Augusta National Inquirer

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APRIL 4, 2008

AUGUSTA MEDiCAL EXAMINER

AUGUSTA NATIONAL

Lose 30 pounds —

INQUIRER INSTANTLY! Pimiento Cheese sandwich miracle!

Couples to fly into Augusta

SWINGERS CONVENTION! MAN SNEEZES WHILE ELS PUTTS “Living nightmare” says hay fever sufferer Clyde Crutchfield, of Dayton, OH, calls himself a die-hard Ernie Els fan. That made what happened at last year’s Masters Tournament especially troublesome for the 61-year-old first-time Masters visitor.

“Ernie was lining up a big putt, on — what hole was it Mildred?” the weekend duffer said, turning to his wife of 41 years, Mildred.

“What?” asked Mildred.

“Well anyway,” continued Clyde,

“never mind that. Here he was — Ernie, that is — ten feet away from me, getting to ready putt, when I began to feel a sneeze coming on. The more I tried to fight it, the bigger it seemed like it was going to be when it finally came. I tried like the dickens to hold it in, but as Mildred knows, that never works for me.”

“What?” asked Mildred.

“Well, just about the time he drew back that putter I felt it coming. Right before he hit the ball I mean I let one go

that you coulda heard back in Dayton,” said Crutchfield.

“It startled Ernie a little,” recalled Crutchfield, noting that the intended 4foot birdie putt turned into a nice chip onto a nearby fairway.

“Prettiest little chip you ever saw,” said the Ohio native who once birdied five consecutive holes at a miniature golf course while vacationing in Florida. “He looked over at me with sort of a funny look on his face — not real funny, mind you, but a little.

Even close friends shocked by sudden decision!

NORMAN QUITS GOLF In a move that has shocked even those who know him best, one of golf’s most fierce yet dearly-loved Greg Norman competitors has abruptly quit the game he has loved and played his entire life.

“If it’s true it’s a blow to the sport,” said Tom Watson after Inquirer reporters broke the story earlier this week.

Ray Floyd’s reaction to the news was disbelief.

“Say what?” said the Masters champion. “I just saw him and he mentioned nothing to me.”

But it’s true.

Norman Feckle of Craysville, Ark., has played at least 18 holes every day for the past 48 years. “Rain, shine, hot or cold,” Norman was always there,” said Jim Blandin, the pro shop assistant manager at Craysville

“I quit,” says legendary golf veteran

Public Links. No longer. Last Tuesday was Norman’s final round.

“I just decided to hang up the clubs,” said the aging linksman, pointing to a ceiling hook in his 2-car garage.

“I almost quit back in ’85 when Ethel threatened to leave me over how much time I spend golfing.

She said she was always alone.

I had to solve that problem, so I made her my caddy.”

That wasn’t Feckle’s only challenge.

“I almost quit again in ‘02 when they closed The 19th Hole. I tell you, if you love the game like I do, it’s no fun hauling six packs

all over the course. See, I don’t believe in carts. I like to walk,” said the avid golfer.

“So we started trying to empty as many of the cans as possible on the first two or three holes.

Sure, our scores weren’t that great,” he said with a laugh, “but we didn’t much care for some reason — wink, wink,” he said recently, while making air quotes.

“Of course, as I grew older, I learned the finer points of this great game. Like, you don’t just leave beer cans all over the course. You throw them in the woods.”

What of the future now that he’s retired from golf?

“I think I’ll join the Augusta National,” said Norman. “I don’t know what the initiation costs, but I have a few hundred dollars saved up. When I flash a few twenties around down there, that’ll be all she wrote,” he said. +

Anyway, I told him it was a real pretty chip and he should be proud of it. I thought they [tournament officials] should have given him credit for the putt.

I know I would have.”

“It was a gimme,” he told security officials who gave him a complimentary escort to the parking lot moments later.

Crutchfield says his badges for this year hadn’t arrived as of press time.

“But I’m still a big Ernie fan,” he concluded. +

Above, what the fateful moment for Clyde Crutchfield of Dayton, OH, could have looked like.

(Artist’s depiction)

IKE SPOTTED AT MAMIE’S CABIN! And guess who he’s with?

FORMER MASTERS DENIED TOURNAMENT ACCESS! Former Masters have a lifetime exemption from Tournament qualifying? They’re invited to the tournament for life?

Don’t tell that to former Augustan Patsy Fortnoy.

“Think again,” said the petite housewife now residing in Marietta, Ga. “It’s an urban legend. Some things I know are true. Like they pack the ground in ice cubes to make sure the azaleas don’t bloom too early. And they paint the grass green..”

But they don’t keep their word to former Masters, she told Inquirer reporters. “My maiden name is Masters. I’m a former Masters, but they said I would need a badge, which of course is impossible. I just hope I can at least go to the Champions Dinner. Do they serve curly fries?” she wondered. +

KITE GETS STUCK IN TREE

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APRIL 4, 2008

AUGUSTA MEDiCAL EXAMINER

MIRACLE PHOTO PROVES IT!

ELVIS WINS 2007 MASTERS! Boyd Dickey of Dothan, Ala., isn’t much of a photographer. Even Boyd admits that much.

So last year when he made his 28th annual pilgrimage to Augusta — “one of my favorite places anywhere on Earth outside Alabama” — he wasn’t in a big rush to develop his pictures when he got back home.

