Thompson set for Masters experience

TUSCALOOSA | Green jackets, pimento cheese sandwiches, Magnolia Lane, the Crow’s Nest and the back nine on Sunday. All of these things can be found at Augusta National Golf Club, and Michael Thompson, a senior golfer on the No. 1 ranked Alabama golf team, knows all of them well. Since he was a child, Thompson has watched the Masters on television.

Today, when he plays a practice round with two-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson, he will experience them all first hand.

Thompson makes his PGA Tour debut at the Masters this week, competing as an amateur. He joins the ranks of Jerry Pate, Cecil Ingram and Steve Lowrey as Crimson Tide players who have played in in the PGA’s first major of the season.

As a finalist in the 2007 U.S. Amateur golf tournament, Thompson earned an automatic invitation to the Masters.

Thompson will play in the par 3 contest on Wednesday with Pate and two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw and begins tournament play on Thursday.

His tee time will be announced Wednesday.

Since finishing runner-up at the U.S. Amateur, Thompson’s life has been a whirlwind. Added to the demands and pressure of being a member of the top-ranked collegiate golf team in the country, Thompson juggles school, a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend Rachel, who is in school at Emory, and the requests of family, friends and the occasional stranger for tickets to the Masters.

“I get unlimited practice rounds and I’ve had a lot of people ask me to take them and also to get them tickets,” Thompson said. “And some people I don’t even know have asked me to get them in. So it’s gotten kind of funny.”

During one of his practice round trips, he caught wind that Mickelson, a fellow Arizonian, was coming in.

“I was waiting around to see if I could join his group,” Thompson said. “We met in the pro shop and I introduced myself and he said, ‘Oh yeah, Michael how are you doing? Nice to meet you.’ He said he had a practice round set up on Tuesday and that he always played with one of the U.S. Amateur participants and that if I wanted to play to sign up.”

Adam Scott and Hunter Mahan will join Mickelson and Thompson’s practice round today.

Thompson has played seven practice rounds since winning the U.S. Amateur and said the vivid colors are what stand out the most about his trips to Augusta.

“The sight that you see is all green,” he said. “You just don’t see that kind of green this time of the year. And then the caddies in their all white jump suits coming up the ninth hole and going out on one and two. For me, seeing that told me I was at Augusta. I’ve kind of had to pinch myself and say, ‘I’m here at Augusta National, the most famous place in golf.’ “

Thompson’s journey from obscurity to the center of the golfing world has taken a circuitous route. The Tucson, Ariz., native started his collegiate career at Tulane University before Hurricane Katrina caused the school to cancel its men’s golf program. His coach at the time, Tom Shaw, who will caddy for him at the Masters, recommended Thompson to Alabama coach Jay Seawell.

“The hurricane was a blessing in disguise,” Thompson said. “I am 100 percent pleased that I was given the opportunity to come here to Alabama. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Seawell said he thinks Thompson has a chance to do well this week.

“The cut is a legitimate gold,” Seawell said. “He’s preparing for something he’s never done before. That unknown is the only think that keeps me from wondering what he’ll do. But I think he’s good enough and mature enough, and he’ll be ready to make a run at making the cut, which is a huge deal.”

In his practice rounds, he has taken his swing coach and her husband Susie and Dan Meyers and his father, MikeThompson.

“That’s something I wanted to do with him,” MichaelThompson said of playing a round of golf with his dad at Augusta National. “I mean every time the Masters came on every year we would watch it. We would have little bets and on who we thought was going to win. It was fun to take him out there. His first time there he got to play. It’s very, very special to me.”

Mike Thompson will caddy for his son in the par 3 tournament.

When his name is announced on the tee by the starter on Thursday, Michael Thompson said his heart rate will probably quicken.

“My pulse is going to be pretty high,” he said. “I’ll probably have to take five or six deep breaths to calm myself down.”

He said he’s made some small goals for the week but that a good week will not be defined by tangible results.

“I feel that a successful week will be one where I totally believe in myself everyday,” he said. “I don’t want to three putt — it probably won’t happen, but if I can get close to no three putting that will be very important to me. An overlying goal is to make the cut and then an even bigger goal is to finish in the top 16. If I can keep to my game and my mindset, I know that I’m going to play well.”

Reach Aaron Suttles at aaron.suttles@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0229.