AUGUSTA, Ga. — The first tee stood vacated, waiting for the next group of players to arrive.

But this wasn’t an ordinary first tee. This was the first tee. The tee where Arnold, Jack, Ben, Sam, Tiger and Phil began their magical journeys to winning the coveted green jacket.

This was the tee where logs of wood serve as tee markers. The tee where the starter simply announces the next player’s name, with no microphone and with no special booth. The first tee on a course where a sandwich still costs just $1.50 and a domestic beer is just $3.00 (an imported beer, the most expensive item on the menu, is $3.75).

It’s the tee where tradition lives on as the rest of the world blows past.

And on this bright April day, a 21-year-old college student stepped up to the tee.

“Fore please, Lee-on Kim now driving,” the starter announced.

His name was pronounced incorrectly, but he didn’t even appear to notice.

As the golden sun shined through the thinning gray clouds a little after 12:30 that Thursday afternoon, Lion Kim went through his normal routine — three steps back from the ball, three practice swings. He pointed his club at the target, closing one eye to get the best possible angle. One deep breath, and he was ready to take his first step into the bright lights of the Masters.

For any normal golfer, the lights would have been blinding.

But Kim was unfazed.

He striped his drive down the middle of the fairway and onto golf’s biggest stage, as two of the game’s most successful players — two-time Masters Champion Jose Maria Olazabal and 20-time PGA Tour Champion Davis Love III — walked ahead of their playing mate for the round.

After one hole, Kim was in the red numbers at one-under par.

“It was the best start you could ask for as an amateur,” Kim said after the round.

But for Lion Kim, every golfer’s brightest dream culminated in the darkness of Bryant Park Golf Course in Greensboro, NC.

***

It was July 18, 2010, and Kim was one hole away.

After a grueling week in which he advanced through six rounds, out-playing 154 of the country’s best amateur golfers and after a day in which he and opponent David McDaniel had already endured a seven-hour rain delay, Kim stood on the 13th hole tee box (his 31st hole of the day) in the 36-hole championship round.

He needed to tie or win only one of the next six holes to clinch the US Amateur Public Links Tournament and garner an invitation to the most prestigious tournament in golf.

As he walked to the tee box, darkness stood between the tee and the 13th green. And it wasn’t just dark.

“It was pitch dark,” Kim recalled.

Kim and McDaniel were faced with a decision — play the hole in the dark or come back the next day, a Monday, to finish the tournament.

“I just told him, ‘Hey, let’s keep playing,’ “ Kim said. “I’m sure he wanted to get it over with, too. It had been a long week for both of us.”

The pair decided to play on.

On a hole where normally two to three volunteers roam the fairways to spot any errant shots, 30 volunteers now peeked through the oncoming shadows, looking to help in any way they could.

“They had to listen to hear the ball land in order to find where the ball went,” Kim said. “David (McDaniel) and I just had to judge with how we hit it since we couldn’t see where the ball was going.”

Minutes later, as 70 to 80 people squinted through the darkness in hopes of catching a glimpse of the man who would eventually walk the pristine fairways of Augusta National, Kim stood on the 13th green, glaring down the 8-foot putt for par that stood between him and Augusta.

With the white back of the cup as the only reference point of his final destination, Kim pulled the trigger.

With each rotation, the ball became brighter. And as the ball made its final spin toward the hole, it dropped back into the darkness.

Lion Kim had punched his ticket to the Masters.

“That’s what all golfers live for,” Kim said. “One of the first things that popped in my head was, ‘Now it’s official.