While golf was being played all around him, Bob Elliott leaned against a telephone booth along the No. 8 fairway and chatted with his father.

``I'm calling you from behind the No. 8 tee at Augusta,'' he told his 94-year-old father, Jack, in British Columbia, Canada. ``At Augusta, the Masters.

``Anyhow, I was just coming by this phone booth and thought I'd see how you're doing. I'm going to be sitting on the 16th green, the 16th -- the par 3 with the water in front of it''

Plenty of people are doing business on the pay telephones around Augusta National Golf Club during the Master Tournament. But just as many golf fans head for the phones for another reason. Like Elliott, they want to share their Masters Tournament experience with friends and family back home.

``I told my father, `I didn't think you'd ever gotten called from Augusta National before,''' said Elliott, who is from Edmonton, Canada. ``He was surprised to get the call.''

Like so many people who attend the major golf tournament, Andy Davis of New York had to check in with his office. But he also dialed up his grandmother, Bernice Tiscornia, who gave him tickets to the Masters, and gave her a round three update.

Davis told his grandmother the weather was overcast and that he was sitting at the seventh hole. But she was more interested in the players.

``She talked about Freddie (Couples). He's her favorite,'' Davis said. ``She'd be down here if she could.''

University of South Carolina junior Brandon Harrelson also called home from the course Saturday, using his parents' toll-free number because he didn't have any change.

``Guess where I am?'' Harrelson asked his mother, Susan Pridgen, in Mullins, S.C.

When she found out her son was at the Masters, Pridgen asked him about the grass because she was working in her yard.

``I gave her my line that this is where God reached down and touched the Earth,'' he said.

At the same bank of telephones, Jennie Canon's friends waited impatiently as she phoned two pals at home in California. She left a message on one friend's answering machine and asked the other's roommate to pass along greetings from Augusta.

``I just wanted to leave a message,'' she said. ``I'm at the Masters this week. Yeah, the Masters. Augusta, Ga.''

For four years Andrew Bolton, a missing-persons investigator with the Richmond County Sheriff's Department, has worked at Augusta National during the Masters. But this is his first year on the course, and he planned to take a break Saturday to call his 9-year-old son Matthew.

``I told him no matter what he does Sunday, get in front of a TV set,'' said Bolton, who was in awe of the landscaping at Augusta National. ``I was trying not to be overwhelmed by the scenery, but this place is beautiful.

``It's like everybody says,'' he said. ``It is special.''