The sun came up at 7.10 in Augusta but it was another 30 minutes before it reached the first tee. By the time it rose above the clubhouse roof there were already several thousand fans gathered all around, packed so thick there was no way to weave through, and latecomers had to turn back and find a spot to watch from somewhere down the fairway.
This year they had not just come to see the old champions taking part in the honorary start but to mark the one who was missing, Arnold Palmer, who died last September. In his place, his widow, Kit, and his old Green Jacket, draped across the back of a lawn chair. Augusta National handed out badges to all the patrons, the press, even their own members. “I am a member of ‘Arnie’s Army,’” they read. “EST. 1959.”
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