FO-O-O-ORE! It's the Masters' 2000 Journal!

Let me begin this article with an admission: I am not an avid sports fan. Certainly, I’ll check in on the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Olympics (though Sochi was the first Olympic Games that I actively avoided), and I’ll take in the awe and spectacle, but afterwards, it’s all just a game to me.

The same applies to the Masters, which is, in a word, the World Cup of golf. I bought this journal not because I follow golf, but because 1) it’s a Year 2000 item, and 2) that year, the Masters opened on my birthday (April 3^rd). It came from the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store in Midlothian, IL, where I've found one or two very good Millennium Artifacts in the past year. 

(Oh, just as a heads-up, the Masters Tournament will start next Monday.)

…So, the Masters 2000 Journal. At the time, Citibank (or Citigroup, as it was known) provided backing for the tournament, and there are one or two ads for the corporation. At the time, Citibank had just bought Travelers Insurance and undergone a huge rebranding effort. Gone were the days of the italicized, all-caps “CITIBANK” logo—gone were the days of “CITIBANK,” actually—this marked the age of “CITI” and “CITIGROUP” in a simple, all lower-case font. Also, the red Travelers umbrella appeared at the end of the word “Citigroup;” it’s now a stylized red arc that sits on top of the “t” and covers the two “i’s.”

Enough about banking and financing; what about the rest of the book? It fits the “time capsule” mandate of the Millennium Museum quite well. It starts out with a five-page section about the Masters’ humble beginnings, and after that there’s a decade-by-decade “potted history,” which recaps each year’s tournament, tells us who won that year, and offers up a few interesting highlights. For example, in 1997, a 21-year-old Tiger Woods became the youngest winner in Masters’ history.

The entry says, “…Tiger Woods re-wrote [sic] a good portion of the tournament’s record book. His 270 total and 12-stroke margin of victory were two of 20 records the 21-year-old established. His play in Amen Corner—seven under par for the four rounds—was instrumental in his becoming the youngest Masters champion” (Masters 25).

The book only goes up to 1999—I assume this is because it was released well before the 2000 edition had even begun. The winner that year was Spain’s Jose Maria Olazabal, who had previously won the British Boys’ tournament; the British Amateur Championship; the British Youths’ tournaments; and the 1994 Masters (Masters 44). Few people knew at the time that Olazabal was playing through a foot ailment that first started in 1993, and after he won in ’94, it got so bad that he needed surgery.

By 1995, he was almost completely debilitated.

In 1997, he sought the help of a Munich-based specialist, who diagnosed him with “nerve pressure in his lower back that was affecting muscles in his feet” (44), and so began his recovery. Though he was always humble, Olazabal’s illness put everything into a new perspective: “After what I have been through, golf gives me a different feeling, a determination…I’ve had the chance to have the best cars and to be able to build a house with enough room to bring my parents to live there with me. I am paying them back. That is what I enjoy, to see them happy” (45).

The next section of the book is a play-by-play dissection of the course. Each of the eighteen holes takes its name from a flower (Holly, Azalea, etc.), and each has its own difficulty grade. You may recall a passing reference to something called “Amen Corner” earlier, and now is a good time to explain what that is—in fact, the section opens with “Prayers at the Heart of Amen Corner.”

Though it’s officially named Golden Bell, the twelfth hole on the course has quite a nasty reputation. To put it simply: As Blackbeard once struck terror in the hearts of merchant sailors, Amen Corner strikes terror in the hearts of hardened professional golfers. If you beat it and still remain under par, it will be by an act of divine intervention, hence “Amen.”

Its reputation is fourfold: First, Rae’s Creek serves as a giant water trap. Second, the putting surface is “100 feet wide but just 27 feet deep at its narrowest point” (72), which is itself surrounded by three sand traps, or “bunkers.” Third, the course is designed so that the hole is on top of a small hill. Fourth, and finally, an ill wind can send the ball rolling down that incline.

Here’s a good article about this most feared part of the tournament: "Amen Corner: What's in a Name?"
 

The final section of the book is a list of the 92 competitors that year. Among them were Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer, as well as Vijay Singh from Fiji and Nick Price from Zimbabwe. I’m not going to go into detail about this part, but Masters.com has plenty of information available.