For better or worse, the Masters is here

My favorite press story of the Masters is about O.B. Keeler, the Atlanta writer and biographer of Bobby Jones. Keeler and Jones were having a mint julep under the oaks and a roar came from down around 15.

Keeler asked a clubhouse runner to go see what the fuss was about. The man ran down the hill and back up and breathlessly announced that Mr. Gene Sarazen had scored a double eagle. Keeler, taking another sip, considered the news and said that couldn't be right and asked the man to check again.

He ran down the hill and back up again and confirmed, yes, a double eagle for Mr. Sarazen.

"Excuse me, Bobby," said Keeler, finishing his drink. "It appears I must go to work."

Yes, in other words, it is that time again.

Reports that the azaleas are in bloom in Augusta comforts a world made weary by winter and war and Aaron Rodgers, a sign that sanity, and judicious pruning, still matter.

The Masters, golf's great screen saver, is back to fulfill its annual therapy, knitting the raveled sleeve of care, restoring harmony, calming the tempest, or some such stuff. You have to wax downright Shakespearean when it comes to the Masters.

No other sporting event invites so much exaggeration, carries such an obligation, or accepts it so eagerly. This is the world as it should be, as it could be, for a week at least.

Pimento sandwiches sell for pocket change, cellphones are silent, jasmine and firethorn feast the eye; dogs don't bark and babies don't cry at the Masters.

For the very few still privileged to enter down Magnolia Lane, to travel the storied path to the ante bellum clubhouse, as I did the first time I was there, possibilities overwhelm the cynic. Nothing awful can happen in that place.

The great conceit of the Masters is to have turned snobbery into trade, creating an air of aristocratic indulgence, basking in public affection by simply allowing it. It is like being invited to look inside the mansion, or at least its garden, using the side gate and paying in advance, of course.

That's the way Augusta National is. It is as self-contained as a can of sardines, rarely touched by anything other than its own opinion of itself, not changing as much as drifting.

There is nothing quite like it anywhere in sports, except possibly at Wimbledon and in the addled egos of the International Olympic Committee. Augusta National is a special place, a special event and anyone blessed enough to witness it is special as well.

And to win it? There is an immortality included with the wardrobe and the trophy. Just ask Mike Weir or Hideki Matsuyama or Danny Willett, green jacket wearers all, not a good look outside the clubhouse.

The lure of Augusta is great enough to pry the increasingly beloved Tiger Woods back onto the public stage, exposing his legend to the curious and the sympathetic, as it once did to a faded Arnold Palmer and a diminished Jack Nicklaus.

The Masters loves to honor the past as much as it tends to avoid the present. And yet ...

Six former champions are among the 18 invited LIV tour players, those pros who eschewed the PGA tour for - gasp - money, including three-time champion Phil Mickelson and two-time champ Bubba Watson, causing some possible tension on the course, or more likely at Golf Central.

Because the LIV tour is backed by Saudi money, families of 9/11 survivors are objecting, though to whom is not clear since the Masters has not had a long history of tolerance and inclusion, but, hey, the lilacs are lovely and reportedly the dogwood is at its peak.

The year's at the spring, the hill side's dew pearled ... God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. A little Browning will do to finish this off.