Jack, Tiger and Parking Spaces: Two Reporters Reflect on Four Decades at the Masters

Bob Harig and Gary Van Sickle have been reporting from the Masters since the 1980s and reflect on the best tournaments, biggest heartbreaks and craziest catastrophes inside the press buildings.

Bob Harig and Gary Van Sickle both were on hand for Rory McIlroy's win last year. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Bob Harig was 23 when he got the phone call, Gary Van Sickle was 26. Their bosses needed them to report to Augusta National Golf Club. In the sportswriting business, there aren’t many better calls. 

Come April 9, both will be walking the fairways during Round 1 of the Masters, continuing four decades of covering the most famous golf tournament in the world. They have chronicled Nicklaus on the prowl, Tiger raising the roars and men who fell agonizingly short of a green jacket. Their stories appeared in newspapers, Sports Illustrated and national sports websites—and sometimes how those stories even saw the light of day were stories in themselves.  

Augusta National holds media members with 40 Masters tournaments worked—there are now 38 of them—in high esteem, awarding them a plaque inside the press building and a dedicated parking space near the media entrance (a major perk to any reporter). Harig, 62, is covering his 40th consecutive Masters this month after starting in 1987 while Van Sickle, 71, is covering his 43rd, having covered his first in 1981. 

They recently sat down with SI senior editor John Schwarb to reminisce about their first times, favorite years, winners, losers, media catastrophes and what they would do if they were Masters chairman for a day.

SI: How did your first Masters happen?

Gary Van Sickle, SI contributor: I kind of fell into it. I mean, I was the only guy on the staff at the Milwaukee Journal who really knew a lot about golf. You get to go mingle with the pros who I’d only seen at the Greater Milwaukee Open, which meant I hadn't seen most of the good names.

Gary Van Sickle is covering his 43rd Masters. | Fred Vuich/Sports Illustrated

Bob Harig, SI senior writer: I was at the St. Pete Times, it was a time of a lot of transition there and I wasn’t really sure what my role was going to be. There was a guy named Mark Johnson, who used to cover golf for them and he had been at the ’86 Masters, and I had been there at the time, just barely, and remembered thinking, what a great job he did, covering Jack's win. And later that year, he left to go to the Dallas Morning News. They never really replaced him and I'm sort of just there, and I just asked to do some golf assignments, like a local notebook-type thing, and all of a sudden, they're sending me to golf tournaments.

I can't remember when they told me I was going (to the Masters), but I remember that spring, I went to Doral. It was a month before the Masters and Jack did this big ... it had to be an hour-long sit down, just going over the entire Masters the year before. It was my first real exposure to him and I was just in awe.

I didn't go until Tuesday. Remember, Gary? Nothing happened on Mondays back then. And so I flew up there, a really early morning flight to Atlanta. And on I-20, get pulled over. 

I barely could rent a car. I remember the guy asking me what I was in such a hurry for, and I said, “I've never been here. I'm on my way to Augusta. I work for a newspaper in Florida.” I showed him my little press card and said “I've never been. It’s a big assignment for me.” And I'll never forget the guy, he hands me back the press card, and he goes “man, that's a hell of a story, whether it's true or not. Just take your time and see you later.” And he let me go.

GVS: Bob “Leadfoot” Harig.

BH: Yep.

Harig and Van Sickle have been around long enough to see three press buildings at the Masters, the first being its infamous Quonset Hut, a corrugated-steel structure used from 1953 to 1989 that was just off the first fairway.

BH: I don’t know what I expected, but it was very, very rustic and not nearly big enough. 

Augusta National's Quonset Hut at the 1984 Masters. | David Cannon/Getty Images

GVS: The main room was just big. You had these green wooden tables where your seats were. There was automatically a Royal typewriter at your desk even if you didn't want it. We were starting to use computers so if you had a computer, you had to tell them, yeah, I don't want the typewriter.

Some guys ordered phones. I sat next to a rotund Englishman who was not the most happiest man in the world, probably because of his horrible deadline. And you'd be sitting there trying to write your stuff, and these guys are dictating their stories back. “Nicklaus hit into the right rough on the fourth hole. Period. Graph.” It was very distracting.

BH: The media dining room now is called the Bartlett Lounge, which is supposed to be a replica of the Quonset Hut. It's a thousand times nicer than what that Quonset Hut was!

GVS: There was a huge rainstorm one Sunday, and the entrance to the Quonset Hut was on a little downhill slope to the front entrance. And there was a big grate in a drain. And all the electrical outlets at that time were on the floor, raised like an inch.

