AUGUSTA — Jose Luis Ballester needed to take relief after hitting his third shot to the 13th hole at Augusta National during the opening round of the Masters. But not for the reason you think.
It had nothing to do with the term that is applied when a player gets to take a drop during a round of golf.
Ballester, 21, actually took relief—he urinated into the tributary some 60 yards short of the green at the par-5 hole. With his back to the grandstand that is behind the 14th tee, Ballester did his business and then got a loud round of applause from the spectators who figured out what was going on.
“Well, I completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee box,” he said sheepishly after shooting 76 while playing with defending champion Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas.
“And then I’m like, I really need to pee. Didn’t really know where to go, and since JT had an issue on the green, I’m like, I’m just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see me that much, and then they clapped for me.
“Probably one of the claps that I really got today real loud, so that was kind of funny.”
The Spanish golfer, who won the U.S. Amateur last summer at Hazeltine in Minnesota to qualify for the Masters, plays at Arizona State. And even that brought some controversy Thursday as he wore an ASU cap with the lettering that was upside down.
Asked if he was concerned about any issues with Augusta National officials, Ballester could only smile: “They saw me. They saw me. It was not embarrassing at all for me. If I had to do it again, I would do it again.”
A three-time All-American at Arizona State, Ballester said it was a great experience getting to play with Scheffler and Thomas.
“I feel like you never really know how to prepare,” said Ballester, part of the Augusta National’s traditional pairing of the reigning Amateur champion with the defending Masters champion. “You can meditate, visualize, put yourself in hard situations, but at the end of the day you’ve got to figure it out, right, especially being the first time here at Augusta with such a nice pairing like I had.
“I knew for sure I was going to have Scottie, and when I saw Tuesday I had JT, I was like, oh, my God, this is getting serious.
“Yeah, just tried to get loose warming up, tried to be myself, listen to music, tried to stay focused. And again, as I said before, really happy with how to manage the nerves on the first tee box and how to play the first few holes. Although I made a couple mistakes and got really unlucky on 5. Yeah, I think I kept doing that, and I was not intimidated at all by the pairing that I had.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Amateur Urinates in Creek Near 13th Green in Opening Round at Masters.
