By Matthew Rudy
Sports Illustrated

"The $5,000 Chicken Sandwich"

If golf had an equivalent to the Bible, I'm sure the first commandment would be "thou shalt realize that peach cobbler is a rite of passage at the Masters." Enjoying the dessert in the late afternoon sun on the Augusta National clubhouse veranda is supposed to be like your first kiss or speeding ticket -- something you never forget.

I had one problem. My badge didn't give me access to the veranda. Only the Chosen Ones were allowed there. So no cobbler. Commandment three (which comes after Commandment two, "never leave a birdie putt short") is "the chicken sandwiches are worth the price of admission," although that may be overstating the case. I saw a forlorn scalper offering $5,000 for four-day badges this morning, and he wasn't having any luck. I have yet to find a $5,000 sandwich, and I live in New York City, where a $5 glass of water is common.

Since I was shut out of the clubhouse and veranda, I decided to combine my little Masters cuisine experiment with following first-round leader Greg Norman and his playing partner, Phil Mickelson, around the course. It would give me a chance to sample some of this awe-inspiring food, and since Norman and Mickelson were playing behind Nick Faldo, who is perhaps the slowest golfer not currently living in a Florida retirement community, I'd have time for two and perhaps three full meals.

The first food stop, a green, vaguely circusy tent, was located just off the second tee. My partner, SI senior editor Greg Kelly, had a big breakfast (four English muffins and two glasses of juice), so he opted for a simple pink lemonade, while I decided to get the chicken sandwich out of the way. Sandwiches at the Masters come in plain green wrappers with generic white labels. Initially, the tournament people designed this system as a way to keep any stray papers on the emerald green grass from distracting players. Now, the whole thing has become another instance of staid Augusta National resisting pressure from corporate America. Fans eat it up, both literally and figuratively. Apparently, the David and Goliath bit sells a lot of sandwiches.

Another important factor is that the club can cover its operating expenses for the entire year with what CBS pays in rights fees to broadcast the tournament. Combine this with the fact that the waiting list for $100 four-day badges was closed in 1979 and the souvenir shop did approximately $1 million in business per tournament day last year and you realize that Augusta National doesn't really need to soak patrons on food concessions.

As a result, my tab for the afternoon was shockingly low, especially for someone conditioned to New York City price gouging. Our two glowing pink lemonades were 75 cents each. My chicken sandwich was $2.50 -- the most expensive thing on the menu. Later Greg and I were nearly killed by an errant Seve Ballesteros tee shot (which isn't as infrequent an occurrence as you might think), and we had to wait for him to play his recovery back into the fairway. That meant a quick detour around the scowling man from Catalan and a stop at the small food stand near the fourth fairway. There, Greg had a candy bar (50 cents) and I tried a turkey sandwich ($1.50). Tack on the extra soda (75 cents) and two ice cream bars ($1 apiece) we bought while waiting for Mickelson to try his patented full-swing really-high stop-dead flop shot on No. 9, and our two-person food bill for the day was $8.75, or roughly the price of a double quarter-pounder with cheese super size McDonald's extra value meal in Rockefeller Center (neither of us had the guts to try a $1 pimento cheese sandwich, a favorite of the older crowd).

As for the chicken sandwich boast, I have to admit it was better than I expected, but $5,000 buys a lot of Spaghettios.