Letting yourself down: A Masters tradition like no other

6. ‘If I putt good I’d probably get it round in six over’

It’s all well and good to estimate how you’d get on with your own clubs, we know ‘the National’ like the back of our hands by now so by all means have an estimate of how you’d fare.

Do, though, if you’re going to play this game, play it properly and test yourself off the back tees. So that means a course that measures 7,500 yards with ideally a few April gusts.

Which translates to seven par 4s of 450 yards or more which should then translate, in your head, to not quite the sub-80 effort that you first offered up.

You know how the best 50 players in the world have problems keeping some putts on the green with a wedge or even a putter in hand? There’s your starting point..

7. OK, we get it. You’ve had a bet

The Masters is a bit like the Grand National in terms of parting with some cash and, even more than the Open, we’re more likely to have a little flutter at Augusta.

Like any bet though this brings its own downside as you just can’t help let slipping out that you’ve had a sizeable (£3.40 each-way) on Charley Hoffman to be first-round leader and he’s just birdied the 8th.

And so it goes on, for four whole days, where any conversation is punctuated by you dropping in your very-pleased-with-yourself stats on how many of your stable made it into the weekend.

A small word of caution, there aren’t even 90 players in the field so don’t get too carried away early doors and then start bragging about nailing the Top Left-Hander.

Like your round of golf nobody really cares other than the final score so let’s just hear about your final losses please.

8. Let it go, no-one cares

Even worse still we also let ourselves down by listing our previous Masters winners. Now this might have something to do with only having backed Olazabal in 1994 but I still find myself re-boring anyone near me how I also had £2.25 each-way on Peter Hanson at 275-1 in 2012 and how anxious I was when he shanked one at 12. And so on and so forth.

Note to self, again nobody’s listening. Have a bit of dignity and keep it between yourself and your online turf accountant.

9. Where are all our azaleas?

Here’s our version of Wimbledon fortnight when we all dust off our sweatbands and eat too many bananas. This week you can find most of us sneaking off to the course, over-complicating things by throwing up small blades of grass too many times and even announcing one another with ‘Fore please, 1sttee now driving’.

Now, as much as we’d like to pretend that the Masters welcomes in the new season, we’ll all have to wait at least two more months before the greens start rolling and things get a bit more bouncy.

10. The inevitability of the Monday low

I’m afraid things will get a bit flat as Monday draws on. The initial high of the previous night will gently subside as the stone-cold reality that we’re 12 months away from doing it all again sets in. The Masters might be this and it might be that but it’s incredible entertainment and like nothing else in many ways.

The good news is, with the new schedule, we’ve only got five weeks to wait before Bethpage and the PGA Championship.

What do you do during Masters week that you’re too ashamed to admit? Or do you have a Masters tradition of your own? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter.