.

One can only imagine how much delight that gave Bobby Jones!

"Woods is not invited to stay on the course grounds overnight during the tournament, as he apparently had requested"

Filip Bondy of the New York Daily News buried this lede in a column today, perhaps because it was coming from one source. Though it wouldn't surprise me since it would cut down on what figures to be an excessive security tab next week:

Woods is not invited to stay on the course grounds overnight during the tournament, as he apparently had requested, according to a source.

Only amateurs and members - Woods is an honorary member, which only gets him into the champions' locker room - are allowed to stay overnight on the course. The amateurs lodge in a 30x40 foot Crow's Nest above the clubhouse, which sleeps up to five.

The cabin arrangement would have been extremely convenient for Woods, who surely wishes to avoid the hassles of commuting and media exposure.

"One look at Augusta in 3-D will make high-definition seem obsolete."

Richard Sandomir got a sneak peek at the Masters in 3-D and appears to have been blown away by what he saw.

If the test footage shot recently at the Augusta National Golf Club is an authentic gauge, the Masters in 3-D will look terrific. Only a few thousand early adopters with 3-D television sets will be able to see the tournament in this manner, but they will be fortunate: one look at Augusta in 3-D will make high-definition seem obsolete.

This had to make Tim Finchem's morning...

Golf may be perfect for 3-D. It is a slow sport, one player in action at a time. Cameras need not pan quickly and can be closer than they are in, say, football or baseball.