Why the golf pro at Mayacama is smiling like he'd won the Masters

Mayacama Golf Club head pro Ted Antonopoulos is back from the Masters tournament and grinning like he’d won it.

Antonopoulos went to what turned out to be a historically thrilling Masters as a rules official. To be invited to officiate inside the ropes was an especially big deal for him because he was born and reared in Atlanta and learned to play golf there.

As a kid, recalled the 64-year-old Antonopoulos, “I won the Masters about 50 times in my front yard.”

He didn’t sharpen his game at the exclusive, world-renowned Atlanta National Golf Club, but across town at the Cabbage Patch, Atlanta’s municipal links. But still.

Even prior to last week, he was familiar with the home course of the Masters in Augusta, roughly 150 miles from Atlanta. As high schoolers, he and his brother Buddy, who’d also become a golf pro, worked the tournament as kings of the scoreboard on the 11th hole.

So perhaps you can imagine how it felt for Antonopoulos to dress last Thursday in his Masters uniform - navy blazer, white shirt, gray slacks, Augusta National tie - and stroll to his Day 1 post at the second hole.

“I can’t describe the feeling I had walking down there,” said Antonopoulos, who was invited to the Masters because of the years he’s served on the rules committee of the PGA of America, the NCAA Championship Committee, the Pac-12 Championship Committee and the USGA Senior Amateur Championship Committee.

On Sunday, the last day of the Masters, he was assigned to ground zero - the fairway on the 18th and final hole.

He watched the tournament’s one-time leader, Francesco Molinari, hit into the rough.

The Italian “was about 10 feet from me,” he said.

And he watched Tiger Woods, then two strokes in the lead, make a beauty of a drive down the fairway.

Upon Woods’ final putt, the Santa Rosan felt the crowd’s thunder-like roar.

For Antonopoulos, other high points of the trip to Georgia were the graciousness, gratitude and dedication to the game exhibited by members of the Augusta National Golf Club, the leisurely daily drives along Magnolia Lane and his chance to play tour guide and show his wife, Susie, the Cabbage Patch, the house he’d grown up in and the schools he attended.

All in all, it was just good to be home.