Florida State Sophomore Drew Kittleson, the runner-up at the 2008 U.S. Amateur Championship, is penning an exclusive diary for masters.com during the 2009 Tournament. The Scottsdale, Ariz., native is making his first Masters playing appearance in only his second year with one of college golf’s most successful programs. During the Masters, he will write daily on his experiences and performances in his initial showing at Augusta National Golf Club. This is his second entry.

After thinking about this for so long, I don’t know if I could have had a better first day for my Masters week.

Probably the highlight was playing my practice round with Masters champion Mark O’Meara today at Noon.

He had a lot of stories about life and different stuff, not just about golf, so it was a fun walk and have a good time together. He’s gotten involved in architecture along with fly fishing. He has kids my age, and of course, knows Tiger really well.

I expected the crowds to be big today, and they certainly were. That’s what makes it exciting, just to have everybody here.

For my first tee shot, I blistered it right down the middle of the fairway, which felt pretty good. I probably should have saved that for Thursday’s first round.

I had known Mark for a while because of his son Shaun. We’ve played some golf together, and I actually had dinner with Mark and his family once so he was very nice to ask me to play to start off my week.

He’s got a lot of knowledge about the course and the Tournament, and we had a really good time together. He also gave me some really good advice for the week ahead. He said to just enjoy it more than anything. You want to win and do well, of course, but it would be sad if you didn’t just soak it all in and enjoy it.

Mark told me when he played here as an amateur (1980), that’s what he did ,and I should try to do that as well.

Of course, I had to ask him about his victory here in 1998. He was very modest but just said the course was a lot different than when he won.

Still, he has a Green Jacket and is going to the Champions Dinner Tuesday night so that’s pretty cool.

Even with the wind swirling and the temperatures in the 50s and 60s, I felt fine playing in just shirt sleeves when we teed off today. I was kind of nervous on the first tee, but it was OK.

One of the great things about the week is getting of hang out with so many of my friends from college and back home in Arizona. Man, there are so many of them and they are everywhere. Coming off the first green today, one of my buddies stopped me, and it was great to see everybody.

Mark and I just played nine holes today, but that was OK. After we got finished, I got to take about 10 of my buddies down to Amen Corner, to take pictures and check out everything.

None of them had ever been here before, so it was pretty cool to show them everything. Hopefully, I’ll play in a lot of Masters in my career, but there is always something about seeing things for the first time.

After that, I just got something to eat, hit some balls, took them back to my dad’s house and on to where they are staying.

I had to hurry and get back to my room at the Crow’s Nest, to clean up for the amateur dinner held each year on Monday night.

To me, that’s one of the real great things about playing golf. You get to meet so many interesting people from all over the world. I, of course, knew Danny (Lee) from the U.S. Amateur, but I didn’t really know a lot of the other amateurs.

Getting to meet them this week and trying to form friendships is one of the really great things about what we do with golf.

Other than that, it was a pretty normal day. I’ve been here since Friday night, but my dad and I just rented a hotel room for the weekend. I got to the course about 8:30 a.m. today, had breakfast in the clubhouse and just got ready to play, then warmed up on the range for today.

After the dinner tonight, I’m going to stay in the Crow’s Nest in the clubhouse. I’m keeping my clubs there and it’s real close to stay after the dinner.

On Tuesday, I’m scheduled to play a practice round at 8 a.m. with Phil Mickelson, weather permitting, so that should be pretty interesting.

The week has only just started, but already I’m having a great time. It should only get better.