timeHe started slightly later at this year’s Masters, as an early morning storm delayed him by three hours. It was 10 a.m. when Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson arrived at the practice range. It was just past 10:15 when they walked from the clubhouse through the gallery to the first tee. The player stops and presses the ball into the palm of a woman waiting by the ropes. Her name is Barbara and she is 88 years old. “We’re the same age,” she said, smiling like a kid who’s just discovered a big gift hidden behind the Christmas tree.
Prior kissed her on the cheek on the way back. It turns out that this is one of his master traditions. “This is the third time he’s done it,” Barbara said. “My husband said if he does it again this year, I shouldn’t come home again.”
Still, she added, she wore the same yellow shirt so Pryor could spot her from the crowd. This will make a difference. Here, whenever the player approaches, people will usually be dressed in green and pink, allowing them to hide behind a rhododendron bush until he is blown down by the wind. If there’s a whisper in the Augusta woods, it’s usually someone asking, “Shh, is he gone?”
Pryor drew a crowd in the press room after the game. He does not see questions as inquiries but as invitations. “Can you describe what it’s like to put on the green jacket every year when you return to the Masters?” someone started. “Who’s that for?” The player says, “Is that for me?” He leans forward toward the microphone, like a man swinging back. “Well, obviously I’ve been here or associated with Augusta National for ’67, and first came here in ’57…” The ball is running, probably somewhere on the right side, Out of bounds.
“I met one of my heroes, President Eisenhower,” Pryor continued, “because as we all know, he was a man who believed in freedom and what he did for this great country is indescribable.” Next tone, he mentioned his background, “I was born into poverty when I was a child, and my family went through a lot of hardships when I was young.” He described himself as “a person who has traveled more miles than anyone who has ever lived.” The United States is known as “The greatest nation God ever created.” We’ll never know what he thought about donning that famous green jacket.
Then someone mistakenly asked about the secret to longevity. Watson raised his eyebrows. “I went to India and there was a gerontologist there and he gave me the secret to longevity,” Pryor begins, and you wonder if this could be “gunga galunga.” but not. It’s ice baths, undereating, exercise, laughter and “the love in my heart.” At this time, Nicklaus was staring at the carpet, and Watson was looking at the middle distance. “It is a medical fact that there is one person on earth right now who will live to be 140 years old,” Player said.
Apparently he also had his own design for the game, which means we still have another 50 years.
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Watson used his time to eloquently plead for LIV and the PGA Tour to come together so “the best players can play against each other,” and Nicklaus used his time to recall the time he hit “almost killed Clifford… Roberts’ calf, and his youth organization First Tee.
But Pryor just kept going, no matter what he thought. He travels through Shakespeare – “I think it was he who said, ‘The youth of a nation are the trustees of its posterity'” (not true) – Churchill, William the Conqueror, the Ottoman Empire, Ben Hogan’s golf swing and Cancel culture. “Personally, I don’t believe in legacy. If you take my hero, Winston Churchill, he was probably the greatest leader of the last 200 years, without thinking about the Ottoman Empire and all the great leaders and William the Great. But without Churchill we wouldn’t be sitting here today. They defaced his statues in England and called him a racist!
“So if you think people will remember you, you’re dreaming. This too shall pass, that’s true.” Everything, that is, except his answer.
