AUGUSTA WILL BAN ME, BUT I APPLAUD BALLESTER FOR URINATING INTO RAE’S CREEK
Just one time — ONE TIME ONLY — please realize a 21-year-old amateur had to go and received cheers from Masters patrons, even if chairperson Fred S. Ridley is bothered and might call a leakage service
One afternoon at Augusta National, a family emergency required me to use a landline phone. The old-school devices still exist on the course, and in my case, I briefly shouted in dismay. My utterance didn’t work at the Masters, where folks thought I’d 10-putted and raced without clothes across golf’s Bamboo Forest.
So forgive me for abandoning my hallowed constitution and understanding why Jose Luis Ballester urinated into Rae’s Creek. Bobby Jones is still fondly remembered as the founder of the club and the tournament. We won’t forget the six green jackets won by Jack Nicklaus. Tiger Woods slashed through racism.
The man had to go, OK? If he wasn’t 21 years old, maybe he could have asked and realized bathrooms were beside the tee box at No. 13. Fans would have put down their $1.50 egg salad sandwiches and let him use the head. Ballester figured people wouldn’t watch him on the tributary, even if his last name allowed for comical usage.
And, yes, they noticed. Some actually roared for him. They, too, don’t always confuse the grounds as a heavenly golf trail. Scottie Scheffler was playing with him and ignored the wee, finishing at 4-under. All creeks are created for human business, even if chairperson Fred S. Ridley has to call a bladder leakage service.
“I’m like, I really need to pee,” Ballester said after shooting 76. “Didn't really know where to go, and I'm like, I'm just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see me that much. I completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee box.”
The Spaniard won the U.S. Amateur last season. He wore an Arizona State cap with the letters “Sun Devils” in reverse. Many fans were disgusted. If the toilet break happens only one time and doesn’t lead to wacko followers, I’m fine with his plunge.
“It was not embarrassing at all for me," Ballester said. “If I had to do it again, I would do it again. … Then they clapped for me. Probably one of the claps that I really got today — real loud. So that was kind of funny.”
Augusta National is where Gary McCord, the CBS analyst, was removed from the air after comparing greens to bikini wax. Decades later, will Jim Nantz introduce Ballester in Butler’s Cabin on Sunday?
Nantz would faint. I would watch.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.