Sport

Why is The Masters so special?

My dad doesn’t get excited about much. He’s not one for huge shows of emotion or grandiose gestures; he tends to take things in his stride.

Every year though, around the time spring begins to bounce into the air he clears his diary of work and other responsibilities for a long weekend as there is a sporting event that stirs something inside him.

The US Masters is the first of golf’s four annual majors to take place and it is special for a number of reasons.

The first is the course. Augusta National looks like a green paradise speckled with pastille coloured azaleas hidden from the public at the bottom of Magnolia Lane in Georgia. For the winner it will remain this way, but for a number of others it will turn into a fiendish test that frustrates even the most talented once the initial magic wears off.

This is the only major that does not rotate its location, so as a viewer you become familiar with the course again within a couple of hours of viewing and memories from tournaments past come rushing back. Whether it is Tiger Woods’ physics-defying chip into the cup on the 16th in 2005, Larry Mize chipping in on the 11th in 1987 or Bubba Watson circumnavigating a woodland to break Louis Oosthuizen’s heart in last year’s playoff, Augusta drips with history for each of its pores.

Then there are the traditions. The winner does not receive a trophy, but a snugly fitting green jacket, the same shade as the baize of a snooker table, which is presented by the year’s previous winner. There cannot be many sporting events where the biggest prize is a piece of clothing presented by someone else in the field.

Whilst that takes place at the culmination of the tournament, the week preceding it is almost as special. The Tuesday of tournament week is the Champions Dinner where all previous winners meet to dine. The current incumbent is asked to choose the menu and a 22 year old Woods offered up cheeseburgers, milkshakes and fries in 1998. It will be interesting to see what a man who wields a driver with a fluorescent pink shaft like reigning king Watson wants his peers to tuck in to.

On the Wednesday there is the jinxed par three competition; a nine-hole tournament of which all players and former champions are invited to take part in. Seen as a bit of fun before the real stuff begins, players often rope in celebrity pals, parents and the odd hear-melting toddler to caddy dressed in the compulsory white jumpsuits. Nobody has ever won this and the tournament itself in the same year, therefore some of the more superstitious players will politely decline.

Then the real action begins. With greens more like glass than turf that are quicker than a hiccup and impossible to read for mere mortals, iconic hole after iconic hole, Rae’s Creek and Eisenhower’s Tree to avoid, the world’s best could not ask for more picturesque surroundings. For years there was no coverage of the front nine for the armchair fan, but the tournament has moved into the 21st century and golf fanatics will be able to view pretty much every stroke around this treacherous playground.

Low scores are more than possible if the weather holds, and good shots are rewarded with birdies and eagles. On Sunday evening somebody will write their name into immortality after the week of their lives. My old man will be watching and so should you.

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