[twitter]I’ve been fortunate to see some of the world’s greatest spectacles of sport live.

I’ve seen the Grey Cup. I’ve seen the Stanley Cup Final. I’ve seen the Tour de France. I’ve seen the French Open.

I haven’t seen The Masters.

I’d really love to see The Masters with my dad, with grandfather, or with my best friend.

My first golf memory is sitting in the basement of our home in Kingston, ON watching Fuzzy Zoeller win the 1979 Masters.

I was 9 and thought it was funny that a man named Fuzzy was on the tv playing golf. Ed Sneed also sticks out as a memory from that tournament and era, probably because his name sounds like a Dr Seuss character.

To see The Masters you need to be lucky. You need to win tickets to The Masters to be invited down Magnolia Lane.

Just after the tournament each spring, the ticket window opens. Submit your email, cross your fingers, and wait. Then, in June the emails go out. For the past 3 years I’ve gotten the “sorry, blah blah blah” email.

This week I got a different email. I got lucky. I won tickets. More precisely, I won the opportunity to buy two tickets to Round 2 of The Masters‘ on Friday April 8, 2016 for US$100 each. And, at the same time, I lost.

I work in radio. We have very strict blackout periods where monitoring happens and vacations are not allowed. March, April, May, September, October, November are strict no-go zones. I had to miss my grandparents’ 50th Wedding Anniversary party because the trip would have meant taking days off in March.

So getting time off to see The Masters on Friday April 8, 2016? Likely won’t happen. It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times and I’ll try again next year hoping to win tickets to round 3 or 4.