How Vanderbilt golfer Gordon Sargent found out he would play in The Masters

Vanderbilt golfer Gordon Sargent found out he was invited to The Masters on a Monday, but he couldn't tell anyone until Thursday.

He got a call from an unfamiliar number, but the caller ID tag said it was from Augusta National Golf Club. Sargent doesn't even remember the name of the person with whom he spoke because he wasn't sure if it was real − at least, until he got the confirmation email that afternoon.

That week, Sargent and several teammates were in Georgia preparing for the Jones Cup, an individual tournament. The group was watching TV together Wednesday when a commercial for The Masters came on. Naturally, his teammates said how excited they were to watch it.

"Yeah, it's gonna be kind of cool to watch," Sargent responded, unable to break the news just yet.

Sargent, the NCAA individual champion as a freshman in 2022, received a special invitation despite not being otherwise qualified to compete. He is the first amateur to accept a special invitation since 2000.

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The whole Vanderbilt team and coach Scott Limbaugh will travel to Augusta to watch Sargent compete in the tournament, which runs April 6-9.

"Just seeing people walking up to the 18th green just gives me chills and I think I'm just going to try and soak it in," Sargent said Wednesday. "But also like, hopefully you're there on Sunday, having a chance to win. So you've got to have the right mindset of, they've given you the opportunity to play, and it's just going to be a really cool experience. But also, we're not going there just to play, we're going there to win."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Vanderbilt golfer Gordon Sargent found out about Masters invite