With the Masters less than a month away, golfers’ thoughts are turning to Augusta National Golf Club and the game’s annual rite of spring.Augusta National has a profound effect on people. It seems to inspire superlatives like no other venue in golf, and perhaps in all of sports. If you’ve ever set foot on those grounds, you know what I’m talking about. Just a few hundred yards away from the strip malls and fast-food restaurants of Washington Road, Augusta National is a world unto itself: the impossibly green grass, the Technicolor azaleas, the vast fairways, the gaping bunkers, brimming with brilliant white sand – every aspect of the golf course and its surroundings exceeds ordinary standards.
In my former career as an editor for a golf magazine, we polled a number of players, teachers and celebrities one year to ask what they enjoyed most about the Masters. Not surprisingly, many of the responses focused on the stunning visuals. Greg Norman, who suffered three agonizing runner-up finishes but never won at Augusta, called the course “the most beautiful expanse of grass you will ever see.” Two-time champion Tom Watson described it as “absolutely immaculate. … I’m talking about not a blade out of place, not a weed on the golf course, in the rough, anywhere.” Rush Limbaugh once played Augusta as a guest and recalled it as “the biggest thrill I’ve had.” He described the course as “hallowed ground.”
I think Augusta’s effect on people was best summed up by course architect and swing instructor Jim Hardy: “There are very few experiences in life that you have a preconception of and the experience actually exceeds the preconception. Going to Augusta to watch the tournament for the first time is greater than anything you can conceive – far greater.” Indeed, one of the most oft-heard responses from first-time visitors goes something like this: “I can’t believe how beautiful it is. TV just doesn’t do it justice.”
If a golf course can be so beautiful as to stir the kind of emotions related above – even to the point of labeling it “hallowed ground” – can you imagine how fabulous heaven is going to be? Actually, no – the Bible says it’s going to be so great, none of God’s followers can really grasp its greatness while we’re still confined to our earthly bodies. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what He has prepared for those who love Him,” Paul wrote (1 Corinthians. 2:9). Paul also described God as “Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine …” (Ephesians 3:20).
But God’s Word does give a glimpse of a believer's future. In the 21st chapter of Revelation, we learn that He will one day bring about a new heaven and a new earth, and we will live with Him in a Holy City, the New Jerusalem. There, our surroundings will be made “of pure gold, as pure as glass” (v. 18). God will be our source of light (v. 23) and all the cares and hurts of the world will be no more: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (v. 4).
No, we can’t fully imagine what our eternal home will be like. But by faith, we can be as certain of its reality as the grass is green at Augusta National.
In my former career as an editor for a golf magazine, we polled a number of players, teachers and celebrities one year to ask what they enjoyed most about the Masters. Not surprisingly, many of the responses focused on the stunning visuals. Greg Norman, who suffered three agonizing runner-up finishes but never won at Augusta, called the course “the most beautiful expanse of grass you will ever see.” Two-time champion Tom Watson described it as “absolutely immaculate. … I’m talking about not a blade out of place, not a weed on the golf course, in the rough, anywhere.” Rush Limbaugh once played Augusta as a guest and recalled it as “the biggest thrill I’ve had.” He described the course as “hallowed ground.”
I think Augusta’s effect on people was best summed up by course architect and swing instructor Jim Hardy: “There are very few experiences in life that you have a preconception of and the experience actually exceeds the preconception. Going to Augusta to watch the tournament for the first time is greater than anything you can conceive – far greater.” Indeed, one of the most oft-heard responses from first-time visitors goes something like this: “I can’t believe how beautiful it is. TV just doesn’t do it justice.”
If a golf course can be so beautiful as to stir the kind of emotions related above – even to the point of labeling it “hallowed ground” – can you imagine how fabulous heaven is going to be? Actually, no – the Bible says it’s going to be so great, none of God’s followers can really grasp its greatness while we’re still confined to our earthly bodies. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what He has prepared for those who love Him,” Paul wrote (1 Corinthians. 2:9). Paul also described God as “Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine …” (Ephesians 3:20).
But God’s Word does give a glimpse of a believer's future. In the 21st chapter of Revelation, we learn that He will one day bring about a new heaven and a new earth, and we will live with Him in a Holy City, the New Jerusalem. There, our surroundings will be made “of pure gold, as pure as glass” (v. 18). God will be our source of light (v. 23) and all the cares and hurts of the world will be no more: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (v. 4).
No, we can’t fully imagine what our eternal home will be like. But by faith, we can be as certain of its reality as the grass is green at Augusta National.
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