Tom Fitzgerald and Ralph Andreano are headed on a pilgrimage this week. Fitzgerald, a retired Madison business executive, and Andreano, a retired UW health economist, leave today for the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.

They scored tickets for Wednesday's practice round of the celebrated Masters tournament, and they are going to drive down, stopping along the way to play golf.

While some of their friends worry that the trip has the potential to turn into a Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau road comedy, they are undaunted.

"I expect to get a little emotional going through the Augusta gates," Fitzgerald was saying this past week.

Andreano added, "I turn 80 on April 11 and I 'm as excited as a little kid. "

I think I might be able to match them for emotion and excitement. I am taking my 16-year-old son, who first held a golf club when he was 18 months old, to the Monday and Tuesday practice rounds. I can get a little choked up just thinking about it.

It's hard to explain to non-golfers, or even casual golfers, how big a deal going to the Masters is for fanatics of the game. Founded by the legendary Bobby Jones, the course has been called "the cathedral in the pines" for its stunning beauty. Tournament-round tickets are nearly impossible to get. The practice rounds aren 't much easier.

There's a famous story about the sportswriter Dan Jenkins walking on the street in front of the club and seeing what looked to be two Masters tickets pinned to a man 's hat. Jenkins asked the price of the tickets. "I 'm not selling tickets," the man said. "I 'm selling hats."

"How much is a hat?"

"Eight hundred dollars."

Over the years, I would hear of friends who had managed to get in. Many spoke of the beauty and difficulty of the course. I think Andy North was the first Madison golfer to actually play in the tournament. One year, during a practice round, North looked outside the ropes near the 14th green and saw Mike Plautz, his rival from junior golf in Madison.

Plautz was a four-time Madison men 's city champion. North was standing on the front of the green. The hole was in the back, 80 feet away. North grinned at Plautz and said, "I could drop three balls right here and you couldn't two-putt any of them, and one of the them would go off the green. "

Plautz couldn't argue the point because he couldn't go under the ropes, but he was saying recently the slope of the greens is hard to fathom and not visible on television.

I spoke with longtime Dane County Circuit Judge Dan Moeser after he 'd attended with his son in 1999. "We were there from dawn to dusk, " Dan said. "The course is even more beautiful than it looks on television. I was in awe. "

Madison architect Bob Sieger had been there the year before: "It was like entering Mecca. Television doesn 't do it justice."

The only bad Masters story I know is, alas, my own. This was 2003. After 10 years of trying, my friend Joe Hart had hit in the lottery the tournament holds annually for practice-round tickets. Joe had two for Monday and invited me.

We played golf on Hilton Head for a few days first, and then by 7:45 that Monday morning, we were standing in line to enter Augusta National, the course that to our minds was the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel, Niagara Falls, Fenway Park, the Grand Canyon and the Rose Bowl all rolled into one.

The gates were set to open in 15 minutes. Then we heard it: KABOOM!

Moments later, torrential rain began falling. The opening was delayed. We walked around the outside of the course. It 's protected by a high fence topped with barbed wire, and rows of towering pine trees prevent you from even looking inside. "I think I can see the net at the end of the driving range, " I said. "Let 's not talk about it, " Joe said.

The rain never stopped, and for the first time in 20 years, the gates of Augusta National remained locked all day. The next day we flew home to Madison, where, naturally, it was snowing. I felt like sticking my head in the oven.

Happily, the tournament gave us tickets for the next year, and the weather was glorious. Now I am taking my son, and the forecast is good.

About the only cloud on the horizon is that the Days Inn room I rented in Augusta is $300 a night.

At least I don 't have to look for somebody selling hats.

Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com.