AUGUSTA, Georgia — Augusta National Golf Club can humble the best of players, as viewers and patrons will see this week at the 2023 Masters.
Take Gordon Sargent, one of seven amateurs in the field, for example. The Vanderbilt sophomore and the world’s top-ranked male amateur earned a rare special exemption to the first men’s major championship of the year, but a few folks down Magnolia Lane confused the defending NCAA individual champion as a finalist in the Drive, Chip and Putt contest.
“I was definitely grounded a little bit this morning when I was looking for player dining,” Sargent told Ben Adelberg on the Back of the Range podcast. “A couple of people thought I was in the Drive, Chip and Putt.”
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On Sunday, the 19-year-old attempted to access the pro shop to get a Monday practice round time but was turned away because he didn’t have his badge.
“Two security guards see me walking, and they’re kind of eyeing me down or whatever,” he explained. “I’m like, ‘Hey, can I go to player dining?’ They’re like, ‘You got your badge on you?’ I pull it out, and they’re like, ‘Is that a player one?’ and they kind of eye it down and figure out what it is.
“One of the waiters there waited on me last time I was there a couple of weeks ago, so he remembered me. But then, I think they were like, ‘Where are the kid’s parents? Did they just send him by himself for the Drive, Chip and Putt?’” he continued. “The waiter was giving me a hard time about it. I talked to him after and he was like, ‘How’d the Drive, Chip and Putt go?
“Maybe that’s what I need a little bit, to get grounded,” he said with a laugh. “There probably were some kids over there that were bigger than me, some 13-year-olds.”
So far this season Sargent has two wins and six top-five finishes in eight starts for the Commodores and hasn’t finished worse than T-7.
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