If you’ve never sat in the darkness as a hurricane bears down on you, if you’ve never watched the Weather Channel hoping there’s no correspondent based anywhere near you, if you’ve never refreshed your phone and watched the wind speeds outside keep increasing … well, I don’t recommend it.
On the evening of September 27, 2024, millions from the Gulf Coast of Florida up through Georgia and Tennessee spent a sleepless night watching Hurricane Helene carve its way north. Forecasts put the storm’s route straight over Atlanta.
But late that evening, matters took a dramatic turn. Helene hit the Big Bend of Florida at an unexpectedly high speed. Like a driver taking a turn too fast, Helene skidded much farther east than expected, which put the hurricane’s fierce eastern wall directly over Augusta, Georgia. Atlanta had been preparing with many hours of warning. Augusta had none.
The result, in Augusta and later in the mountains of North Carolina — absolute, utter devastation. Biblical destruction on a massive, 250-mile-wide scale.
Six months later, abandoned homes, blue tarps, scarred lawns and uprooted tree stumps remain visible everywhere in Augusta and the surrounding areas. There are so many scars — on land, on psyches, on the people of Augusta — that will take years to heal.
But the healing has already begun, and this week is a key milestone in that long process. I spent time in Augusta last week reporting a story on the way the city and Augusta National Golf Club worked hand in hand to recover from the generational damage, and one key theme shone through. If you’ve never been, either to Augusta or to the Masters, here’s the bedrock truth: this town loves this tournament.
You don’t have to visit Augusta National to appreciate what the Masters represents. The Masters, like baseball’s Opening Day, comes along every year at the perfect time: at the end of a long winter. It’s a fitting reward for all those weeks and months spent indoors, cursing early sunsets and chilly winds.
For golf fans, this week is nirvana. This is the moment you’ve awaited all year. This is where all the outside noise falls away, where talk of breakaway leagues and multimillion-dollar purses vanishes, and we’re all living in the moment:
• Can Scottie Scheffler win a third green jacket and establish himself as one of the finest players ever to drive up Magnolia Lane?
• Can Rory McIlroy finally outrun the demons that have dogged him for more than a decade?
• Can Brooks Koepka win a sixth major and stand as one of golf’s greatest big-game hunters?
• Can Bryson DeChambeau become golf’s first true social media superstar?
• Can Jon Rahm ...
