I Started the SERGIO Chant!

Image via YouTube by PGA of Australia

You might have heard that a feisty little Spaniard won the Masters on Sunday. You might also have heard the crowd chant his name after he sunk the winning putt (at around 40 seconds in the video)​​: "SER-GI-O! SER-GI-O!" And you might even have heard Jim Nantz comment on the chant.

Well, guess what? I started it.

​By a last-minute stroke of incredible good fortune, I was able to go to the final round of the Masters with my dad. By the time Sergio was standing over the final putt, I had just enough cheap beer in me (see below) to try a cheer once he sunk it. And I nailed it. Because that is what's really impressive. Forget the best golfers on the planet and their breathtaking play—I started a chant. Check out just how much value my family places on this sort of thing:

​Quite a family of achievers we are....

But yes, I really did start that chant heard on broadcasts around the world, which I can't help but think is kind of cool.

​In all, I think the most appropriate word for my Masters experience is orgasmic. And yes, I'm aware that I'm talking about an experience with my father. It was that cool. I mean, just look at all the pictures I took:













...yeah they don't let phones or cameras in the tournament. I actually liked this because I didn't feel pressure to get a bunch of great photos or to properly convey via texts just how awesome everything was. But the best part of the no-phone rule? It creates a magical little world where the crowd bonds over the only way to keep up with everything: the periodic, manual, by-hand updates of the scoreboards. The drama created by waiting and watching the scoreboards is both intense and vaguely hilarious.

One of the many other reasons I enjoyed myself so thoroughly? As a native of a professional sports toilet, I am drawn to golf because I get to choose who I root for and can change favorites whenever I want, without guilt or shame. I'm not beholden to perennial losers. So when I saw he had a chance, I began to root for Sergio Garcia, a snakebitten almost-great who could take the step into greatness with a win. And he delivered. And so since no team I root for ever wins, and since I've never even been close to going to a sports event like this where my favorite triumphs, I'm going to take this opportunity to annoyingly share a few more things that make going to the Masters so...orgasmic:
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• A beer was $13.50. Oh, and by "a beer," I mean the kind of beer that comes with a pulled pork sandwich and another beer and an egg salad sandwich. Yes, two beers and two fat sammies for under 15 bucks. Now that you know the pricing, I will not be telling you how much I ended up spending.
• So yeah beers are under 5 bucks and sandwiches average around $2.50.
• I was about 11 feet away from Matt Kuchar's hole-in-one.
• I was close enough to Jordan Spieth on the putting green that I could see sunscreen he hadn't rubbed in. I almost told him.
• I was close enough to Rickie Fowler to spy him texting right before he teed off. 
• I got to walk along and get to know the only course in the world that hosts a major championship every year.
• I didn't realize people actually had Southern accents like that until I heard them in person. They massage the eardrums.
• Everyone who was there loved being there and it spread like a love virus.

The only downside of the day was that I did not get to see the single greatest-looking television personality in history.

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