A Logo Unlike Any Other

In my debut blog post, I listed Bobproof examples (the terror of opening a juice box on demand, not babyproofing the house because it would Bobproofing it) - you get the gist.

As many of you know, and as proven conclusively in high school geometry, I am a word person to the core.

Which, brings me to the latest example to add to the Bobproof list – the Masters logo.

For almost three decades now, the Masters has been appointment television for me. From Tiger’s win for the ages in 1997 to his second win for the ages Sunday (more thoughts on that next week), the Masters is the tournament I most look forward to. I’ve read books about the tournament, could tell you something about every hole on the ‘second nine’, and can easily lose myself in a Masters YouTube rabbit hole during the long winter months.

As for the Masters logo – prominent enough to be recognizable to many non-golf fans -- I never gave it too much thought. When it came across the TV or was plastered on someone’s hat, I saw what looked to me like a heavily undulated green with the pin tucked front-right (to be totally honest, I might have thought how I would attack the pin – a high, soft fade so that I wasn’t faced with a crazy-fast downhill putt).

Two years ago that all changed.

I was reading a book to my then 5-year-old son Liam that included a picture of the Masters logo. Liam – who has always enjoyed pictures and thankfully does not have my sense of direction – proceeded to tell me that the tournament was played in Georgia.

I was stunned.

How could he look at a putting green and know where the tournament was played.

So I asked him. He replied earnestly, “Daddy, the logo is a map of the United States and the flag is where Georgia is.”

What? Was I talking to a geographic savant? I asked him to explain again. This time, he just said, “Daddy,” as if why he would need to repeat something so obvious.

I looked at the logo again. Sure enough, the kid was right. It doesn’t really look like a green. In fact, in a way that is obvious to a 5-year-old, it is a map of our country.

I went online to see if anyone else was confused, but it turned out my original interpretation of the logo was a distinctly Bobproof one. In fact, according to a story in The New Republic, the logo, “is unmistakably a rendering of the continental United States.”

The article notes that the map on the logo is actually “misshapen,” but the tradition bound club has no designs on changing it – the “cartographers” outrage notwithstanding.

Even more reason why it is a logo unlike any other.