On the Masters lottery and bucket lists

Imagine you win the lottery. No, not the million-dollar one. The GOOD one.

It’s kind of nice here, admit it

Welcome to Flashlight & A Biscuit, my Southern culture/sports/music/food offshoot of my work at Yahoo Sports. Thanks for reading, and if you’re new around here, why not subscribe? It’s free and all.

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In today’s dispatch:

• The Masters, Augusta National and bucket lists

• Song of the Week: Blues rock from the Ghost Dogs

• Stunt Food of the Week: A Mets mess

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One of my favorite spots¹ at Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, is the pathway that leads from the front entrance right to the first fairway. The wide poured-concrete path, which is cleaner than a surgical theater, runs past the immaculate, massive merch shop — you’re going to spend a minimum of $300 there, just accept it — and stops right at the edge of the perfectly manicured, emerald-green grass. To your right is the enormous leaderboard you see above. To your left, up a hill, is the famous clubhouse, the legendary oak, and the first tee. It’s where everyone who’s anyone wants to be, every April.

The reason I love to post up at this spot — which is at the lower right corner of the above photo — is catching the looks on the faces of everyone who walks up to that leaderboard and gets their first look at one of the most famous sporting locales on the planet. It’s a transcendent moment, the kind you can’t replicate on a phone or on TV or on a VR headset. The warmth of the April sun, the smell of the grass, the gentle hum of conversation not interrupted by cell phones anywhere — it’s bliss, it’s glorious, and you don’t have to be a golf fan to appreciate the scene.

There aren’t many moments when you’re an adult that give you that kind of holy-crap-I’m-in-Disney-World feeling you had when you were eight years old. For a certain kind of sports fan — including pretty much any remotely sports-loving individual born in the South between 1945 and 2005 — Augusta National is the apex, the Xanadu, the ultimate bucket list destination.²

And even if you haven’t spent your entire life wanting to walk the hallowed fairways of Augusta National, it’s still an example of beauty so magnificent that you can’t help but be overwhelmed by its sheer grandeur. (Yes, Augusta National and the society it embodies have plenty of flaws. We know this. We’re focusing on the positive side of the ledger here.)

There’s another element of the Augusta National experience that I love: the effect that random luck can have on your entire life’s outlook. If you’ve wanted to visit Augusta National your whole life, you have the opportunity every single year, by entering the lottery to win (ever more expensive, but still surprisingly cheap) tickets — sorry, badges — to the next year’s tournament.

Conveniently enough, the 2025 lottery is open right now, and you ought to go enter it, right this very moment, by visiting the lottery website before it closes in a week or so. Seriously, open up a new tab and go there. We’ll be here waiting for you.

All this could be yours.

Back? Good. We’ll all have to sit and wait for that magical day in late July — a.k.a. sorority bid day for middle-aged, Vineyard Vines-wearing bros — when we find out if our lottery number has come up. ‘Til then, though, let’s pivot from the specific to the general.

Let’s talk about bucket lists.

The idea behind a bucket list — the name derives from an utterly forgettable 2008 movie of the same name — is that you start mapping out your desires, putting those “one day I ought to…” dreams on a list, if not an actual calendar. Because one day we will all in fact kick the bucket, and the goal here is to make sure you’ve seen all you can see before that time comes.

Turns out that a bucket list can be a pretty potent psychological weapon in your quest to live a good life. A bucket list is “consistent with Daniel Kahneman's peak-end theory, which holds that what people remember from hedonic events are their peaks,” psychologist Christopher Peterson writes. “No peaks, no memories — or at least not very crisp ones.” (I was going to quote Daniel Kahneman too, but I figured you all knew that already.)

This peak-end theory tracks, even if Dr. Peterson probably defines “hedonic events” differently from me. (Also, “Peak-End Theory” would be a great title for a collection of Tribe Called Quest outtakes.) You don’t remember the drive to the concert, the time spent waiting outside the club, the minutes before that magnificent steak arrives at your table, the nervous hours before you meet your date, but you sure as hell remember the moment it all crescendoes, don’t you? Broadening the lens even wider, we spend an awful lot of days knocking off the to-do list in between the big moments … we just need to remember to take advantage of those big moments, right?

