`HOLY WEEK' ECHOES PAST.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Long before Tiger Woods, there was another charismatic young man, the only child of an indulgent father whose golfing exploits turned a generation onto the sport.

Bobby Jones won the U.S. Open as a 21-year-old amateur in 1923. He achieved the unprecedented seven years later, when he won the U.S. and British Opens and the U.S. and British Amateurs, then promptly retired to the genteel world in which he had been reared.

In the early 1930s, Jones and a friend, Cliff Roberts, bought a 365-acre nursery, built a golf course and began an annual invitational that has become the most hallowed happening in golf.

The more things change in the world outside the gates of Augusta National Golf Club, the more they stay the same inside, where, like a piece of pecan pie, a slice of the Old South has been preserved.

Augusta National is a place where civility blooms along with the azaleas, where courtesy goes beyond the kind of cars the players drive down Magnolia Lane. Along with cellular phones, beepers and alcoholic beverages, patrons check their hostility at one of the three walk-in gates.

The Masters draws voluminous crowds every year, but there is no confusion, no chaos and very little cursing. ``Pardon mes'' are passed around like pimiento-and-cheese sandwiches; exhortations of the ``You the Man'' variety are frowned upon as loud outbursts would be in any cathedral-like setting. This is Holy Week, all right, for Christians and disciples of Jones alike.

Woods, who fashioned a record-breaking 12-stroke victory here last year, regards the Masters as the golf-tournament equivalent of a gated community. It is, for him, a sanctuary from the insanity that is his day-to-day life.

``Most of the gallery members this week have been here awhile,'' Woods said. ``They understand golf etiquette and when not to ask for an autograph or picture or take pictures of a golf swing. I was here last year, and this one lady said, `I've been here for 27 years right on this spot.' You don't hear that anywhere else.''

Civility has a way of rubbing off on people, same as its evil twin belligerence. People give others their space here, even when the person brushing past them is arguably the most recognized sports celebrity in the world after Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali.

``It's a tradition that Bobby Jones started,'' said Davis Love III. ``He insisted on fans being polite and following the codes and ethics of the game. This tournament is an example that a lot of other tournaments should (learn from).''

The Masters Tournament was born in Eastern-seaboard boardrooms but now transcends classes and cultures. Love's late father was a golf-teaching pro in Georgia; Jesper Parnevik's father is Sweden's most famous comedian. Love may have grown up a couple of counties away from Augusta National and Parnevik, on a different continent, but they share the same reverence for the place.

``It's hallowed ground,'' said Parnevik, who finished tied for 21st last year in his Masters debut. ``I know all the Masters traditions.''

The Masters starts with gentility and goes from there. Its invitational field is small by design and large in stature. The list of winners over the years reads like a who's who in the game: Jack Nicklaus is a six-time champion, Arnold Palmer won here four times, and Sam Snead and Nick Faldo, three times. Other winners include Tom Watson, Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Jimmy Demaret and Ben Hogan.

Among golf's legends, it's easier to list who hasn't won here: Tommy Armour, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Greg Norman and, ironically, Jones himself, whose best finish in a dozen appearances was a 13th in the inaugural event in 1934.

``The tournament started on a great note because of Bobby Jones,'' Watson said. ``All of the players respected Bobby Jones and came to his tournament. It had a class all its own.''

Jones is long gone, but his legacy lingers. ``Every time you come here you feel very special,'' said Els, who is appearing in his fifth Masters. ``It's got a different feel about it, with the history of the whole place. There's an aura about Augusta National.''

Feeding the fascination is the fact that Woods, Norman, Els, Love and Co. are tackling basically the same layout as Sarazan, Nelson, Demaret and Hogan did before them. Imagine Mark McGwire being able to hit in the same ballparks that Babe Ruth or Roger Maris terrorized.

It's no small factor in the tournament's enduring popularity that today's best golfers can see how they stack up against yesterday's greats in the controlled climate that is Augusta National.

Said Watson, ``The golfing public and the nongolfing public alike understand when they talk about the (par-5) 15th hole in Augusta and the ball comes off the green back into the water, they know that shot. There's a familiarity with the Masters that is unlike any other major tournament.''

The course has undergone some nips and tucks over time. This year the 11th tees were moved roughly 20 feet to the right and the hole was lengthened a few yards, some tinkering was done to the greens on holes No. 6, 8 and 14 and extra pines were planted on the right side of the 13th fairway.

There are people who foresee wholesale changes in the course in the future, the better to stave off the destruction long hitters such as Woods can wreak. Last year Woods drove the ball an average of 323 yards on his way to whittling one stroke off the 72-hole tournament record that Jack Nicklaus had set in 1965 (10-1/2 years before Woods was born).

Masters chairman J.T. Stephens rejected the notion that the course is well on its way to obsolescence.

``The record was broken after 32 years and then only by one shot,'' Stephens said. ``We don't think that's any great cause for alarm.''

And if Woods should happen to duplicate his 18-under par performance this year?

``Well,'' Stephens deadpanned, ``I suppose that we'll anoint him.''

There's certainly no better place.

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