If the 72nd Masters Tournament didn’t have it all, it had most of it. Bad bounces. Lucky breaks. Come backs. Collapses. Crowd seeking balls. Creek seeking balls. Azalea seeking balls. Golfers calling penalties on themselves. Gary Player wearing all white. On the last day, we even had Paul Casey’s red numbers resemble a NASA countdown, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. 1. 0. Houston, we have lift off. And let’s not forget the meteorological cornucopia of consecutive days of first fog, then sun, rain and finally wind. Thank god they don’t play on Monday, because all that was left on the patented storm watcher forecast is a blizzard. Or locusts. But admittedly, that usually doesn’t happen 'till later in the summer.

It all began on Thursday with Arnold Palmer hitting a ball into the murky netherworld of nothingness. A perfect analogy for unlimited potential. It ended with a wire-to-wire win by a South African who survived a rocky finish after being as steady as a locked down anvil in an exploded glue factory.

But now the initial major of the season is over and some of us can start paying attention to what’s happening in the real world. Hope you guys had half as good a time reading this thing as I did writing it. And one way or another, I vow to be back in the 706 area code during the first full week of April ’09. Who knows? It might be across the street from the walk in gates hawking Funnel Cakes. Just remember, it’s never a whole year before the next Masters. 51 weeks and counting.