The Masters

The first major golf tournament of the year kicks off today.   The Masters is one of my favorite tournaments to watch every year.   I usually only watch on Sunday, but like the saying goes, “The Masters really starts on the back nine on Sunday.”   I will follow the leaderboard today and tomorrow.   I might catch a few holes on Saturday, but you can bet that on Sunday I’ll be watching.

The Masters is a beautiful tournament to watch.   The course is idyllic.   Everything is as close to perfect as money can buy.  I suspect every flower has been individually inspected.   The pine straw has probably been laid out by hand.  The grass has been crawled over by the maintenance crews who have fixed every blemish.   It’s gorgeous.  I really admire the fact that the members of Augusta National make it this way.   It’s a part of what makes the tournament what it is.   The members have kept it exactly the way it should be, their tournament.   The patrons and television viewers are just invited guests.

There are 4 major golf tournaments every year.   They are, in order, The Masters, The US Open, The Open Championship (sometimes incorrectly called The British Open), and the PGA Championship.   The US Open and the Open Championship are put on by the governing bodies of golf in the United States and Great Britain.   That is to say by the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.   It makes perfect sense that those are major tournaments.   The PGA Championship is organized by the Professional Golfers Association.   This also makes sense that it would be major tournament.   The Masters, however, is hosted and organized by a single private golf club with about 300 members.  Why would it be a major tournament?   Well, in my opinion, the reason is history.   It’s a major tournament because since 1934 the best players in the world have been trying to be included is the small group of invitees.   The Masters is a cool tournament.   It’s a major because we all agree that it is.