Augusta tales and a $4 cheque from Jack Nicklaus: Dermot Gilleece revisits the Golfing Log

The throwback in time is easy for Dermot Gilleece to recall, partly because he had been recuperating in Blackrock Clinic following heart bypass surgery when he opened a letter from an Irish Times reader wondering how he could acquire two tickets, as a gift for his brother’s 40th birthday, to the Masters tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.

It was the autumn of 1996, five months after Nick Faldo had won a third green jacket, in a tournament Gilleece had covered. Gilleece’s first instinct – having received many such requests over the years – was to form a negative response along the narrative that a pocketful of cash, upwards of €10,000, would be needed to make a trip to Augusta’s hallowed grounds in any way feasible, and to wish the reader the very best of luck in his endeavours because he would need whatever luck could come his way.