on my mission. Back in 2004 I was serving near Augusta. I, along with a few other missionaries in the area really wanted to go. We talked to any and all members who had possible connections but nothing. Lo and behold, as me and my companion are walking a long a busy road, a car pulls over and ask if we are mormon missionaries. We of course said yes. They told us they were in the military, not lds but had nothing but respect for us. They then asked, "We have two extra tickets to Mondays practice round, would you guys be able use them?" I look at my companion and we both have this look like we found out a family of 6 wanted to be baptized. We of course took them and couldnt thank them enough. It was for sure a mini miracle to have something like that hapen. Another set of missionaires, bought tickets through a senior couple and the anticipation for Monday began.
Monday came around and it was nothing short of amazing! Within 5-10 min of being on the grounds, a guy walked up to us and started to randomly bash against us. My companion, with out saying anything else, said "Sir, I'm not here to talk religion, I'm here to watch golf. Here is a card, contact us if you want to talk to us tomorrow" I just started laughing. We ended up following Mike Weir around for a few holes, as I knew he was a BYU alum and he was really cool. He chated it up with us for a bit after one of his drives, asked us where we were from and told us we were having the best P-day out of all the missionaries in the world right now.
Another cool experience is when we were taking pictures by the clubhouse and a security person came up to us and asked if we were mormon missionaries. We said yes and he told us to follow him. Not knowing if we did something wrong or if something really cool was about to happen, we walked with the security guy, right up to the clubhouse, where Billy Casper was hanging out in a car. We talked with him for a good 5 minutes or so. Really nice and genuine guy. I had the nerve if he could take us into the clubhouse but he just laughed and said that they might kick him out if he brought some mormon missionaries in there.
Anways it was a really cool expereince to have, to be up close to all the greats at Augusta National, even in a practice round. And of course being able to chat with Mike Weir and Billy Casper is something I will never forget.