Walking this golf course is now a botanist’s dream

(CNN) — Jack Nicklaus says that he gets chills when he drives up Magnolia Lane at the Augusta National Golf Club, and I know exactly how he feels about the hallowed grounds where The Masters is played every April. Like most of the visitors to Augusta, I’m here for the golf, but the tightly manicured landscape, bursting with vibrant colors resembling a Vincent Van Gogh palette, always take my breath away.

If I’m ever lucky enough to play it, this is a golf course where I wouldn’t mind losing my ball from time to time – I’d want to explore every last piece of it.

Stepping away from the hustle and bustle of modern-day life and entering through the main gates just off Washington Road is like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. Etched into the grounds of a former horticultural nursery, Augusta National has never forgotten its roots.

Back in the 1930s, the founders of the club worked with Louis Alphonse Berckmans, son of the nursery’s late owner, to adorn each of the 18 holes with a distinctive species and since then some 80,000 plants and 350 different varieties have been added.

Walking the course is now a botanist’s dream, almost a century in the making. If you can catch it in the air, the apricot scent of the tea olives on the opening hole is seductive, and if they’re flowering, the dogwoods, peaches, crab apples, magnolias and camelias are a feast for the eyes.

By the time you reach the 13th hole, where many a player’s journey towards the green jacket goes off the rails, there is something to help keep everything in perspective: a breathtaking bank of some 1,600 flowering azalea shrubs splashed all the way from tee to green – it’s a stunning reminder of the world’s natural beauty.

Photojournalist John McAfee covered 33 Masters tournaments, but on one occasion, he was assigned to cover the Final Four instead. In a phone call that’s since become CNN Sports lore, he rang the team at Augusta, lowered his voice to a hush in case he was overheard, and enquired, “Are the azaleas pretty?”

It’s a story that always gets a laugh, but I now feel that same attraction to the majesty of the course as he did. During my years at Augusta, I’ve overheard many conversations among the patrons and found myself silently agreeing with their sentiment, “I wish I could get the azaleas in my yard to look like that.”

This year, I said it out loud, and a patron next to me offered a response: “Because you don’t have an undersoil heating system warming the roots of your plants.” Augusta National Golf Club has never spoken about how it is seemingly able to manipulate the flowering of the buds on its property, but for many – no matter how far-fetched the notion might be – some kind of botanical sorcery is assumed.

Despite bearing a name that would be perfectly suited for Augusta National, Justin Rose admits that he’s not much of a gardener. The three-time runner-up told CNN Sports that he’s rarely home enough to take care of anything he might have planted.

“It would not be the greatest looking garden if I was in full charge,” he said. However, he notes he always thinks of his mom when he sees all the flowers, and he can’t help noticing the beauty.

“Whenever I come back here, I think of her,” Rose said. “It’s a spectacle, right? The whole place and the whole environment and the whole week, the whole thing is a pretty, beautiful show.”

At Augusta National, the patrons are walking among the legends of the game, but they’re also standing in the shadows of giants.

Georgia-native, 70-foot-tall Loblolly Pine Trees line many of the fairways, and an enormous oak tree stands like a beacon outside of the clubhouse. Planted in the 1850s, it’s now around 170 years old and I’ll often find myself gazing up into its magnificent structure with a sense of awe.

Its octopus-like horizontal limbs seemingly defy gravity, although some are held up with suspension cables, and the tree is rigged with a lightning rod. The Masters wants to protect its centerpiece specimen, although three-time champion Nick Faldo once told me that he’d heard they could crane in a replacement if it ever lost its balance, and the patrons would likely never notice.

The wonderful trees and the glorious petals will always be the showstoppers at Augusta, but trained eyes will notice the tiniest of details, too. New buildings at Augusta are presented as if they’ve been there for years and the flora helps create the illusion.

When the new media center opened in 2017, my attention was drawn to the ivy growing around the façade at the back of the building. As avid gardeners will know, ivy is a famously slow grower: It ‘sleeps’ in its first season, then it ‘creeps’ in year two and it only ‘leaps’ in its third year. But these vines were already well established on a structure that had only just opened its doors.

And for much of the time at Augusta, there is only the nature to marvel at. Groups of players will pass through every 10 minutes or so, and since cell phones are prohibited, there are no distractions – nothing can spoil the view.

It’s the only major sporting event in the world that isn’t littered with gaudy advertising panels and look-at-me branding. You won’t be tempted by any sleek soda slogans at the concession stands and you certainly won’t find a sponsor’s car parked behind the 16th green. For much of the day, you’re at one with nature’s beauty.

Golf is a good walk spoiled, Mark Twain was purported to have said, but surely nobody could ever say that about a day at The Masters – and especially the greenest of thumbs are guaranteed to leave Augusta National green with envy.

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