North Shore Golf CourSe
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The Dog Ate My Masters Tix
BriNG 3 Play for free
(4 for the price of 3) * Must present coupon Valid Monday thru Thursday — All Day Friday, Saturday & Sunday — After 1p.m. Expires July 21st 2012
I Tee times - (253) 927-1375 or (253) 838-3660 Restaurant - (253) 927-7439 4101 North Shore Blvd NE,Tacoma WA 98422
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20
JUNE 2012
t’s a seemingly impossible story to believe. Seattle native Russ Berkman, a frequent player in Cascade Golfer Cup events, lucked out in this year’s Masters lottery, earning the right to purchase four tickets to Wednesday’s practice rounds at Augusta — a dream come true for just about any golf fan. Three friends from around the country planned to meet Berkman in Myrtle Beach the Sunday before the tournament, play golf for two days on the Carolina coast, then drive to Augusta to walk the hallowed grounds of Augusta National. The day before he was to leave, Berkman put his tickets safely in his iPad case, and headed to the store for some last-minute supplies. When he came home, his heart nearly stopped. The iPad case was open. The tickets were gone. On the floor were four chewed-up strings, and nearby, one satisfied-looking Swiss Mountain Dog, 9-year-old Sierra. “I freaked out,” Berkman says, realizing Sierra had eaten all four tickets. “I didn’t know what to do.” After using a safe chemical mixture to force Sierra to spit up the chewed-up pieces, Berkman spent the next two hours huddled over his kitchen table, piecing the tickets back together one at a time — part of a flower here, a corner of a sand trap there … “it was like a big puzzle,” he says. By Saturday night, Berkman had restored 80 percent of the tickets. Along with his receipt and a photo of the original tickets he had taken the week before, he thought he had enough evidence to convince The Masters to reprint his tickets — since they would no doubt want proof that he hadn’t simply sold the originals. There was one problem — the Masters’ ticket office was closed until Monday morning, and Berkman would be meeting his buddies in Myrtle Beach on Sunday. “There was no way I was going to say anything to those guys if I didn’t have to,” Berkman says. “I even considered buying four more tickets online (at a cost of about $3,000), as a backup, but I felt like I had a pretty good case.” The only thing that worried him was the legendary Masters mystique. It’s nearly impossible to get tickets in the first place; Berkman imagined it had to be at least as hard to get them replaced.
So it was that two days later, Berkman slipped away from his buddies on the golf course in Myrtle Beach to make one of the most anxious phone calls of his life. After telling his story, he was instructed to wait by the phone for a supervisor to call back. Berkman waited, playing another hole as his buddies griped about the fact that he’d spent the entire morning on the phone instead of focusing on the golf. Then, it rang. “Are you the one with the hungry dog?” laughed a friendly female voice from the other end of the line. “Well, Mr. Berkman, I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through, but we’ll be happy to reprint your tickets.” Berkman felt a wave of relief, and at that point, thought his adventure was over — it turns out, it was only just beginning. As he had worked feverishly to piece together the chewed-up pieces of tickets on Saturday night, Berkman had sent photos of his progress to friends, including fellow Cascade Golfer Cup regular Justin Mentink. Mentink, in disbelief, forwarded the photos to his sisterin-law, ROOT Sports anchor Angie Mentink, and to KJR Sports Radio’s Mitch Levy. On Tuesday morning — a day after confirming that the tickets could be replaced — Berkman went on the air in Seattle with Levy to tell his unlikely story. A few hours after the interview aired, news reports appeared on websites for the USA Today and Yahoo Sports, spreading Berkman’s story to the world. By the time he and his friends returned to their cars after watching Wednesday’s Par-3 contest, he had voice mails from ESPN “SportsCenter,” CNN “Headline News,” ABC’s “Good Morning America” and many more. “It was ridiculous,” he says. “Somehow it had spread like crazy.” Berkman took advantage of the opportunity to do “SportsCenter” and “Good Morning America,” using each interview as a chance to praise the generosity and understanding of the Masters staff. “My image of Augusta had been one of snootiness, but my personal experience was one of classic Southern hospitality,” he said. “Those ladies were so nice, so helpful and so supportive.” “But if I didn’t take that first picture, with the serial cascadegolfer.com