A lot of people were using Telerams, which were, like, big boxes. They weren't sophisticated. You could only see a few paragraphs of your story at one time, and you had to record your story onto a cassette that was in there. If something happened to your Teleram, like when you were sending a story—if you lost power, your story evaporated. It was gone.

It poured rain so hard that somehow the water poured right down the hill, over the grate, and started pouring into the media center, and started hitting all these outlets that were in the floor. Sparks were flying everywhere, and people were screaming because they all knew what that meant. Their story, whatever they've written, was gone. And it was traumatic for a lot of people.

BH: I never had to deal with that, I was not in the Teleram era. But I'll tell you another story to tell you how Augusta National will operate with us. They had wireless internet in the press building, I want to guess ’03, ’04. And on the very first round of the tournament, the thing just crashed. Remember, there was a time in Internet worlds where there was just not enough bandwidth and if you had people uploading stories or photos, or if you had too many people on there, it just couldn't handle it. And the thing just crashed to the point where people were beside themselves, because, how are you gonna send your story? Most people didn't have a phone. This happened on Thursday.

Bob Harig (not pictured at Augusta National) is covering his 40th consecutive Masters. | Courtesy Bob Harig

On Friday, we all walk in there, and the entire place had been hardlined overnight. It wasn't pretty, the wires were all over the desks, they had people working through the night to get this done. But now we had a hard internet line to use, in every seat in that building, 200 seats.

GVS: No, nobody could have or would have done that.

BH: No. And then when we came back the next year, all those lines were buried. It was a remarkable, sort of like when they lose a tree—oh, we're gonna get another tree. But the internet went down. We're gonna upgrade it overnight.

With the press room and tech talk out of the way, the veterans move on to the loudest roars they’ve heard in person and how the crowds have grown.

BH: There's been a lot of roars but in 2011, that was a really exciting back nine. Tiger had come off a tumultuous 2010 and he got himself into contention that day. This was when there used to be a media perch at 18 (green), and he did something on the back nine and I had gone up there for a little while. And it was just deafening. It was somewhere down, like, by 13, and you could hear it all the way up there. I just remember thinking how amazing it was that it could be that loud, that far away.

The other that comes to mind was in ’98. Jack was 58, and Tiger had won the year before, and I went out to try to catch Jack. I was behind the 6th green, the par-3, and he knocked one in there close and made it, he got within a shot or two of the lead, and you just could not even talk to the person next to you. People were just so crazy that Jack had made that move.

GVS: I would say in ’87 when Larry Mize chipped in, granted, there weren't 80,000 people down at Amen Corner, but it was loud. And when Tiger had to reverse chip in off the bank, the backwards one, that was pretty stupid loud. 

SI: You were close to there at that time?

GVS: Well, close is a relative thing. I was in that area. That was loud, ’cause they'd never seen it. Nobody had ever seen a shot like that, although Davis Love had done it in a practice round. But it’s hard—you really risk trying to walk out in the back nine on Sunday, because the crowd's all jammed into last nine holes, and there's not room.

BH: It's hard to do our job and follow, especially on Sunday. 

GVS: I don't know how many people were in the crowds in the early '80s when I started, but you used to be able to walk along with a group and when you got to the green, on a Thursday or Friday, you could walk right up the green and watch them putt. Now, you walk up to the green, and every green, for every group, is three or four or five deep, minimum. So if they used to have 35,000 people there in 1981 or 1985, there's at least twice that many now. 

BH: It’s anecdotal, but it's no question.

GVS: You can look at how many bathrooms they've added.

BH: No matter what it was, it's more now. And the practice rounds are way more now. They liked the idea of limiting it for so long—that was part of their brand, making it hard to get in. But as time has gone on, they saw the dollar signs.

SI: This is a cliché question but one that has to be asked: Best Masters that you covered?

GVS: “Best” is a relative term. It kind of hinges on also who wins. Charl Schwartzel wasn't the most exciting, colorful winner ever. 2019 was pretty good. Tiger comes back, the other guys all throw up on their shoes on 12 and he doesn't, and he hit it close on 16 to clinch it. 

BH: I definitely put ’19 at the top of my list. For him to win was really remarkable. And I would put ’04 up there, when Phil won. It's crazy to think, but in 2004 Tiger had eight majors and Phil didn't have any. And Phil turned pro four or five years before Tiger. And so for him to finally break through, and to do it in the way he did by holing a putt on the last green to win by one, was really, really amazing.

As I've told people, their eight wins combined have been amazing. Every one of them.

GVS: The best three-year run had to be ’86, ’87, ’88, because ’86 was Jack, ’87 you had a playoff with Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros and, oh, yeah, Larry Mize. And Mize hits probably the most memorable shot of the Masters of all time to win. And then the next year you got Sandy Lyle, knocking it on the green from the bunker on 18.