It’s not the breaths you take, it’s the moments that take your breath away, as the old beach-house sign goes. Yeah, it turns out that cliches like that and “Live, Laugh, Love” actually hold weight after all. You wouldn’t really expect to find life-changing philosophy on sale at Buc-ees, but then, they do sell everything there.

I’ve been fortunate enough to hit pretty much every destination on my personal sports bucket list, at least in America. I still want to cover a tennis grand slam event — coming your way one day, Wimbledon — and I’ve knocked out two of the five major European soccer leagues (heads up, Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga). Travel-wise, I’m nowhere close; I’ve got 42 of 50 states knocked off, but there are so, SO many countries out there I need to visit. And I will.

Here’s my advice for you: Don’t wait. See that show. Make that trip. Take that leap. The best time to do it is right now, and the second-best time is tomorrow. And odds are it’ll pay off a whole lot better than any lottery.

Hope you win a Masters badge this year, friends. I’ll buy you a pimento cheese sandwich if I’m covering the Masters in 2025 … and if I’m not covering it, well, I hope you’ll remember who gave you the idea to enter the lottery in the first place.

Your turn. What locations are on your bucket list? Let’s make ourselves a must-do list here.

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Song of the Week: Ghost Hounds, “Last Train to Nowhere”

There are dreams, and then there’s getting to open up for the Rolling Stones. Ghost Hounds got that opportunity Friday night in Atlanta, and they tore the removable roof off Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They hail from Pittsburgh, but their sound is straight out of the Delta. Were it not for the 2020s production sheen, these cats would sound right at home in pretty much any decade since Elvis recorded that first single. Turn this up, it’s made for a summer Saturday night:

Check out “Last Train To Nowhere” and all the other fine tunes we love around these parts at the ever-growing Flashlight & A Biscuit Spotify playlist:

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Stunt Food of the Week: The New York Mets’ Championship Burger

Look, say what you want about the New York Mets — and as a lifelong Braves fan, I’ve said plenty — but their mad scientist chefs do bring the heat when it comes to ballpark stunt food. Witness: The Championship Burger. This includes a dry-aged beef patty topped with lobster salad and lobster fondue. While I normally do not advise eating lobster at a ballpark, I gotta say that looks pretty damn delicious. It’s juicy, flavorful, a mess in the right way … Matter of fact, there’s just one problem with the Mets’ Championship Burger: You’re guaranteed to choke. Ahahahaha! You suck, Mets!

Seen stunt food I need to know about? Hit me here or tag me (@jaybusbee) on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/TikTok. Let’s all enjoy America’s descent into culinary madness together.

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And on that lovely note, we’re out. I’ll be in Pinehurst, N.C. all next week covering the U.S. Open. If you’re of a sports mindset, follow my work there, and check out my recent Atlanta-based work:

• I checked in with the Braves to see how everyone’s feeling with the team’s current power outage and catastrophic injuries. (Spoiler: Not as distraught as the fans, but not great!)

• I visited Falcons camp to see how Superdad Kirk Cousins is assimilating with his new team. It’s all going splen-diddly-icious, thank you very much.

Stay hydrated and stay cool, friends, and we’ll see you back here soon …

—Jay
Land Cat, Georgia

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This is issue #120 of Flashlight & A Biscuit. Check out all the past issues right here. Feel free to email me with your thoughts, tips and advice. If you’re new around here, jump right to our most-read stories, or check out some of our recent hits:

• Our first documentary, on the famous Rama Jama’s diner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama:

• A story of good dogs and a great book

• The ol’ Arkansas Eclipse

• Y’all want some hockey?

• The Black Crowes and the groove vs. the rut

• All hail the Luther Burger

• What does “Flashlight & A Biscuit” mean, anyway?

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1. Yes, I’ve been to Augusta National Golf Club enough times to have favorite spots. I’ve covered the Masters 14 times, and I’ve been to ANGC enough times to establish residency at Amen Corner. It’s one nice little upside of working in journalism, an industry that seems perpetually ready — sometimes, even actively trying — to tear itself apart.

2. One element about the changing Augusta National I’m not thrilled about: the increasing development of even more exclusive venues within the already-exclusive venue. For years — decades — it was enough for everyone just to get in the gates. But now Augusta National has decided to go in on the “Always Another Door” phenomenon: No matter how high you rise in society, there’s always another door that’s closed to you. It’s a recipe for permanent spiritual dissatisfaction, if you let it.