LOS ANGELES _ Scott Brown tied for the best finishing round at Riviera Country Club on Sunday with a 68, and wound up in a three-way tie for second. Had Brown won, he would have qualified to play in the Masters for the first time.
Here's why that matters: Brown was partly raised by his grandparents, Elizabeth and Herman Thacker, whose home is the lone house next to Augusta National. The golf club spent a reported $40 million in recent years buying up the Thacker's old neighborhood for more Masters parking. But the Thackers declined to sell their modest home, a three-bedroom brick abode where they have spent the last six decades.
When Brown was a boy, he and his grandfather routinely attended the Masters.
"I'd take chairs and put them at the 16th hole," Herman Thacker told The Los Angeles Times last year. "Then I'd come back home and he'd eat breakfast, and then we'd go back over there and the chairs would still be there. People don't bother them. We stayed right there all day."
Brown, 36, who lives in Aiken, S.C., has won one PGA Tour event, the 2013 Puerto Rico Open, but that's not a qualifying tournament for the Masters.
He had an indication early last week he would do well at Riviera.
"I did play really well in the Monday pro-am," Brown said. "I think I shot like seven-under and it was blowing like 30 (mph) out here. Had a hole-in-one on 16, so it was a fun day."
