By Amy Nutt
Sports Illustrated

"Jack Frost Nipping at their Noses...and holding up the final practice round of the Masters"

Vijay Singh looks confused. It's 8:15 Wednesday morning and this is the last chance for the 93 players at the '96 Masters to practice their game. The only problem is, the course is closed. The temperature at 6 a.m. was only 31 degrees (I wasn't up; I asked the nearest greenskeeper when I arrived), and it's not a whole lot warmer now. Of course, it isn't exactly the Yankees and the Royals vs. Frosty the Snowman, so I shouldn't complain. I mean, we're just talking dew here. But it's cold enough to watch your breath take flight over the nearby first fairway and it's definitely cold enough to prefer a nice steaming cup of hot chocolate to hanging out by the practice range waiting for something to happen.

A sign, in fact, has been posted by the range requesting that the golfers "please not use the tees when frost is present," and Singh, though slightly peeved, is politely complying. Since we're the only two people out here, I ask him how he's been keeping himself warm this morning. "I haven't figured that one out yet," he says, apparently still feeling confused. "I'm just going to keep moving. And drink a lot of coffee."

Even with the frost delay, a couple hundred spectators have already lined up outside the course entrance waiting to get in and with Singh going nowhere fast, I decide to hang outside the men's grille and wait for some other players to arrive--players, of course, who are also going nowhere fast and therefore have a lot of time to eat.

John Daly is an early arriver--at about 8:20--with his wife, Paulette, and carries his own bag up to the clubhouse. When I ask Daly how he's keeping warm this morning, he just laughs and says, "I don't know." I'm starting to think that these golfers are strangely indecisive athletes until I talk to Ernie Els, who is clad in a sweater, but no jacket. Els is walking briskly into the grille when he turns around just for a moment to answer my question about whether the cold is bothering him. "Nope," he says. "This is nice."

I take a look back towards the practice range, which is still closed, and to where Singh still stands to one side, a short iron in hand. He is clearly bored and is using his club like a kind of scythe, whisking it back-and-forth, back-and-forth, over the grass around his foot. I'm thinking maybe someone should have cut off Vijay's coffee supply a couple of cups ago.

It's 8:40 when Phil Mickelson pulls up with his fiancee, Amy McBride, in his white Cadillac courtesy car. When they get out, they chat for about five minutes with some friends. All the while Mickelson has his arms wrapped around his fiancee for warmth.

I notice the range has finally opened by 8:45, but apparently Singh has gotten so worked up by having to wait for 20 minutes that he hits balls for only 10.

U.S. Amateur champion and Stanford sophomore Tiger Woods brings his clubs all the way into the men's grille. When he sets them down in a corner he blows on his obviously cold hands and tells me his secret to keeping warm: "I just took a very hot shower," he says conspiratorially.

Paul Azinger, on the other hand, is apparently a little worried. He is wearing what he calls a "very nice cashmere sweater," in order to stay warm, and then adds, "I hope it's good enough."

Colin Montgomerie appears to be anything but worried. Montgomerie doesn't miss a beat when I ask him about the temperature, saying, in his perfect Scottish accent, "Why, is it cold?"

Brad "Dirt" Bryant, dressed, appropriately enough, not in a cashmere sweater like Azinger, but in an old black sweatshirt like, well...like Brad Bryant, is obviously in the uncommitted camp. He's already had hot coffee at breakfast, but is holding an ice-cold cup of Coke on his way out toward the range. "I don't know about the cold," he says. "I guess I'd like to see it get a bit warmer. I mean like 90 degrees and 50 percent humidity. That's my kind of heat."

When I ask Tom Watson if he's doing anything special to keep warm, he says succinctly, "Nope."

At 9:25 Augusta's gates finally open for the waiting crowd and they spill onto the grounds, spreading out like a ketchup stain before taking up their positions on the rolling fairways and greens of Augusta National.

The 26-year-old rookie, Tim Herron, a.k.a. "Lumpy," who qualified for the 60th Masters by winning the Honda Classic last month, hurries through the grille room and out onto the practice range. It's still only about 45 degrees out, but Herron is smiling and smoking, both with equal fervor, and is clearly not conscious of anything except his great good fortune at playing in his very first Masters. How can I tell, you ask? One word: Shirtsleeves.