It can just as easily revive a fentanyl zombie that catches a rattlesnake with a bucket and tongs. It can just as easily take on Augusta’s Irish mafia that detect traces of cocaine or marijuana with a blue torch. Its patrol car looks like a theme park against crime. His name is Juan Manuel Gómez, he was born in Badajoz, he works in the Grovetown, Georgia police, and for five years has been one of the guardians of the Amen Corner.
Juanma wears a short-sleeved black shirt and military-style green cargo trousers. Taser on his left, firearm on his right. The badge, hanging from his belt. His name on the ID, a wristband with the colours of the Spanish flag on his right wrist and the pin of the Federación Española de Golf give him away. He doesn’t hide, he’s patriotic and as soon as he spots a Spaniard he doesn’t hesitate to start a conversation. He came to the Masters for love and fell in love with the tournament at first sight.
“Being here for nine days watching the world’s elite compete on the most spectacular course in the world, seeing Augusta at dawn, how they work, the hospitality of the people and the staff… everything. It’s a unique experience, something everyone should live once in their life”, he tells Ten Golf with pride and an unmistakable Extremaduran accent. Roots don’t get lost. “Maybe, when I retire, I’ll go back to Spain, but for now I’m very happy here, it’s a quiet area, people are very hospitable and the work is much better than back there”, he says.
Juanma was born in Badajoz and spent his childhood in Montijo, a small town halfway between Mérida and the provincial capital. At 18 he moved to Rota, in the province of Cádiz, to join the Marine Corps and there he met an American sailor who would soon become his wife. They landed in the United States in Maine and a few years ago they were stationed at Fort Gordon, in Georgia. By then, Juanma had worked as a police officer and it became his main occupation. His first time at the Masters was on the Saturday of 2017, the day before Sergio García’s victory. He will turn 43 next Friday 10 April. “I’ve been celebrating at the Masters for six years”. Love at first sight.
Juanma arrives in Augusta at five in the morning and never leaves before seven or eight in the evening. That’s many hours watching over security at one of golf’s most iconic places. He makes sure nothing happens in the area of the course where the most spectators gather. It’s a responsibility and he takes it very seriously. He describes his mission like this: “That people don’t run, that they don’t make videos on championship days, that they don’t use cameras or devices that aren’t allowed, that no one crosses the line. It’s about everyone having a good day without bothering anyone”, he explains.
The main target in recent years are smart glasses. On practice days they can be used to take photos, but not videos. They’re easy to spot. “As soon as you see someone moving their head a bit oddly and slowly from side to side, you know they’re making a video”, he says. The first step is to ask them to delete it and if it’s a tournament day they confiscate the glasses and expel them from the course. Fraudulent tickets are another target. They exist.
Luckily, security problems at the Masters rarely go much further. A few who’ve had a bit too much to drink, a woman last year got past the police cordon and ended up getting onto the course through Gate 5, although she was arrested immediately and no one really noticed anything. Also, once, shortly after the trouble Tiger Woods had with his wife, a small plane flew over the course with a banner making an offensive reference to Tiger. They located the plane and put the pilot in custody.
Everything at Augusta is handled discreetly and in secret. No one ever reveals the speed of the greens, how many people attend each day, the resale ticket prices or how many people make up Masters security. “Ugh, it’s a huge number, we don’t know the exact figure because they don’t say, but between private security and police there are loads. You don’t see them, but as soon as there’s a problem five or six police appear”, he says.
Juanma is at the Amen Corner and on the 18th green we meet Alisha Saal, another guardian with Spanish blood. She was born in London by chance, since her father, a member of the United States Navy, was stationed there for a couple of years. However, at two years old they moved to Rota, very close to her mother’s Jerez homeland and since then she hasn’t stopped: Georgia, Italy, Rota and back to Georgia again. Her Andalusian accent is very marked. She enforces order where the Masters is decided. No nonsense. “As a child when we watched films at home I liked the ones about police. When we came to the United States I joined the police academy and that’s it. When it’s not Masters week, she works as a police officer inside a school, it’s very calm”, she explains. She is a police officer for Columbia County Board of Education
Alisha, 31, also hopes to return to Spain, although for now there is no option. Working conditions are much better in the United States. And it’s not just the financial side. In this respect, Juanma takes the opportunity to make a claim. “Here you have more overall support, you’re more backed up. Not like in Spain. There many colleagues are afraid to do anything, because then it always seems the criminal is given the benefit of the doubt before the police. And given the situation, seeing what happens day by day with Police and Guardia Civil, the attacks, the narco speedboats, civil guards murdered… and it seems like nothing happens. That doesn’t happen here. I tell my American colleagues and they don’t believe it, they’re shocked”, he says.
While they wait for the chance to return to Spain, they don’t miss the opportunity to talk to every Spaniard they meet around the course and, of course, they never miss the annual Romería del Rocío held in South Carolina. “Apparently, they’ve also set up a sort of fair in Atlanta, but we haven’t been yet”, they say. Roots are roots.
