Entry 1: Travel chaos

I always thought my memories of the Masters would be confined to a lowly TV screen at home but this year I’ve been given the opportunity every golfer dreams of.

The 2012 Masters has the potential to be one of the most exciting tournaments in the modern era and I feel very lucky to get the chance to witness it. Tiger appears to be back to his best, the Brits are top of the rankings and the list of genuine contenders is as long as it’s ever been.

My travel companion for the trip of a lifetime was Golf World’s Jock Howard, a seasoned veteran in both writing and Masters attendances (15 in total), so I felt assured our journey would pass without a glitch. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Catching the initial flight to Toronto was relatively painless, besides the usual m25 traffic-jam hell. But on arrival at Toronto airport, Jock, who had his family with him on holiday, discovered one of his son’s ESTAs had expired. Not his fault, a computer error apparently.

Needless to say, the US Immigration officials were far from sympathetic. “Not our problem, sir,” was the party line and Jock and his family were escorted back to departures while I waited clueless at the gate for our connecting flight to Atlanta.

Thankfully, the Air Canada staff were more helpful and I was never more relieved to see a sprinting Jock Howard, bags trailing on the floor and sweating dripping from his face, arrive in plenty of time to catch the flight with me.

But the drama didn’t stop there (why would it?). After a three-hour drive to our rented home right next to the Augusta National course we discovered the key that had been left under the mat by the owner didn’t want to open the door. By this time it was midnight and we’d been travelling for nearly 20 hours.

Try as we might it wouldn’t budge so we were forced to either sleep in the car or find a motel. The latter was voted as the most preferable. The motel we found was as expected – dark, dirty, without hot water and came with a complimentary musty odour – all at a cost of $169.50 each per room. Marvellous.

But Tuesday arrived and we made it to the course nice and early. It was obvious there had been some storms overnight and the cloud hasn’t cleared today either.

I arrived at my desk in the luxurious press center to discover I’m sitting directly behind the retired seat of Furman Bisher, a legendary sports writer from Atlanta who attended a whopping 62 Masters tournaments and died last month aged 93. A yellow Masters hat rests at his vacant desk in his memory.

I feel it’s hard to look past Tiger Woods this week but if he fails to impress, I believe it could be the time for either Lee Westwood or Adam Scott to win their first major. Both have the long game to win here, it’s just a question of whether their putters get hot.

Rory McIlroy is currently in his press conference and I’ll be going to Lee Westwood’s press conference after so be sure to keep check our website for all the latest news and quotes from Augusta.

I’ll aim to update this blog every day so be sure to keep checking for all the latest behind-the-scenes gossip from the Masters. This valuable insight could help you select your TG Fantasy team, of which the Masters is the first qualifying event. Pick your team or make changes here.