The drive from Statesboro to Augusta isn’t an especially long one. Only 80 miles and 90 minutes separate the two Georgia towns. But for one week every year, Augusta may as well be a world away from Statesboro, the current home of Georgia Southern golfer Ben Carr. The 87th Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club will bring people from around the globe this week.
This year’s first major starts on Thursday, April 6 with first round play, and the Masters concludes on Sunday, April 9 with final round action. It’s a loaded field of 85-90 players. Most of the sport’s biggest names will be on property, each of them vying for that coveted green jacket.
Carr will be among those names, and once he officially hits his first shot on Thursday, he’ll have already accomplished a lifelong dream. Many of those closest to him will be on hand to see Carr do just that.
“All my family and a lot of my friends will be there. (Augusta National) actually gave us a lot of tickets so it’s pretty special,” said Carr during a March 22 media session in Statesboro. “I spread (the tickets) out as best I could.”
He will be teeing-it-up alongside the best golfers in the world thanks to his qualifying at the 2022 United States Amateur Championship. That qualification process was as difficult as anything Carr will go through in his golfing career. It was a stiff test, and he passed with flying colors. One of 7,749 golfers trying to qualify for the US Amateur, he earned one of the 312 spots and made his way through six matches before arriving in the championship duel. He finished runner-up in Paramus, New Jersey.
“The U.S. Am was the first time I played in front of a crowd,” he said. “Being able to draw back on that experience will help me a lot.”
Carr, then the No. 70 ranked amateur in the World Golf Amateur Ranking, lost in a 36-hole match to No. 3 Sam Bennett, a Texas A&M All-American. It was a loss for Carr on the final hole of the match, but his consolation prize was an invite to play in this year’s Masters Tournament as well as in the United States Open later this summer in California.
The Masters has annually invited the current US Amateur champion to the tournament, as well as the runner-up. So, for roughly nine months now, Carr has known that he’ll be inside the ropes as one of seven amateurs competing in the sport’s most prestigious tournament. If the competition is hard to manage, the waiting game since punching his ticket to Augusta has been just as difficult.
“I’m obviously really excited,” he said. “It felt like it was really far away the whole time but now it’s here.”
He played his first practice round at Augusta in February and returned again in mid-March to play the 7,510 yard course for a third and final time prior to official practice rounds on Monday and Tuesday of this week. On Wednesday, Carr plans on playing in the Par-3 Contest in a group with former Masters champ Larry Mize and University of Georgia product Russell Henley.
“I’m pretty close with Larry Mize and Russell Henley. They both live in Columbus so I got to spend a bunch of time with them over the Christmas break and just kind of picked their brains a little bit,” said Carr, also a Columbus native.
“I mean, Larry's a Masters champion and Russell is – I think he is playing in his seventh Masters this year – so between the two of them they have all the experience in the world. Just being able to lean on them, learn as much as I can from them. It was really important for me,” he added.
A fifth-year senior due to graduate in May, Carr enters the week playing some of the best golf of his life. Pretty good timing, one would think.
The 22-year-old has six top-15 finishes in seven collegiate starts for the Eagles this year. He won the Schenkel Invitational, leading his Eagles to their second straight win at the invitational in the last two seasons. He was runner-up at the Colleton River Collegiate and was recently named the Sun Belt Conference Golfer of the Week, an award he won twice in March alone.
“I’ve been getting my game ready and just trying to keep my body ready,” said Carr. “We’ve played a lot of golf lately so it’s really important for me to keep things feeling good. I’m really looking forward to this.”
Still, despite his hot stretch of late, Carr is realistic about the task ahead of him. Augusta National might be the best course on the planet, but it’s also a place where many of the world’s best have faltered for one reason or another.
“It’s not necessarily about being perfect,” he said. “It's more about not making big mistakes and, I mean, if you're able to kind of keep the ball in front of you and miss in the right spots…if you're rolling a few putts in then you're making the cut and on to the weekend. So, it's obviously a really special place, but you're still hitting golf shots and you're still trying to put the ball in the right place.”
The amateur took a professional approach when asked how he planned on attacking (or surviving) Augusta National.
“I mean, obviously I want to play well. I want to make the cut, have a chance to be (low amateur) and all that stuff,” he said. “But, I really just want to have a good experience and I don't want to get so caught up in the way I'm playing to where it takes away from how special it is to have the honor of being an amateur playing in the Masters.”
Track Ben Carr’s progress at The Masters using the tournament’s official mobile app or by visiting www.Masters.com. Follow Travis Jaudon on Twitter/Instagram @JaudonSports. Email him at travisLjaudon@gmail.com.
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This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2023.
