About 8 weeks ago I got an email from Mercedes-Benz.
"Your complimentary 2019 Mercedes-Benz Masters Experience awaits."

say what???
I forwarded it to my wife and said "hey you want to do this?" It was then that I reread the email and realized, hey dummy complimentary means free. " oh hell yeah!!!"

We had to pay for airfare to get there but everything else was on their nickel.
I have a pretty cynical attitude at times and expected to "meet" a lot of real estate folks and money managers groping for my wallet but was ok with that.
I have a pretty good imagination but they really put it out there. This was purely a customer appreciation event with zero shenanigans.

Since we had plenty of notice we were able to book first class round trip tickets for only $550 to Atlanta.
Coach tickets to Augusta were like $800 bucks though so we drove and stopped at Stone Mountain and played golf for two days.


When we arrived, we sort of knew we had found the right place when we saw this.




We were put up in a private home with two other couples. The house was probably between six and seven thousand square feet.
Each bedroom had a private bath. We really lucked out because we had the master bedroom so we got the marble shower with 4 shower heads for two people.
oh and the jacuzzi which we didn't use.


We had a nice clubhouse to go to nearby and while it was about a hundred yards away, we had golf carts to get there.
Of course there was a valet for the carts when you got here.




The Friday evening reception was kicked off with Ian Poutler ( one of the golfers in the masters) speaking to us and a Q&A session.
As a side note, the bar along with everything else was open all weekend as in freebie. It was moderately well stocked. i.e. a 12 yr Macallan but not an 18.
Dinner was filet mignon with a burgundy reduction. After dinner Mike Tirico interviewed the Manning family, Archie, Eli and Peyton, I guess they played football or something.

John Hamm was doing his best to be incognito with his blue cap on.

Now let me state there is a portion of Kindly talk to the folks down in Augusta because of their rules I couldn't take any pictures at the course.
There were incredible lines at the masters. People everywhere walking to get get in after parking.
We didn't have this issue. A Mercedes van brought up Magnolia lane, in the front door so to speak by the clubhouse with the yellow carnations forming the US.
It dropped us right at the Firethorn cabin. Many tournaments have Hospitality tents set up all over the course for sponsors and other to host their customers.
But this my friends is the Master's and well does not simply set up a tent. Instead the three sponsors have "cabins" available for entertaining.
Most folks would happily settle for the structure as their primary home. Our's was Firethorn. Across the drive was a replica of the 18th green for us to practice on.
The staff was about twenty or so young men and women in white tuxes. The food for snacking was pretty good fare.
The typical cracked crab, shrimp cocktail, lobster tails and Alaskan king crab legs. The crab Martini was pretty good too.

The course? Hmmm, I will never look at grass the same way again. I've seen some nice lawns but Augusta is different.
It is so perfect everywhere it almost looks fake. I did not see a weed on the property.
There was a lot of rain, so the grounds were soggy. In areas we folks walked a lot like footpaths they had kitty litter to soak up the moisture, green for grass areas, brown for pine straw.
I did not see a piece of trash anywhere on the property, later I realized they had a massive crew out there with pickers, constantly sweeping for trash during the event.

There is the gift store, pro shop, souvenir stand whatever you want to call it. It had a Disney-esque line like they were giving out free money instead of taking it.
The shop was expanded this year to 20,000 sq feet. I can assure you it was filled with people like it was a black Friday.
If I had to guess there were probably 40 registers open. I dropped just shy of $500 and walked away with one bag of goodies.
I saw folks carrying 4 or 5 bags worth of stuff.

Saturday Morning we decided to have breakfast at the cabin.
There was this nice Jim Nance fellow there who talked about the tournament for about 45 minutes before he had to go do his TV announcing job.
It was awfully nice of him to drop in like that.

By Saturday night Barb and I were kaput and decided sleep was a better option than food.
Turns out it was sushi and pizza and a bunch of other food stations.
Later that evening Lionel Ritchie showed up ( his jet had been delayed by thunderstorms) He gave a 1.5 hour concert for about 50 people in the dining area of the club.
Apparently folks were going up on stage and dancing with him.
While all of this was going on somebody had a golf tournament. A pretty good one at that...
I did bump into Condi Rice briefly but I didn't get a chance to talk with her about setting up a tee-time this fall.
Ok so I actually didn't get to talk to her at all but her cart driver did slow down enough so he didn't run me over in the walkway.

One of the Wahlberg boys ( i.e. hometown boy) was running around as well but I didn't catch him in the cabin either.

All in all it was pretty good.
of course they had a smattering of toys about

some old,



and some new.


If asked I think I would do it again....
in a heart beat. quicker than a new york minute.

 

Sounds like a well deserved, great weekend! And pretty darn cool too!!

 

Thanks for the report, Jerry! I know it had to be a once in a lifetime event. I have a question, though. Did you follow one player, stake out at a hole, or kind of wander? From watching on TV, it appeared the crowds were enormous.

 

On Saturday, we kind of wandered around a bit and finished out watching the leaders come in on 18.
You could barely see anything when the crowd got up, which occurred on every putt.
we tended to stay around Amen corner. and the 15th on Sunday.
You couldn't get near 16 or 12/13 complex.
I can not imagine trying to play anywhere near Tiger.
There was this guy named arnie who had his armie. Guy had a good surname
it's amazing, tiger putts out and few thousand strong move in unison.
the other poor chump is left trying to gather his wits while the earth moves around him.
The roars that came out of 16 on the Justin Thomas' hole in one, OMG.
You actually get a much better feel for the drama on TV.
Once the leaders got through 15 we hoofed it back to the cabin to watch the finish on TV.

You just don't get the sense of how clean it is there. How perfect the grass is.
Mercedes did a phenomenal job hosting.
I don;t think we had more than 80 folks there probably more like 60.
I would not be surprised if the support staff, waiters, cooks, shuttle guys etc. weren't a larger number than the guests.
one to one at the least.

I do think I could become accustomed to the lifestyle.

another takeaway, I was talking with one of the cashiers types at the shop. she said Augusta brings in 550 college students for the two weeks.
The staff at mercedes said they fly in from all over he country to support this and they pay their own airfare just to do this gig.

BTW with my 9 Mercedes I was a lightweight in the crowd.
one guy in our house has had 12 another 23.
I was chatting with one guy about the A and B service. He wasn't familiar with the B service since he had never owned one for more than 10K miles.
I like guys like that. In fact I buy the cars they trade in.

 

Oh and Georgia Peach ice cream sugar cookie sandwiches....




https://www.callmepmc.com/georgia-pe...h-the-masters/

 

Memorable weekend. Congratulations.

 

I don't have any interest in golf but I think I could have enjoyed the digs and cars. Your earned a great getaway!

 

I am totally green with envy!

 

WOW.......!!!!!!!

 

I was just thinking, if they made it any better I might have had to declare it on my taxes.
we were talking to a guy in the parking lot of Stone Mountain Thursday morning.
He'd gone to the practice round on Wednesday.
He was delighted that "a buddy knew a scalper" and got him tickets for $700 bucks each. TO THE PRACTICE ROUND!!!!