AUGUSTA, Ga.—No promises for Pulitzers, but at least we are here.

Designated Writers left the gravitational pull of Louisiana Monday morning and arrived in Georgia Monday evening, safe and mostly sound with a numb butt. It’s 680 miles if you’re keeping score at home and choose the 285 bypass instead of battling through downtown Atlanta—which is a jump ball call; it was brisk until you tried to get back onto Interstate 20 and then it slowed for about 30-minutes’-worth. Would it have been better to have ventured through downtown, which was 10 interstate miles less?

Only the Interstate Gods know for sure, just as only the Golf Gods know for sure whether Tiger Woods is worth all the overwhelming buildup he has been given—through no fault of his own, except for being great, then injured and confused, and now for being middle-aged and middle-of-the-pack. This buildup is because of the media, which I am a part of and which I am embarrassed by. Sigh…He is a balding middle-aged golfer who no one is scared of any more on Sundays. Sam Burns, who is a pro and who would be a senior this year if he’d had stayed at LSU, beat him three weeks ago.

He could definitely win. He loves the course and has been a champion four times here. But if he does not win, it does not mean he is not good or that he failed. It means that he is 42 now and that no one is frightened of him and that it is a harder game professionally than you can imagine and that there are lot of guys who can play good golf, including Sam Burns, who won last weekend’s Web.com Tour event—bravo Sam!—but won’t even be in the Masters field.

And by the way, if you are leaving from Ruston, count on 10 or 11 hours, depending on Atlanta traffic and bathroom stops. It took me 12 Billy Graham sermons and four bathroom stops, which matches my average on any given go-to-bed, get-up-in-the-morning nights. How was I so lucky? Only my bladder and colon know for sure.

I hope the weather holds. It was 86 degrees at Augusta National today. I do not know that for sure but at the Flying J truck stop in Madison, Ga., where I stopped for gas, that is what it looked like the limping patrons who walked in had been cooked at.

Designated Writers recognized them immediately. It wasn’t because they had on their Masters patron badges or their Masters hats. It was because of their limping. And red skin. Walking the hills you can’t see on television, and sunburn, will do that.

BUT, it was well worth it. I asked them about what kind of time they’d had.

“Beautiful land,” the Lead Limper told me, smiling a winner’s smile. “Great day.”

I didn’t use exclamation points because he didn’t, but from the look on his red face, he’d meant it.

More discussion revealed that he was from Sweden. I didn’t ask his name because I knew it was either Ludvig or Liam or Oscar or Hugo. Possibly Axel or Noah or Arvid. What’s the diff? He and his friends had come to America in general and to Augusta, Ga., in particular to walk a piece of land spectacular, and they were not left wanting.

The Masters rarely disappoints.