AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — You can bet that U.S. Amateur champion Mason Howell is enjoying every minute of his first Masters.

There was the practice round he played Monday with Jacob Bridgeman, a winner on the PGA Tour earlier this year. In the evening, an exclusive dinner for the amateurs playing in the tournament. At night, a climb up the clubhouse stairs to the Crow’s Nest, the sleeping quarters nestled beneath the cupola where only amateurs can stay the week of the Masters.

Oh, and the 18-year-old gets to miss some classwork. He’s a high school senior.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a lot to handle,” Howell said with a smile. “It’s a long week.”

An unforgettable week, regardless of how he plays.

He lives in Thomasville, Georgia, a few hours south of Augusta National, near the Florida border. He'll be playing for the University of Georgia in the fall, which means he has quite the hometown crowd behind him this week, both the friends and family that were able to secure coveted badges and complete strangers familiar with his roots who keep yelling at him, “Go ’Dawgs!”

They should help to settle his nerves come Thursday.

That’s when Howell, who beat Jackson Herrington 7 & 6 in the U.S. Amateur finals, will tee off alongside Rory McIlroy, continuing the longstanding tradition of the reigning amateur champ playing with the defending Masters champion for the first two rounds.

The two of them already share a little history.

As a 9-year-old, Howell attended the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, where McIlroy tossed him a ball that he still has in his golf bag. It is stamped with “RORS” on the side of it, and Howell joked about teeing it up at Augusta National.

“I'm not,” he said, laughing. “But that would be a power move.”

Howell called McIlroy his “idol.” It's a feeling the Northern Irishman knows well, because McIlory felt the same way about Tom Watson, a two-time Masters champion. They played the first two rounds of the 2010 U.S. Open together.

“I think that’s the incredible thing about our game is," McIlroy said, “because our careers are long, so many generations overlap.”

Howell has been on big stages before. He played the U.S. Open himself last year, missing the cut, and represented the U.S. in both the Walker Cup and Eisenhower Trophy. At the Olympic Club, he became the third-youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur.

“I’ve known Mason for a long time now,” said Harris English, who like Howell grew up playing at Glen Arven Country Club and went on to play at Georgia. “I can’t imagine what he’s going through at 18 years old and playing in the Masters for the first time.”

The youngest player ever at the Masters was Guan Tianlang, who was just 14 when he played in 2013 after winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship. Tiger Woods is the youngest winner, triumphing by a record 12 shots in 1997 at the age of 21.

“Told him take it all in but manage your time well. Don’t get lost in everything. This is just another golf tournament,” said English, who tied for 12th last year in his sixth Masters start. “He has played in a lot of golf tournaments and he’s won a lot of big golf tournaments. Treat it as much like that as you possibly can.”

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Patrick Reed has played golf all around the world, often out of choice, now out of necessity.

Necessity so that he can start playing closer to home again.

One of the early and polarizing defectors to LIV Golf a few years ago, the 2018 Masters champion made the similarly difficult decision to leave the lucrative, Saudi-backed tour earlier this year and return to the PGA Tour. But under the terms of his reinstatement, Reed cannot play in its events until after Aug. 25, which means most of this season will be spent on the European tour.

Where he already has won twice ahead of his return to Augusta National this week.

“Everyone kind of gets to be a creature of habit, and wants to eat what they're comfortable with and go," Reed said after a practice round Monday, “but I like checking out all the local places and really experiencing the culture."

Pimento cheese sandwich, anyone?

The truth is as much as Reed enjoyed playing in Dubai and Qatar, where he packed wins around a playoff loss in Bahrain — 1,200 miles (7,500 km) from home, wife Justine and their two kids — there are few things Reed loves more than walking among the Georgia pines.

It's not exactly home; that's The Woodlands, Texas. But it sure feels like it.

Reed played college golf down the road at Georgia, and he recalls practice rounds spent at Augusta Country Club, where certain holes offer a teasing glimpse through the trees of the par-5 13th hole of its much more famous neighbor.

“There's just something so special about this place, the traditions behind it, and then on top of it, it's the one major that stays in the same place,” Reed said. “All the way back from when I played my first time ever here, even when we played in November that one (COVID) year, and any time I’ve come back and played it, it’s always in perfect shape. It’s one of those golf courses that you can’t hit just one golf shot. You have to play golf kind of old-school way. You have to hit shots, different shapes, different flights.”

Indeed, the Masters has been one of the few constants on Reed's ever-changing global calendar.

When he resigned from the PGA Tour, Reed effectively said farewell to familiar, high-profile places like Pebble Beach and Bay Hill for LIV events in far-flung corners of the world. But his status as a former Masters champion meant that, despite the deep rift that once appeared to threaten the game itself, Reed was always welcomed back to Augusta National.

He tied for fourth a few years ago. He was third last year.

"I feel like it’s the best test of golf we play all year round," Reed said. “For a guy that’s played just about everywhere in the world — just about — it’s one of those places that I say, hands down, it’s the best test of golf and best golf course I’ve ever played.”

Reed acknowledged Monday that LIV had presented him with a contract earlier this year to remain one of its biggest stars. But when he talked with his family, “I felt like the best decision for us was to come back and join the PGA Tour.”

Even when he left, Reed said, he always considered the PGA Tour to be the best barometer of golf greatness.

“I’ve played now every tour. I’ve played on every single one of them,” Reed said. "That’s the place that I feel like is best for us to go and compete against the top guys year in and year out, week in and week out, but at the same time, to be able to spend more time closer to home makes it a lot easier to spend time with the kids.

“My daughter is now 11. My little man's 8. It seems like time has flown," the 35-year-old Reed said. "I definitely want to watch them grow up and be home a little bit more, yet still at the same time to play against the best guys.”

Reed will be able to do that this week. And again on a weekly basis soon enough. But until his PGA Tour return this fall, Reed is building out a DP World Tour schedule that includes a few weeks spent on the road followed by a few spent at home.

It's a work-life balance that seems to work at this point in his life.

“You not only sharpen your game, but you get a lot of family time," Reed said. “Those travels overseas, it’s going to be a lot this year, but at the same time, I can’t wait to obviously go out there and compete, but at the same time, come home and see the family.”

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf