At the Masters, the player/coach relationship is crucial. And different

Players, coaches and caddies practice on the range on Wednesday at the Masters. Getty Images AUGUSTA, Ga. — A head coach to your favorite golfing stars offers this: “You hear this more at Augusta than anywhere else: ‘I can’t take my range game to the course.

’” This is not a pre-tournament comment. It’s something you hear after the Thursday rounds have been posted. There’s a reason for that as there is a reason for everything.

The tournament practice range at Augusta is about 300 yards wide, flatter than the famous club driveway behind it, with only about a dozen pins and a dozen pines at which to aim. On the course itself, once you’re off the tee, there are few flat lies, lots of pine straw, greenside grain leaning this way and that — and a nervous system in overdrive. So in that sense, the range and the tournament course — on Thursday, on Friday, on the weekend — are on different planets.

But there’s something else that happens more at the Masters , the first Grand Slam event of the year, than anywhere else. At 4:30 Thursday afternoon, there were six players on the range and six instructors. There were two players on the putting green with instructors.