Edward Keating

Top to bottom: The author's former office; The Patch, not soon to be mistaken for the National; the Wife Saver, purveyor of that great Southern vegetable, mac and cheese.

The greatest lesson I ever learned about golf happened in Augusta, as you might expect, but it did not happen at Augusta National. Instead it happened at the Augusta Municipal Golf Course — or, as everyone calls it, "The Patch."

I was walking The Patch with David Westin, who in those days played the course every single day, rain or shine. David is still writing golf for The Augusta Chronicle — he's been doing it for 25 years. And I knew absolutely nothing about golf, a troubling void when you consider that I had been hired to be the sports columnist for the Chronicle. David — or "Ghost" as we called him — had a lot of teaching to do.

(By the way, I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say I knew absolutely nothing about golf. In those days, one of the perks for writing sports for the Chronicle is that in May you were invited to play at Augusta National. They allowed me to do this. Once. I shot 72... on the front nine. After I wrote about my harrowing experience, the various decision makers at Augusta National ruled that not EVERYBODY who wrote sports for the Chronicle should be invited to play Augusta National.)

But that day wasn't for teaching. No, David had invited me to go along as he played a round. He introduced me to some of the local characters. He showed me some of the fun features of The Patch — one of the holes runs right along the airport runway. Another runs up to ditches where soldiers trained during World War I. Years later, a golfer would hit into the rough on No. 8 and find a live grenade buried in the ground. The bomb squad had to come in and detonate it. Yes, the rough at The Patch could be quite penal.

Anyway, we came to one tee and there was what looked like a creek about 80 yards ahead.

"Is that a creek?" I asked.

"It's not in play," David said.

"Yeah, but is it a creek?"

"It's a creek, but I haven't hit into that thing in 10 years. It's not in play."

Well, you know what happened next. David Westin promptly hit his tee shot into the creek. And that was the greatest lesson I've ever learned about golf. It's all in your head.

This is a story about what Augusta is like when the Masters isn't around. So, as someone who lived in Augusta for three and a half years and has come back to visit many times since, I'm required to break this bit of news to you: There is no Piggly Wiggly grocery store across the street from Augusta National. There has not been a Piggly Wiggly for at least 20 years, and I'm not even sure there was one before that.

Despite this rather inconvenient fact, every year someone will write a story about "The Real Augusta." And it's at least a 50-50 shot that they will write about the Piggly Wiggly across the street. Hey, I'm a sportswriter. I understand. Piggly Wiggly is a funny name for a grocery store. It's a funny detail to include in a story — ha, ha, right across from Amen Corner there's a Piggly Wiggly! But there isn't. There's no Piggly Wiggly there or, for that matter, anywhere else in Augusta.

Truth is that we used to shudder whenever someone came to town to write that Augusta story. And people in Augusta still do. "Oh no, you're not writing that story," said my friend Dennis Sodomka, who was editor for the Chronicle for 21 years.

"I promise to point out that there's no Piggly Wiggly," I told him.

"Yeah," he said. "But are you going to write about how tacky Washington Road is?"

Right. That's another staple in the prototypical "Real Augusta" story. People always write about how Augusta National is on Washington Road, a tacky (always "tacky") four-lane street lined with chain stores, fast-food restaurants, a Hooters, various strip malls, and an IHOP and Waffle House barely two miles apart. We were always amazed by the amazement of the visiting writers. They were shocked — and seemingly offended — by Washington Road. Apparently their cities had no fast-food restaurants or strip malls.

Then again, Augusta is not the sort of place where you can just parachute in for a week — especially during Masters week — and come away with any real understanding. Maybe no place can be understood that quickly, but Augusta is a particularly difficult place to sum up. It's bigger than you would think (a half million people live in the metropolitan area) and yet it feels small. It is almost equally split between black and white. It has a big Medical District (which employs more than 25,000 people), a huge military base (Fort Gordon) and a popular restaurant that called itself "Wife Saver" in 1965 and, well, just stayed with the name.

(The Wife Saver motto is 'Put a Little South in Your Mouth.' I remember I once took a date to the Wife Saver — something that should begin to explain my time in Augusta — and I pointed out with some pride that 'macaroni and cheese' was listed as a vegetable. This is a Southern restaurant staple; in my book you are in a real Southern restaurant only when they don't offer unsweetened iced tea, and mac and cheese is called a vegetable. My date, who had lived in Georgia her whole life, did not understand the point. 'If mac and cheese is not a vegetable,' she said, 'what else would you call it?')