AUGUSTA, Ga. — If your favorite player didn’t make the weekend at the 2024 Masters and you’re looking for someone to cheer on, let us introduce you to the feel-good story of the week at Augusta National.
If you’ve been watching closely, you may have seen a yellow rubber duck on Denny McCarthy’s bag over the first two rounds. The design was specially made for the week to honor Madison Smith, a 16-year-old high schooler who died in October after battling metastatic colorectal cancer. Smith was diagnosed in August 2021 and the family learned the news while vacationing in Hawaii. Smith was an avid golfer and a big fan of McCarthy’s, who described her as “just the sweetest girl.”
“Her favorite thing was a rubber ducky and her favorite color was yellow, and she loved rubber duckies,” he explained earlier this week, “so I put a rubber ducky on my golf bag in honor of her.”
“The way she kind of handled herself through the couple-year battle she had was amazing. She never complained. She was extremely resilient,” McCarthy said of Smith. “She was just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, so this just kind of paying honor to her, respect to her. I think about her all the time.”
“So honestly, I learned probably way more from her in that couple years than maybe she could have learned from me or something,” he added. “She taught me a lot of the life lessons were kind of carry that on with me from now on.”
In his first appearance at the Masters, McCarthy shot rounds of 74-74 to sit at 4 over for the tournament and make the weekend cut. He’ll be honoring his late family friend for at least two more rounds, and that’s surely something to cheer – or quack – for.