AUGUSTA -- The show was over, but the gallery stayed.
Charl Schwartzel had walked off in the second-to-last paring of the day, his green jacket secured. But nearly all of the fans ringing the 18th stayed to the end, wanting to welcome home a favorite son and the day's heart-breaker.
Up the 18th fairway came 2009 champion Angel Cabrera and third-round leader Rory McIlroy. A standing ovation enveloped them. Shouts of "Rory!" met the weary McIlroy as he and Cabrera removed their caps to acknowledge the cheers.
Said Brandt Snedeker, who made the final-group march to 18 in a third-place effort in 2008, "It's just a really cool venue in sports."
Perhaps 7,000 in number ringing the green and extending far down the fairway, the crowd at 18 gave out standing ovations freely, rewarding each pairing with hearty applause for the week's work. With cell phones not allowed, no video boards on the course and proper decorum a must, it is a scene from another time.
Every time the volunteers atop the hand-operated scoreboard overlooking the green pulled down a frame of a player's scoring line to update his round, the crowd buzzed in anticipation, guessing at what everyone watching on television likely knew minutes ago. It groaned for bogeys and burst into cheers and impressed cries of "whoa" for each birdie. As McIlroy's round collapsed, his pars received sympathetic applause. When roars from other holes reached the 18th green, fans answered with a cheer of their own and then broke into untold conversations to decipher its meaning. Was it Schwartzel at 16? Jason Day at 17?
They were at their reveling best as Bo Van Pelt prepared to hit to the green. Just before he hit, fans cheered after Adam Scott's birdie at 16 and K.J. Choi's birdie at 15 were posted, leaving some fans left of the green unaware of the fact that Van Pelt's shot was headed right for them. It hit a fan a few rows in and popped onto the rough, causing more excited shouts.
If you can luck your way into a ticket, a spot on the 18th green takes only a willingness to wake up early. J.J. Lane and Mark Morrow, friends from Colorado attending their first Masters, arrived at 5 a.m., three hours before the gates opened. Fans were warned by a security official that power walking and "chicken walking" were not allowed. "If you're not walking like you're walking with your wife on the beach, you're in for a long afternoon," Lane said the official threatened.
Morrow and Lane were so concerned about the specter of a long afternoon, whatever that meant, that they kept it slow until everyone started passing them.
"We were getting blasted by grannies," Lane said.
They picked up their pace and got a spot up close by the exit of the green, where they'd planned. Hours before the main groups were to come through, Morrow and Lane rested in their seats, considering their fortune.
"This is the $5,000 seat at the Final Four or the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl," Lane said. "It's unreal."
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