The voices from inside your television will talk all weekend about “Amen Corner,” hole Nos. 11, 12 and 13 at Augusta National, where the 73rd Masters Tournament begins today.

According to four Lawrence golfers just back from Augusta, where they walked the course Tuesday while players practiced, watching on TV just isn’t the same.

“We walked every bit of it, and no piece of grass was out of place,” said Chris Hutchens, reigning Lawrence Country Club club champion. “It was unbelievable. The azaleas were pink and in bloom, the dogwood trees white and in bloom.”

LCC head pro Jon Zylstra also was making his first trip to Augusta.

“The condition is so outstanding compared to any other golf course,” Zylstra said. “The fairways are perfect. The greens look perfect. The manicuring even around the bunker is just perfect. I don’t think you get a true picture when you watch it on TV. When you watch it on TV, you don’t realize the fairways have huge hills, unbelievable slopes.”

Zylstra noted that he saw several pros place a plastic disc on greens where they thought one day’s pin placement might be, and they rolled putts to the plastic disc. Out on the course, most of the practice, Zylstra said, took place around the greens with chips and putts, rather than drives and iron shots.

Dana Ogden, who lives in Kansas City and golfs out of Alvamar Country Club, noted the “attention to detail and organization” of every aspect of Augusta. Spectators can choose among three beer types, none with a brand name: regular, light, imported.

Lynn Riney of Lawrence, who golfs at Alvamar, was the only one of the four men who had been to Augusta, in 1994.

“That was the last year they didn’t turn anybody away,” Riney said. “If you showed up (for a practice round), you got in. Since then, I’ve applied online for tickets three or four times with no luck. This time, I got notification last September that I had four tickets for Tuesday, and the tickets showed up about a month ago.”

Riney said he told them all that course’s beauty would exceed expectations.

“They all were in agreement that it did,” Riney said. “You can watch all the high-definition TV you want. It’s just not the same.”

Hutchens said the foursome “couldn’t get near Tiger (Woods) on the practice tee. We overheard a guy say he’s been coming to this tournament for several years, and he said he never had seen the practice area closed. They wouldn’t let any more people in.”

The four arrived in Georgia on Saturday and were scheduled to return on a Wednesday night flight, ending a journey in which they played four rounds of golf on other courses in the area.

At the end of the day Tuesday, the group started to head for the exit, but decided to take in a little more history.

“We were ready to go, and we decided, ‘Let’s go back and do Amen Corner one more time,'” Hutchens said. “We did it, and there was Tom Watson coming through Amen Corner. We got to watch him hit his second shot on No. 11 and his tee shot on No. 12.”

The next Masters-worthy swings they’ll see will be on TV, and it won’t quite be the same.