“I said to the Missuz, my Nicki, I said to her, I said, ‘Nicki,’ I said, ‘I’m not so sure about this new camera,’ I said.

It’s one of those new ones. Just got it at a yard sale a month before the tournament. It’s a film camera. I’m not into all that digitable stuff. Not yet anyway,” the 64-year-old retiree told the Inquirer last month.

“Fact o’ the bein’s is, I completely forgot all about the durned thing, to tell you the truth. To be honest,” he recalled, “I was hoping one of the big golfers would win last year.

Then when that little ol’ boy won... Nicki, what was the name of that boy who won the Masters last year? Nicki? Well,” he told us, “I think she must be outside. Anyway, like I was saying, I wasn’t so sure about that camera. I probably didn’t tell you this — I don’t gen’rally tell people — but I just got it right before we went up there. To Augusta, that is. Nicki!?!?”

But then — just last month — the Dickeys were visited by their daughter and son-in-law, Lisa and Jimmy Floyd, from Jacksonville, Fla.. Dickey dug the camera out of a drawer to take pictures of his twin grandsons, Boyd and Lloyd, age 2.

“They’re really something, those two boys,” said the elder Boyd. “My little namesake, we call him Junior.”

“Anyway, like I was saying, when I went to take some pictures, there were only two shots left on the roll. I never have known how to load film, so I took it down to Elmer’s Camera Shack. He took out the old roll and popped in a new one, and I went back to the house and got some real good shots of them two boys and Lisa.” He lowered his voice. “We don’t take pictures of Jimmy.”

The real excitement began two days later, said Boyd.

“The phone rang. I picked it up and said ‘Hello.’ Well, it was Willard down at the camera shop. I don’t know why it’s called Elmer’s, but that’s another story. Might have been his Daddy’s name. Anyway, Willard tells me he thinks I should come down to the shop right away, he’s got something to show me. And this is what it was,” he concluded at last, revealing the miracle photo of last year’s Green Jacket ceremony showing a smiling Elvis Presley.

“We figured Phil would be putting a jacket on... on, uh...

Nicki? Nicki!?! I swear, I don’t know where she got off to. But anyway, like I was saying, there’s Phil, plain as the nose on my land sakes, putting the jacket on Elvis. Don’t that beat the band?”

The photograph, obtained exclusively by the Augusta National Inquirer, does indeed show the King himself being green jacketed by Phil Mickelson, the 2006 defending champion. Although the Dickeys have lost the negatives, making verification difficult, the Inquirer’s independent film analysts have verified that the photo is genuine, and is of film origin rather than digital. “That’s important,” Boyd Dickey told us. “They say those digitable photographs can be manipalated to where you don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”

When we contacted Phil Mickelson for comment about the miracle picture, he claimed the Inquirer photo was a certain fake.

“I don’t know where this photo came from,” he said with his wife, Amy, at his side. “This didn’t happen,” he said, tapping on an copy while the original was safely locked inside a reporter’s glove compartment, “but I would have definitely remembered putting the green jacket on Elvis Presley. Definitely. And I don’t. I clearly remember not putting it on Elvis, in fact. I put it on... on uh... Amy, what was that boy’s name last year?” She was unable to name the alleged other winner.

Isn’t it odd, asks the Inquirer, that people don’t know who’s with Phil in our miracle photo — just that it can’t be Elvis? +

WORLD EXCLUSIVE!

ACTUAL UNRETOUCHED PHOTO! “Dream come true” says duffer

DYING MAN SPENDS MILLIONS TO ATTEND FINAL MASTERS When the chance to visit the Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament was presented to golf fanatic Watanabe Takahashi, age 28, of Tokyo, Japan, he jumped at the chance.

“The Masters is revered here in Japan,” said the rising junior executive. “To get the chance to make the journey is very very special for me and my family.”

The Inquirer was tipped off about this story that was sure to tug at the heart-strings of you, our reader(s), so we tracked down Watanabe, known as “Wa” to friends.

What about the tremendous expense of traveling halfway around the world to attend a golf tournament?

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Wa with a polite bow and a dismissive wave of his hand. “Only about $8,000, I think, definitely less than $10,000,

and most of that is paid for by my company.”

Oh, we said. We had heard that you spent millions to get here to Augusta.

Wa’s eyes widened. “Millions?

No way! Not millions. Only one million,” or as Wa actually put it, “onry one mirrion.”

One million dollars! we asked, using an exclamation point instead of a question mark to show our surprise and amazement. That will be an amazing story for the next Augusta National Inquirer, we said.

“No, sirry American! One mirrion Japanese yen, sirry!”

Wa patiently explained that 10,000 U.S. dollars equal roughly 1,023,000 Japanese yen.

Okay, so perhaps our insider news tipster got that minor detail slightly wrong. We were still left with the delicate issue of Mr.

Takahashi’s precarious health situation.

Tell us about this being your final Masters Tournament, we began.

“Final? It’s my first Masters,” Wa told us, quickly adding, “I don’t imagine I’ll ever experience something this special again. I hope to return, but I don’t know.”

So you may never return?

“That’s correct,” he said.

So then this could indeed be your final Masters?

“That’s true. Right,” said Wa. Aha! we said.

“I would call it a once in a lifetime experience, definitely,” he added.

Our source said you’re a dying man, we told Wa. “Well,” he said, “today we’re all one day closer, aren’t we? I mean, really?”

Good point, we admitted. +

CURTIS STRANGE