SIERRA
Got hungry. It happens.
MEAL TICKET: This ticket to yesterday’s practice round at the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., was reassembled from the dog’s induced vomit. (
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When Russ Berkman called up the Masters golf tournament and asked for free passes he knew he was using the world’s oldest and lamest excuse — the dog ate his tickets.
But it was true.
Berkman, of Seattle, won an online lottery and was sent four passes to yesterday’s practice round and its traditional par-3 contest.
On Saturday, he was preparing to hop on a plane for Augusta, Ga., with friends when he came home and found paper scraps on his hardwood floor that bore an unfortunate resemblance to the prized tickets.
The rest of the tickets could only be inside Sierra, Berman’s Swiss mountain dog, he concluded. Not knowing what to do, he called his girlfriend. “And she says, ‘Well, you’ve to make the dog puke,’ ” Berkman told KJR-AM radio.
That would have stopped lesser golf fans. But Berkman knew that veterinarians have safely given dogs a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide to make them vomit. He tried that with Sierra, and in 10 minutes, it produced results.
Each ticket had been chewed into “roughly 20 pieces,” but by piecing them together, he had “about 70 percent” of all four tickets.
Then he called the Masters’ ticket office with the kind of excuse that has failed generations of students.
“First they said, ‘Are you serious?’ ” he recalled.
But after he pleaded his case, tournament officials issued him four fresh new passes, and Berkman made it to Augusta — just in time for the heavy rains that canceled yesterday’s practice round.