Holtz earned his place by winning last September’s USGA Mid-Amateur title in the blistering Arizona heat. It was an exhausting 36-hole final against his 28-year-old opponent, Jeg Coughlin III, at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, with a weary Jeff lugging his bag. But Holtz conjured an unlikely 3&2 victory. This was his debut in a USGA event. And he won.

“I didn’t go out there with any expectations,” Holtz tells TG. “I played good at the right time and was able to just survive. It was timing. I found something and just rolled with it.”

The Masters has extended an invite to the Mid-Am champion since 1989, while Holtz also has a spot at the US Open to look forward to at Shinnecock Hills in June.

For now, though, it is only Georgia on his mind.

Evidently, Holtz has taken a wildly different road to Augusta than the other 91 entrants. His childhood passion was basketball and he was talented enough to earn a scholarship to play at Division 1 college level for Illinois State. He was the “ugly” enforcer with a penchant for nailing three-pointers.

But Holtz viewed golf only as a pastime. He’d play sparingly at Lakeside Country Club, his local nine-hole layout in his home city of Bloomington, with Jeff and his pals.

“Golf was secondary,” he says. “It was something that I just played during the offseason to get my mind away from basketball. Travelling takes over the summer, so you don’t really have a whole lot of time for golf. I played on the high school golf team but that was it. I didn’t play in any summer events. I certainly didn’t travel for any golf tournaments.”

Holtz grew up wanting to be like Michael Jordan but knew deep down he wasn’t cut out for it. In his fourth year, he was tentatively approached to switch to the golf team, but stuck with basketball and left a year later without any collegiate golf experience, a decision he now regrets.

By the time he left Illinois State in 2010, Holtz finally gave golf his full attention and practised hard for six months, making huge strides before taking the plunge to turn professional. He drove to mini tour events across Illinois, Florida and Carolina and takes pride in only missing a handful of cuts. But Holtz scarcely threatened any leaderboards either.

He was the equivalent of a boxing novice entering title fights without a single amateur bout.

“I was testing the waters to see where I stood just because I didn’t have any tournament experience,” he says. “The whole idea was to give myself two years and if I got better or was making some money, I’d keep playing. After four years, it was time to be done.”

Holtz sums up these years chasing his dream in two words: “lonely” and “expensive”.

“A lot of people don’t understand that you pay $2,000 into the tournament before you even tee up to play in it,” he says. “The winner might get 10 grand. If you make the cut, you might get a thousand bucks back. Ultimately you’re losing pretty much every time you tee up – unless you win.”

The biggest check Holtz earned was $14,000 for a runner-up finish in the Illinois Open, but without any sponsors or financial backing, it only served him for his next few tournaments. He kept his professional status after quitting the full-time grind in 2014 but had picked up a real estate job that allowed him to keep competing. But life got in the way. He got married, had two children, and when he stopped earning money at events on the weekends, golf became a recreational pursuit.

“Being in Illinois, it’s a wintery state,” he explains. “I usually put my clubs up come the end of November and then don’t really bring them out until April, unless we go on vacation somewhere.”

The process of pro golfers regaining amateur status often stirs controversy and eyes rolled when it emerged 14 of the 16 players in last year’s Mid-Am were once in the paid ranks. But there were no thoughts of Augusta when Holtz applied to the USGA to become an amateur.

He just wanted to start playing local events with his friends again. “That seemed to be more fun and the road I wanted to head towards,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking really big picture.”

Holtz’s preparations for playing in the Masters essentially began when he returned home from Arizona. Unusually, he has been taking golf trips through the winter to stay in “golf mode” while his wife Liz stays at home to look after the kids.

“The last two months has been pretty crazy,” he says. “It’s all a big team effort.”

The prep has included some magical reconnaissance trips to Augusta. “You get five days where you can play as many holes as you want,” Holtz explains. “What I noticed the most is the walk inside the ropes is much harder. Outside the ropes you’re not walking up to tees and greens and that extra few thousand steps makes a difference for sure. But I’ve taken the advantage, basically playing from sun up to sundown. I feel like I’m as ready as I can be.”

Holtz has also been organising passes for up to 40 family and friends to share his special week with him. Most poignantly though, Jeff – the man who taught Holtz how to play the game – will be carrying his clubs.

“Hopefully we’ll keep the tears for Saturday when we make the cut,” he smiles. “But the whole deal is going to be pretty emotional. I’m hoping to get all the emotion out on Wednesday so I’m ready to go come Thursday morning.”

So what about the first-tee nerves?

“I don’t like to use the word nerves,” he says. “I like to use the word adrenaline. I’m going to be ready. What that looks like in my mind, I don’t know quite know yet, just because I’ve never played golf in front of 50,000 people. I can sit there and imagine what it’s going to feel like but you don’t know until you get there. I’m just anxious for that opportunity.

“I just hope I get to the first tee and I can tee the ball up without falling over a couple of times!”

Before that heady experience, Holtz would love to play a practice round with his hero, Fred Couples. Yes, to glean some last-minute tips from the 1992 champion, but also because it’s just a really cool thing to do. He knows he is a complete outlier in this field and, just like he did as a patron, wants to get as much enjoyment from the week as possible.

You don’t make it to Augusta without a fierce competitive streak, though. Holtz still wants to play well. He’s a monstrous hitter – “I want to hit driver as many times as I can” – and a creative putter, but admits his weakness is his wedges. He’s one of 22 rookies in the field and the oldest by eight years. Of the six amateurs, the next oldest is 14 years his junior. He sits 3,262nd in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. The next highest-ranked amateur in the field is 112th.

So without diminishing any of his determination and talent – which in relative terms still border on the absurd – Holtz is the everyman competing in this year’s Masters.

“I ultimately want to enjoy this but I’m a competitor,” he says. “I want to be that low am, I want to make that cut. Am I silly enough to sit here and say, ‘I’m going to win it?’ No, I’m not. I’m a little bit more realistic than that. But at the same time, I’m not going there to get second, you know? I want to play good and get whatever I can out of my golf game.

“The thing about sports is you can find something that clicks and just start going with it and believe.”