I had an unbelievable opportunity to attend one of the practice rounds of the Masters again this year thanks to my father-in-law. He, his friend Clyde, my mother-in-law and my two brothers-in-law (Greg from Kentucky & Jeff from New York) came in last weekend to spend a few days with us. The guys got up early on Tuesday morning (after getting very little sleep after Kansas' win on Monday night), and drove the three hours over to Augusta for the Masters. You can see some pics from our trip to the Masters in this Flickr photoset: The 2008 Masters - Practice Round

I have to say that getting to walk the course & see Augusta National first hand the last two years has changed the way I watch the Masters. For one I am much more interested in the early rounds than I have been in the past. Secondly, it is simply surreal to watch the players walk holes and see on the TV the very places I have walked as well.

As a bonus this year, DirecTV has partnered with ESPN & CBS Sports to provide unprecedented coverage of the tournament. The photo above was snapped this afternoon of the Masters Mix Channel (Channel 706 for those of you with DirecTV HD). It allows you to see a live leaderboard, the main ESPN/CBS Sports feed, a highlights channel, and dedicated coverage of Amen Corner and the 15th and 16th holes. You can highlight the channel you want to focus on and the audio feed switches to that channel. You can select any of the channels to go to that feed in HD. On any of the Masters channels you can access via menu the top 5 leaders currently, as well as a full, interactive leaderboard. You can not only see the score of any given player, you can access his complete scorecard from all the rounds.

This just further solidifies DirecTV's standing at the top of the HD list for me. Over 80 channels in HD - I rarely have to watch something in standard definition.