BH: That was my first one and Norman, people forget, he had about an 8-footer on 18 to win, that I'm sure he would tell you he can't believe it didn't go in. It was seemingly perfect. 

I feel pretty confident in saying nobody thought Larry Mize was gonna win when they went to the 10th tee. And that's the other thing, they changed the playoff around when they first started having a sudden-death playoff, it started on 10. Everybody kind of wanted to see what would happen if it would ever get to 12, and it never did. They never had a sudden-death playoff that went past 11 and they changed it, I think, because they knew that it was darker down there. They needed the daylight and going to 18 and 10 makes things a lot easier. 

I just remember that playoff and Seve was sobbing afterward. Especially when you consider that the year before was when he hit it in the water on 15 and let that chance get away, and here he is in great position to win it the next year, and didn't. That was pretty dramatic.

GVS: And he didn't just hit it in the water, Bob. He hit it in the water at 15 with a kind of shot that you and I are known for. Like a semi-cold top, whole hook-snap.

SI: What was the biggest heartbreak you covered? A Norman year comes to mind, but is there another one? 

BH: It's Greg, and the ’96 Masters tops the list. And we're all jaded, right? We're pretty immune to who wins and who loses, but I remember a kind of a death pall over the media center when he imploded. And it had nothing to do with Faldo. It wasn't that there was dislike of Faldo. Obviously, there were tons of European media there that were a great story. It's a great story anyway. But I think the sense was, Faldo's got five majors, he's got two Masters. Norman, this is Norman's time. And for it to go bad, the way it did was just, I just remember sort of this feeling of like something bad happened to you. 

John Biever/Sports Illustrated

It's a story for another day, but it makes you wonder what would have happened in golf if Greg Norman had won the Masters. Like, would there have ever been a LIV? Or would he have been involved in it?

GVS: There was also a pall in the media room when Curtis Strange knocked it in the water twice on the back nine and let Bernhard Langer get the title in ’85. Curtis was always a good interview but he was confident, let's just say. And he came in and gave one of the all-time great press conferences for a loser. And everybody in the media changed their opinion of Curtis. He was humbled in all this, and he said all the right things. But I know that ate at him.

BH: I think it still does. It's tough to go there with him on that.

People won't remember it, but one of the years when Brandt Snedeker was up there, he was in the final group, and he was terrific in defeat. A lot of guys have been. 

It's a little bit tough that they don't all come to the interview room anymore. A lot of it has to be done on that hill (near the clubhouse). I remember Jordan Spieth when he blew it in ’16. Didn't come to the interview room, we got him and he was good, but not as good as if he'd have been inside, because it was too short. It's hard to believe that's 10 years ago.

GVS: Probably Len Mattiace hasn’t gone a day in his life without thinking about that (2003) playoff, that he just hit one bad shot after another on the 10th hole. But he had played a great, great final round, he bogeyed 18 to shoot 65 to get in the playoff. Then he lost the playoff, then he wound up hurting his knee skiing and that was kind of it for Len Mattiace.

BH: One of the early ones for me was ’90, when Raymond Floyd lost to Faldo. Played a great final round and he was 49 years old at the time. That was crushing. He knew that was the last chance, pretty much. And to lose the way he did by hitting it in the water on 11 in the playoff was tough. 

I'll throw in one more. To this day, you talk to anybody who was there, in 1997 after the second round, Monty (Colin Montgomerie) was gonna play with Tiger in the third round. And so Monty talked big, like, look, I know he's Tiger Woods, but he's never been in this position, blah, blah, blah. And then the next day, went out and got waxed. Tiger shot 65, grew his lead from three after 36 holes to nine, and Monty shot 74. And Monty came in! It was stunning that he would actually come to the media center after a round like that.

John Biever/Sports Illustrated

I asked him years later, “why did you go to the media center afterward?” and he was like “I don't know. I just did.” He was terrific, and he got his ass handed to him that day. And he delivered the great line—somebody said “is there any chance that Tiger can be caught?” and he said “well, (Costantino) Rocca is no Faldo, and Tiger Woods is no Greg Norman.” Because it was a year later.

GVS: He went off about how he couldn't believe how great Tiger Woods was. He didn't know.

SI: If you were chairman for a day and could make one change to the course, to the club, to anything—what would you wave your magic wand for?

BH: There's two things I would do, one of them is related to us. But they have the resources to stage a women's event in the spring—and it would be phenomenal. Pro event. Not just the ANWA, which is fine. It's been kicked around before and they always shoot it down, but the course closes in late May. Why not make their last week, or even the week after their last week, the women's Masters? You mean to tell me that wouldn't be popular? Would be huge for the game. Of course, that takes being the chairman for more than a day.

