A thunderous start

GM's Fergus Bisset survives one of Georgia's great storms to make it to the course

Augusta storm
Fergus Bisset
By Fergus Bisset
published

This morning I've wandered in a daze from the GM house to entry gate six at Augusta National. I've handed my accreditation form to a security guard then been buggied to the press centre. I've found my seat and plugged in my computer. I've felt a little like Bishop Brennan in that iconic episode of Father Ted where he travels to meet the Pope in Rome in a state of total confusion before finally realising, "He did kick me up the ****!"

Well that's it I've just had my moment of realisation, "I am at the Masters! " I have to confess in the middle of last night I was worried I wasn't going to make it. At about 2.30am I was woken by the most phenomenal thunderstorm. For about two hours, lightning strikes rained down all around, about one every three seconds. There was howling wind, rain, hail and almost continuous thunder - a true baptism of fire on my first Masters experience.

I'm not normally scared by the weather but I must confess to pulling the covers a little higher and just waiting for it all to end while trying to, "simply remember my favourite things." Bill and I discovered when we got up that the storm had blown the power in the GM house. After 20 minutes of stumbling round in the dark trying to find a fuse box, Bill decided to go out and see if it was a more widespread problem.

A passing cop told him a tree had taken a line down so the whole area was out. Clive Agran, a fellow writer, told me they had woken to a live electricity wire, whipping about on their drive. Anyway, I'm still alive, I'm here and ready to get out and see the course. That's what I'm looking forward to most really - just seeing for real those famous holes I know so well from the TV. I'm going for a stroll and will give you my initial impressions when I get back.

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Fergus Bisset
Fergus Bisset
Contributing Editor

Fergus is Golf Monthly's resident expert on the history of the game and has written extensively on that subject. He is a golf obsessive and 1-handicapper. Growing up in the North East of Scotland, golf runs through his veins and his passion for the sport was bolstered during his time at St Andrews university studying history. He went on to earn a post graduate diploma from the London School of Journalism. Fergus has worked for Golf Monthly since 2004 and has written two books on the game; "Great Golf Debates" together with Jezz Ellwood of Golf Monthly and the history section of "The Ultimate Golf Book" together with Neil Tappin , also of Golf Monthly. 

Fergus once shanked a ball from just over Granny Clark's Wynd on the 18th of the Old Course that struck the St Andrews Golf Club and rebounded into the Valley of Sin, from where he saved par. Who says there's no golfing god?

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