Par 3 Contest: Short and very, very sweet

IF YOU'VE ONLY EVER SEEN AUGUSTA National through your television set, then you've really never seen Augusta National. There's a magic in its cool green hills, a feverish majesty winding like moss around its big pines that a television doesn't have enough pixels to accurately deliver into your living room.

Those lucky enough to score a ticket to the practice rounds of the Masters Tournament don't grumble about not being there for the real deal. For most of them, to walk the back nine over every calf-numbing hill, to wait in patient lines for overpriced souvenirs and melting pink pimento cheese sandwiches, to catch a glimpse of a green-jacketed Arnold Palmer eating on the veranda, is more than enough.

If you're traveling back to Appaloosa or Chattanooga or San Francisco before the real tourney begins, then the pinnacle of your stay in Augusta might be the nine-hole Par-3 Contest on Wednesday.

When the par-3 grounds are closed to the public, they hold a lovely sober loneliness, an open space comfortable being by itself, that revels in its own big blue sky. It smells like green and feels like a giant hush. But when the course opens and the first chair-setters come trickling in like cautious rabbits through a carrot patch, it transforms into an amphitheater, into a place accustomed to being used and loved; it becomes a thing rubbed pink. As the grounds fill, the people jewel the lawn in a thousand shapes and colors. Some of the men wear bright polos and Ping visors and golf shoes. Some could be confused with the pros they emulate. Others could not.

The older people come first. With that same import of securing the freshest bread rolls at an early-bird dinner, and they set their chairs down smack outside the ropes.

The heart of the Par-3 is the land circling Ike's Pond, where tee shots from the eighth and ninth holes crisscross to their respective greens on opposite sides of the water. It's a sweeping scene, a scope that even 10 snaps from a panoramic camera laid end to end could never capture.

Just like school, where there are the students who get to class early, sit in the front and pay rapt attention, so there are also the hooligans, the kids who hang in the shadows, smoking strong cigarettes and nipping sips of warm beer from water bottles.

Way back, far from the ropes and under the shade of a large pine, there's a couple of Cajun boys, two brothers from Breaux Bridge, La., who found out they'd be Masters-bound while on a duck blind.

"My wife went through a ticket broker, and she scored two tickets for the Par-3! Which I've always wanted to see. It was an anniversary present. She lets me know I haven't even begun to recoup," says Tommy Huval, 48, an insurance broker.

He's here with brother Dale, 44, who adds that he's transfixed by "the complete tranquility of the place. Wow. I can only imagine what it's like for the members when nobody's here. Wow."

How much are those tickets worth to Tommy? "To be here, at Augusta National, with my kid brother. It's just absolutely priceless."

Dale says the best part about the Par-3 is that the players are loose, and though they have their game faces on, it's not that serious -- a game face in cartoonland, perhaps. Dale overheard Gary Player on one hole, after sticking the ball two feet shy of the pin, say to playing partner Trevor Immelman, "Trev, if you put it inside of that, I'll kiss your ass on the city steps!" Dale says the crowd just went wild.

And that's just what the crowd does every few minutes, for a near hole-in-one or a high-flying beach-bound ball. It's an odd symphony, to hear so much silence punctuated in staccato beats by loud exhilaration, like going under bridges in the rain.

Still deeper in the shadows is a trio of men, a father, Jim Langlois, 60, his son, Bart, 33, and his son's friend, Joshua Craig, 31. All have beer in hand.

Were they unaware the Par-3 was a dry contest?

"We're not supposed to have beers here?" Craig asks, innocently. "Why, we hadn't heard that." Beat. "We're claiming ignorance."

Asked how much it would take for them to run out to the Par-3's ninth green, and, using it as a diving board, splash right into Ike's Pond, Craig says, "I'd do it for a badge for life, and I'd need an azalea (a signature Augusta cocktail), or 10!"

Bart Langlois agrees he'd do it for a badge, and that he'd need some lubrication to boot. But his father, Jim, old enough to know you shouldn't and wise enough to know you shouldn't be so afraid, says, "Aw heck, I'd do it for free!"

Could he do it right now?

"Sure!"

Bart puts hand on his dad's forearm, "Hold up now, Dad! I got him that ticket, my name's on it. So I've got 'im on a short leash. Nuh-uh, sorry. "

There's a jinx associated with the Par-3 contest. No player who's won it has gone on to win the Masters that same year. That's why some players let their kids putt for them.

At the first hole, Miguel Angel Jimenez lets his son do just that. He whispers advice in the young boy's ear. The boy strikes the ball, it takes the lip and just hangs out. The crowd yelps. When partner Sergio Garcia misses by more, someone in the crowd calls, "Hey Sergio! You shoulda let the kid putt it!" It's something that would never happen during the actual tournament, and there's a sweet freedom in that. This is light golf at a serious place. It's like a tailgate party; the anticipation is often better than the reality.

At another hole, Brandt Jobe walks to the green with his son. The 2-year-old sits down at the edge and flings a putter cover toward his dad, who picks it up and brings it back. The boy does it again. The crowd oohhs and ahhhs, and there's laughter all around. You can hear the pure click of balls against iron in the distance, the names of legends are announced at the tee ("Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus!") and the unsung heart ofAugusta pulses with anticipation for what's left to come, and aw hell, how about what's already here.

PAR-3 PAST CHAMPS

Since its inception in 1960, no Par-3 winner has gone on to win the Masters. Here are the men who should've let Sergio putt for them:

YEAR WINNER
1960 Sam Snead
1961 Deane Beman
1962 Bruce Crampton
1963 George Bayer
1964 Labron Harris Jr.
1965 Art Wall Jr.
1966 Terry Dill
1967 Arnold Palmer
1968 Bob Rosburg
1969 Bob Lunn
1970 Harold Henning
1971 Dave Stockton
1972 Steve Melnyk
1973 Gay Brewer
1974 Sam Snead
1975 Isao Aoki
1976 Jay Haas
1977 Tom Weiskopf
1978 Lou Graham
1979 Joe Inman Jr.
1980 Johnny Miller
1981 Isao Aoki
1982 Tom Watson
1983 Hale Irwin
1984 Tommy Aaron
1985 Hubert Green
1986 Gary Koch
1987 Ben Crenshaw
1988 Tsuneyuki Nakajima
1989 Bob Gilder
1990 Raymond Floyd
1991 Rocco Mediate
1992 Davis Love III
1993 Chip Beck
1994 Vijay Singh
1995 Hal Sutton
1996 Jay Haas
1997 Sandy Lyle
1998 Sandy Lyle
1999 Joe Durant
2000 Chris Perry
2001 David Toms
2002 Nick Price
2003 Harrington/Toms (tie)
2004 Padraig Harrington
2005 Jerry Pate
2006 Ben Crane