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ORLANDO — After playing four straight tournaments and five of the first six to start the PGA Tour season, Chris Gotterup could have used a week off from golf. Instead, he decided to take his father and brother on a little excursion. Their destination was Augusta, Ga.
A two-time winner already this season, Gotterup had never played Augusta National Golf Club, but having earned his first invitation into the Masters, he now had license to get in a practice round last week with a member of the club.
“It was one of those things that you just kind of always hope to be able to go there,” Gotterup said Tuesday at Bay Hill Club, where he is making another tournament debut at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. “Then to be able to play a meaningful round there … obviously everyone in the world of golf would love to go play a round there, but to be able to have the build-up into the Masters is awesome. To be able to share that, my brother and my dad had never played either, so to be able to go down there with them and share that whole experience was really cool.”
Ranked sixth in the world after wins at the Sony Open in Hawaii and WM Phoenix Open, the 26-year-old Gotterup had never stepped foot on Augusta National, even when he had chances to do so in the past while attending sponsor events during Masters week. He wanted to wait until he qualified for the year’s first major. He and his family made the most of it.
“We spent the full day. We played the Par 3 [Course]. We got it all taken care of,” he said.
His favorite hole, he said, was the straight-away par-4 seventh. “It's just like, it's so simple, but you just have to hit a good tee ball and you have to hit the right shot coming into the green,” Gotterup said. “Just visually when you step on the tee box you're like, wow, this hole is really cool looking.”
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“I think like the one that really … the chute on 18 is much tighter than TV gives it credit for,” Gotterup said. “I would say, like 2 with no people there, 2 green is so wild looking because it looks so massive on TV and obviously the framing of all the people behind you. It's just like the green's just thrown in like perfect grass obviously. So it looked much smaller and different.
“Then I would say 1 green was much more severe than TV gives it credit for. So you have obviously a tough tee ball and then you have to hit a good second shot to be able to get it in the right section.”
When Gotterup mentions getting it all taken care of at the home of the Masters, that experience went beyond playing the course. Yep, there was shopping involved.
“A couple hats. I got my brother and my dad something,” he said. “Then I got my mom and sister and girlfriend taken care of. Yeah, that's a mandatory. I got some playing cards and stuff for just little things like that.”
Little things now. Who knows what big things he might collect in April.