The CSGA Links Volume 5 Issue 1 April 2017 | Page 25

DRIVE CHIP & PUTT
CHAMPIONSHIP
Masters Champions, Players Relish DCP Role
Eight new champions were crowned at Augusta National Golf Club, as the famed club opened its door to eighty junior
golfers ages seven to fifteen for the 2017 Drive, Chip and Putt Championship.
T
o further the theory that Matt Kuchar is just
a kid at heart, we offer the latest proof: The
seven-time PGA Tour winner was out early
Sunday morning to catch a look at the 2017 Drive, Chip
and Putt National Finals.

“I look at this as our Little League World Series,”
Kuchar said. “I love seeing the joy on the kids’ faces.
That’s the best part.”

Almost on cue, Kuchar was casually practice-
putting at Augusta National’s Tournament Practice
Area when not 25 yards away Andy Scholz of Fairway,
Kansas, a competitor in the Boys 14-15 division, holed
a deft chip shot.

Was 8:03 a.m. thus qualified as the first “Augusta
Roar” of Masters week? Kuchar laughed and was
willing to record it that way. But more than that, the
man who made his Masters debut in 1998 when he was
low amateur felt privileged just to be part of what has
quickly become a Masters tradition.

In that, Kuchar was in large company because
the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals once again had
the passionate support of an impressive list of Masters
champions. Beyond shaking hands with
last year’s winner, Danny Willett, and
getting words of advice from someone
not much older than them, Jordan
Spieth, participants gathered beneath
the oak tree near the first tee of Augusta
National and accepted trophies from
former winners who wore their Green
Jackets.

“Can you imagine how cool this
is?” said three-time winner Nick Faldo,
who presented trophies to the Boys 14-
15 division. “More people’s goal is to get
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a ticket to the Masters; these kids get to compete here.”
Since this competition was introduced in 2014, Mark
O’Meara, the 1998 Masters champ, has asked to be a
part of it, and he was Sunday.

“I think it’s a genius decision on the part of the
club, to help in growing the game,” O’Meara said. “No
matter what happens (in Sunday’s competition), it’s
something these boys and girls will have with them for
the rest of their life.”

Faldo and O’Meara were joined in the
presentations by fellow Masters champions Watson,
Willett, Fred Couples, Trevor Immelman, Ben Crenshaw
and Zach Johnson. Others, like Spieth and Adam Scott,
stopped what they were doing in their practice routines
and watched the boys and girls compete.

“It’s a thrill for us, too,” O’Meara said. “The club
certainly encourages us (past champions), but they’ve
never held us to it. It’s the players themselves who
realize what it’s like to be a Masters champion – the
responsibilities that come with it. We’re happy to be able
to be a small part of it to make it even more special for
the kids.”
CSGA Links // April, 2017 | 25