Peyton Manning, Charles Barkley, Dwyane Wade, and Grant Hill walk into Augusta National Golf Club. This isn’t the opening line of a joke; it’s the beginning of an unforgettable vacation. Barkley joined Altitude Sports Radio’s Marc Moser, Vic Lombardi, and Brett Kane Wednesday morning to discuss the Denver Nuggets’ decision to fire head coach Michael Malone with just three games remaining in the NBA regular season. Before the interview concluded, Lombardi mentioned his recent golf outing at Augusta National, prompting Barkley to share details of his own recent visit to the famously exclusive course.
“I’m probably going to get in trouble with Peyton Manning, but I gotta tell you this. A few months back, Peyton called me and said, ‘I want to take you to Augusta for a couple of days, and we’re gonna stay there.’ I told him, ‘Oh, I’m in.’ He replied, ‘Well, let me finish,’ and I interrupted, ‘No, you’re finished, there’s nothing you can say to me.’ If he had said, ‘Hey, you got to cut my grass for the next two weeks,’ I’m like, I’m gonna cut your damn grass,” Barkley recounted. “He took me, Dwyane Wade, and Grant Hill down there, and we stayed. It was two of the best days of my life. It was unbelievable.”
Barkley reflected on having played at Augusta National once before, but noted this trip felt different as the course was being prepared for the Masters. The second day began with heavy rain, which only heightened Barkley’s admiration for Augusta National’s technology. “We play the first hole, it’s raining like a mother. We play the second hole, then it stops raining. Suddenly, we hear this noise,” Barkley said, mimicking a humming sound.
Manning explained to Barkley, Wade, and Hill that the sound came from the SubAir system at Augusta National. Originally designed to provide fresh air to the root systems of the course’s plants, this underground ventilation system can operate in reverse to effectively remove water from the grass. “It had been raining hard for three hours— as hard as it can rain,” Barkley remembered. “Then Peyton said, within 15 minutes, you won’t even be able to tell it was raining. Guys, it hummed for like 15, 20 minutes. You could not even tell it had rained. It was crazy. I’d never seen anything like it.”
“It was two of the greatest days of my life,” Barkley concluded. “But thanks, Peyton Manning, for taking us there.”
