A Masters Week visit (through Kayak) to Creek’s Rae.
Golf
Augusta, ga. – If you hope to gain a brief appearance of masters’ glory, everyone knows you have served best by keeping your drives away Rae’s Creek.
What about your boats?
“Why in EARTH Do you want to go to RAE’s Creek? “Our Kayak Instructor, Debbie, asked on Tuesday morning in Augusta, Ga., With a gracious eyebrow.
In defense of Debbie, we have not had a compelling response. Outside the Olympic pool, Creek i rae can be the most scary body of water in professional sports. Over the past 88 years, it has played in more light measures than any other character, its properties that destroy the soul by making a nearly quality of punishment. Water is no more than five meters wide at its farthest point, but pulsates with a magnetic stream, absorbing golf balls (and players) in their premature destruction like a Dyson vacuum.
Debbie seemed to tell us what we already knew: any attempt to climb to RAE Creek was, in essence, immersed. But we seemed to tell what we didn’t care about.
“Are you guys with experienced kayakers?” Asked Debbie.
“Yes,” I replied. (I wasn’t.)
“Okay,” Debbie said. “Because you will have to drive in the upper stream, and it will take you about an hour.”
This dear reader was the first time I questioned the merits of our turning scheme to travel to the most famous Golf River. But as I felt my feet turned to a “participant of responsibility and risk assumption”, Debbie returned to me with a strange metallic object and smiled.
“Come here,” she said. “I feel like I have to give you one of these things so you can get some golf balls.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were standing on the shore of Lake Olmsteadless than a mile from Augusta Nationaland increasing the two open kayaks open against a boat launch.
“Well,” I said, addressing my colleague Darren Riehl and pronouncing the words that have greeted bad decisions since the beginning of time.
“I think we’re really doing that.”
“>>
We sat down in our kayaks and left for the other side of the lake, which narrowed to an overpass, and then another overpass, until the water was just over 20 meters wide and less than three meters deep. We banished a corner and then, suddenly, it hit us: we were driving in the middle of the most famous Creek in Golf.
It was a beautiful spring day in Augusta, Ga., Warm and blue – and although the latest rainfall had raised the water level in the various rivers and streams of the area, the conditions were lovely peach for a paddle. (That was lucky because we didn’t know the first thing about the water level in the Greater Augusta area, and we had not considered what day it could have made a day with heavy rain in our dreams of exploring the estuary-to say nothing of our clothes.) and trees, and a high grass harvest on both sides of the river.
We would be driving for half an hour when a noise interrupted us. It was a roar. A Master screaming and was obedient all the way down here. I began to ask how many memories of the masters had played in front of a single audience turtles torn in this quiet corner of Augusta, but only for a moment. The stream was taking now, and we were approaching a heavy tree of creekside trees, which seemed to be blocking our passage.
We arrived in the tree to find a startling development on the other hand. Was a golf course, Just not the one we wanted. Like Augusta National, his neighbor on the next door Augusta Country Club has a small piece of holes running along with Rae’s Creek, and unlike Augusta National, security here can turn a blind eye to pleasant paddlers. It is possible, and in fact quite beautiful, to enjoy an evening kayak straight in the next course. We circulated here briefly, but from the appearance of the players approaching us, we were dressed in our welcome.
It didn’t matter, we were 150 yards from the 11th green to Augusta National, and maybe 200 of Hogan bridge. We gathered in the open, where at least three four four were visible, and reached a river curve that would be the last point of our journey. There, in our view, there were two overpasses: the first, leading the players in the green in the ACC, and the second, keeping the rest of the world removed from Augusta National.
Some googling later discovered that there was a third Supervises, on the other side of the fence. We were told that this is where the security of the club holds observation – but it is largely interpreter. The current RAE leader from the 11th Green would defeat an Olympic kayaker (who darren and I was not). Our distant Dreamsrrats for an Augusta National-by-by-boat national boat were broken.
We turned back, our painful muscles relieved to move down the bottom and headed towards the lake. But we were still missing something: a souvenir. I kept my eyes trained in the water while sailing, but I would start giving up hope while we got further in the bottom flow. Our chance to find a golf ball had been there, in the ACC, not down here with the high grass and turtles turtled.
Then, from nowhere, I saw it: a white ignition against the green water and the bed of the brown river. I dipped my hand in Creek Rae and pulled the ball with an incomprehensible logo that adorns the side: national green members Augusta Logo
Darren and I thought we were lucky, but the truth was that we were not. Later, we would learn from Debbie that golf balls stamped with the Angc logo are a frequent finding on this side of Rae’s Creek.
Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised. it is Rae’s Creek’s legacy. Not as a friendly visitor, not as a soft stream, but as an omen of punishment. Rae’s Creek steals these dreams – often in the form pro v1 – upstream, and deposits them here, where the turtles cut and geese and, yes, kayakers can find them.