The other would be—this is very self-serving—I wish they would find a way to let us have some ability to use our phones (on the course). I find it to be such a hamstringing thing. And it doesn't have to be that we can talk on them, or post on social media, they can make up whatever rule they want. They have every way in the world to monitor that. No photos, obviously, no using the phone, just the ability to communicate. Just so that I could send a text to you, John, and say, “I just saw Tiger grab his back on number 12.” Boom. That's it.

GVS: (Former chairman) Hootie (Johnson) put in too many trees on No. 11. The one thing that bothers me is this tournament … Bobby Jones wanted people to have a great day of spectating. And because they've had to add so much length, they've made spectating 10 times more difficult. If you want to walk along with the same group, good luck keeping up. There's just a lot of places where spectating is either a lot more difficult or, like, at 11, they move the ropes or when Hootie put those trees in, you're now 40 yards from the fairway and there's trees in your way. I think they hosed the patrons a little bit with that, but that's not gonna change.

Anything else will probably be media-related. I don't think your average reader cares if life is easier for us.

They let a small number of media people play on Monday but it would be pretty incredible if they let, say, a dozen average Joes from America come out one day.

Bob, what if they just had a one-day LPGA shootout with a dozen players? Like maybe Monday or Tuesday after the Masters, come on out, we're gonna have a tournament, 12 biggest names, play for $4 million, only be a day, not a whole week. Something like that might work

SI: Do you have a personal tradition, one thing you have to do every year?

GVS: I used to say the Masters didn't start until I got my fried chicken sandwich. But sometime in the mid-’90s they got rid of the sandwiches. They were fried, they were battered with a little pepper in them, had a hint of spice in them. Need I say more? They threw a slab of it in a bun and it was great. When they upgraded to modernize the Masters in the mid ’90s, they got rid of those chicken sandwiches because somebody said, “Hey, you can't serve chicken that's not being refrigerated. They're out in the golf course, sitting in these bins at the concession stands. They aren't refrigerated.” It's never been the same. So, that was my tradition for a while, but the old fried chicken sandwich is gone. 

BH: The first day I get there that we're allowed out, I just like to walk down 10. I'll walk down 10, Amen corner, maybe cut over to 13. I might cut over to 14 and then, and then back up. I just like doing that, you know?

I tell fans or people that are going for the first time, you can't do yourself wrong to just start on the 10th tee and walk down. It's a great walk. If you've got the time, walk the entire golf course. Don't worry about seeing any players. It's the greatest thing about it is, like, you don't have to actually see golf shots to appreciate the place.

The look from behind the 10th green up the hill has to be seen to be believed. | Cliff Welch/Getty Images

GVS: I always like to make sure I get down to the 10th green and stand there. That's my favorite spot. You stand down there, it's a 100-foot drop from the tee and you stand there at the bottom, at the green, look back up the hill. You can just barely see the top of the clubhouse above the slope, and if you're not in awe of that view, then you don't have a pulse.

A select few members of the media are drawn via lottery to play the course on the Monday after the Masters, and in 40 years Harig has played it four times. Van Sickle, a very avid player, has played it twice—but not since in 2001.

GVS: I haven't even been putting my name in, I've been eligible for quite a while. For me to go there and play badly, because I haven't touched a club for a couple weeks … if I could go there in midsummer form, it'd be fun. Yeah, I know, that sounds crazy. Why wouldn't you sign up? I must be out of my mind. 

BH: Gary, you apparently haven't done it in the new regime. When Billy Payne became the chairman, they changed it. 

I did it twice the old way, which was via lottery, but you just showed up. There were no tee times. It was like a muni out there. They just kind of paired you up, you might be there at 7 a.m. and not tee off until 9. And you teed off on 10. When Billy Payne became the chairman, and he had been the media chairman, he decided to change that. They kind of wanted you to make you feel like you were a member for a day: you got to drive down Magnolia Lane, use the Champions locker room hit balls on the range. They didn't used to let you do that.

GVS: I never did any of that.

BH: The tee times are a little bit later, so it's a little bit more manageable in terms of the workload the day before. It's really nice that they do that.

SI: So what are the perks of being in the 40 Masters club?

GVS: You get a 40-year plaque and an assigned parking spot with your name on it, against the (entry) fence, which is maybe 20 yards closer than everybody else, or maybe not. Look, if you've got a spot with your name on it, that means they almost have to give you a parking pass. It's all about the parking pass 'cause they're hard to get.