There must be a thousand gadgets, clamps, teaching aids, bands, cords and sundry devices to help the average duffer stop flipping his hands at the golf ball in order to lift the ball into the air.

For those of us who go to the Masters every year, we don’t believe the golfing season begins until Jim Nance and CBS begin whispering the narration like sunrise services on Amen Corner. Sure, we awake to the sounds of mourning doves in the spring and sure there are Easter alleluias in church but for golfers around the world this year the sound will be “next on the tee from Islesworth, Fla., Tiger Woods.”

On Feb. 12, our foursome played 18 holes with the temperature warming to 39 degrees. That night I looked out the windows of my home in Tega Cay covered with three inches of snow and I realized that golf, even in 39 degree weather, would have to wait.