Josh Berhow

Marcel Siem competed earlier this year.
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Marcel Siem has played in 14 majors (and counting), but he has never played in the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, which is, of course, a major The Holy Grail is also the most difficult to enter.
But the 44-year-old German did it think He qualified for the Masters at one point in his career, then realized he was failing miserably, and it was one of the craziest weeks he'd ever experienced.
On the latest episode of DP World Tour's Life on Tour podcast, Siem explained that crazy week in 2013 when he was sure he was going to Augusta… until he wasn't.
On March 31 of the same year, Sim won the DP World Tour Trophée Hassan II in Morocco, and his world ranking jumped from No. 72 to a projected top 50 position. Timing is also crucial. One week before the Masters, the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking will automatically qualify for the event.
Sim thought he was coming in. People at the scene congratulated him one after another, and he even called his wife home to report the good news. She celebrated from afar, partying at home, thinking she and her husband were about to compete in the Masters.
But about five hours later, Sim got the call. As a result, he was left out of the top 50 due to a finish at the PGA Tour's Shell Houston Open. Henrik Stenson birdied his final two rounds for a 66 to tie for second, which moved him up from 53rd to 42nd in the OWGR rankings and secured a spot in the Masters. It also moved Siem to 51st, one spot below qualifying and just a painful 0.0251 points behind 50th-placed Russell Henley.
(Ed. notes: In the podcast, Sim said Stenson and Daniel Berger's stellar finish knocked him out of the top 50, but Berger didn't play in the Houston Open, didn't crack the OWGR top 1,500, and didn't play on the PGA Tour that season. Anyway, Stenson is in and Sim is out. )
The PGA Tour took notice of Sim's tough showing and invited him to play in next week's Valero Texas Open. But now to get an invitation to the Masters, he must win Texas Open. But first he had to get there—and fast.
Since traveling to the U.S. from Morocco wasn't easy, Sim had to use some of his first-place winnings to book a private jet back to Frankfurt, Germany, making a stop in the country before flying to Texas. He returned home around 3 a.m. on Monday but was locked out. He knocked on the door and started calling his wife, but no one answered.
He also became nervous. His flight from Frankfurt was scheduled to leave at 6:40 a.m., but he still had to drive 90 minutes to get there.
“So I don't have the keys, nothing,” he said. “So I rang the doorbell and no one opened the door. I was like, 'Come on! I gotta hurry up!'”
Finally, he went around to the back of the house and looked through the window to see his wife sleeping on the couch after celebrating her husband's first Masters berth.
“My wife drank a lot of champagne, rum, whiskey and so on and passed out,” he said.
Eventually, Sim made it to Texas, where he got one last chance to qualify for the Masters and got off to a promising start.
He birdied 10 and 11 in the final round to fall one shot behind with seven shots to play, but he squandered his chance with a triple-bogey 7 on the par-4 12th. (Sim recalls it being 9 points, but any score is not helpful in winning a golf tournament.)
He finished tied for 10th, seven spots behind the winner, and received $155,000.
“Great check,” he said. “At least it paid for the stupid private jet from Morocco to Germany.”
“But it was intense, you know?” he continued. “You're in the Masters after a round on Sunday and five hours later you're out. All of a sudden, in Texas, you get another chance and you're out. Yeah, It's tough. It's really tough.”
You can listen to Seim's full podcast here.

Josh Berhow
Golf Network Editor
As editor-in-chief of GOLF.com, Berhow is responsible for the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport's most popular news and service sites. He spends most of his time writing, editing, planning, and wondering whether he will ever make it past 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. He is a graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota, and lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and two children. He can be reached at joshua_berhow@golf.com.