The month of October is coming to its conclusion, the month of November begins Sunday, and daylight saving time is coming to an end for 2020 early Sunday morning. With all that in mind, we’re a mere 12 days away from the commencement of the Masters at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Originally scheduled for the second week of April, the tournament was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The world’s best golfers will tee it up seven months after the fact in a quest for not only millions of dollars and worldwide acclaim, but also for a place in the history of the game of golf.
The Masters is one of golf’s four major championships along with the United States Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. It has a long and glorious history. It is the only major championship that doesn’t rotate to multiple sites and longtime fans of the game already know where the pin will be placed on the 16th green come Sunday along with a myriad of other Masters’ traditions. The only thing about this year’s Masters that is not traditional will be the time. The Augusta National Golf Club will lack the beautiful spring flowerings of April and the course itself will play dramatically different from the way it is usually set up earlier in the year.
Augusta National was the dream course that amateur great Bobby Jones had always wanted to build and design. Following his brief but brilliant amateur career that included four U.S. Open victories, three British Open titles, five U.S. Amateur triumphs, and a British Amateur win over an eight-year period of time. Jones retired from the game at age 27. He found an old nursery site in the town of Augusta, Georgia, enlisted the top architect of the day, Alister Mackenzie (Pasatiempo, Cypress Point, Crystal Downs), and completed his dream course in 1933. The following year Jones hosted the Augusta National Invitational. Horton Smith won that earliest version of the tournament and collected $1,500 from the total purse of $5,000. That was pretty good money during the heart of the Great Depression.
The 1935 version of the Augusta National Invitational made front page news as six-time major champ Gene Sarazen hit the “golf shot heard round the world” and won the tournament the following day in a playoff over Craig Wood. Sarazen’s “shot” was a 4-wood second stroke on the par-5 15th hole that went into the cup from 225 yards out for a double-eagle two. This new tournament held by Bobby Jones was big-time news in the era of Babe Ruth, Red Grange and Joe Louis. Sarazen’s double-eagle two was the first of only four Masters albatrosses.
Jones received many accolades from the top pros of the day for Augusta National and he decided that he wanted to be able to host a U.S. Open at his course. However, the USGA declined his offer because they felt that the heat would be too excessive for golf in Georgia in June. Instead, Jones decided to continue to upgrade his tournament and in 1939 he changed its name to the Masters. As time went on, Jones added new wrinkles to the Masters. In 1949, he began giving the champion a green Masters blazer at the concluding awards ceremony. They would become honorary Augusta National members. In 1952 the tradition of the Past Champions Dinner came into play. It is hosted by the defending champ who chooses the menu.
From its earliest days, the winners of the Masters were usually the top golfers of their era. From 1937 through 1954 (with three Masters canceled because of World War II), the foursome of Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Jimmy Demaret won 10 of those 15 Masters tournaments. From 1958 through 1978, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player put on the green jacket a total of 13 times. Although there wasn’t a dominant Masters champion from 1980 through 1999, it was the era of the European titlist. During those years, Europeans won the Masters a total of 11 times with champions of note such as Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Jose Maria Olazabal.
During the course of his career, Jack Nicklaus won 18 major titles. Six of those wins were at the Masters. Tiger Woods has five Masters victories while Arnold Palmer has four. In the runner-up category, Nicklaus has come in second place a total of four times. So too has Ben Hogan and Tom Weiskopf. Yet every now and then you do get a surprise Masters champion. In 1946, Herman Kaiser beat Hogan by one stroke to win the green jacket. Two years later Claude Harmon repeated the feat. And Art Wall won the 1959 Masters by one shot over Cary Middlecoff. Perhaps the most surprising winner was Augusta native Larry Mize who won the 1987 Masters in overtime following a dynamic chip-in on the second playoff hole. He beat the two of the top golfers of that era in a playoff, namely Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman. Mike Weir won the 2003 Masters, making him the first Canadian as well as the first lefty to don the green jacket.
The purse at this year’s Masters is $11.5 million and the winner will take home just north of $2 million. Tiger Woods is the defending champion. The course will be stretched out to 7,475 yards and will play to a par of 72. This year’s version of the Masters will be without spectators because of safety concerns because of the pandemic. This year’s field includes 96 golfers and it will be based on the original field from April of 2020. For instance, the Masters usually invites those golfers ranked within the top 50 in the world golf rankings. However, they are basing it on the top 50 list from March 15, 2020. Normally the top four finishers from the U.S. Open get into the Masters field. Those top four will be from the 2019 U.S. Open while the top four from the recently contested 2020 U.S. Open will be in the field for the 2021 Masters.
The PGA Tour is in Bermuda this weekend and heads to Houston for next week’s circuit event. However, you can be sure that the game’s top players are already thinking about the November version of the 2020 Masters. Some of the game’s top linksters have spent the last month working out the nuances of 48-inch drivers while others are looking at ways to adapt their putters to the Augusta National greens that will be slower than the mid-April version that they are used to. The air will be heavier in Georgia in November and the ball flight will be somewhat diminished. In some ways, the greats of the game will have to adapt to a uniquely different course from the one that they are used to. Nonetheless there is a major championship to be won as well as a place in golf’s history books.
Next week we will focus on the current field for the Masters as well as assess whether it will be a Masters for the bombers or whether Augusta National will reward the control players who can putt lights out. It’s just 12 days to the Masters.
