For many golfers and golf fans, early April when the Masters Tournament rolls in is their favorite time of the year. The annual Augusta National Invitation Tournament, as it was originally known, and its many traditions evoke a lot of sentimental thoughts. Global Golf Post’s Ron Green Jr., John Hopkins, Scott Michaux and John Steinbreder gather again for a virtual roundtable to discuss a few of their favorite things about the Masters. This time they are joined by a special guest – GGP senior writer Lewine Mair, who will accept the 2025 PGA of America Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism on the eve of this year’s tournament.
Favorite Masters?
Green: It’s tempting to say my favorite Masters is the next one because of the anticipation that comes each April but nothing tops 1986 to me. What Jack Nicklaus did on that golden Sunday and how it made everyone not named Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros or Tom Kite feel has never been matched – though Tiger in 1997 and again in 2019 came close. When the one-hour retrospective airs each April, I’m hooked all over again.
Hopkins: I’ve done 42 Masters and selecting my favourite is like asking me to name my favourite grandchild. Suffice to say that rather like your first kiss you remember your first visit to Augusta National and I certainly do mine. It was 1981, the year after Seve Ballesteros had become the youngest man in modern times to win two major championships. If his play in 1980 was good, and it was, it wasn't 12 months later. The headline on my story on Sunday 12th April 1981, which I have beside me as I write, reads: “A speedy banishment from the kingdom of Jack.” On his 24th birthday Seve had started with a 78 and followed it with a 76 for a two-round total that was 19 strokes worse than his first two rounds the previous year. He was only the third champion since 1934 to fail to survive the halfway cut.
Mair: Tiger Woods’ first win in the Masters (1997), though less because he won than because of what Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie had to say after playing with him in the third round and returning a 74 to his 65. When the media asked Monty if Tiger would go on to win, his reply went as follows: “Of course he’ll win. What’s more, he’ll win by more than nine shots.” He won by 12 from Tom Kite.
Michaux: It’s always hard to beat your first, and my first was 1997 when Tiger Woods was very hard to beat in his first major start as a professional. That Sunday morning, talking to Lee Elder and Earl Woods under the tree while Black employees at Augusta National came out of the clubhouse to watch Woods tee off into the history books, still evokes goosebumps.
Steinbreder: My first, in 1996. I was reporting a feature for Golf Digest on the finances of the four majors and had spent the entire week in town, immersing myself in all things Masters and getting more than a little overwhelmed at times. On Sunday morning, the great British golf writer Peter Dobereiner took me to breakfast in the library in the clubhouse and regaled me on the veranda for a couple hours with stories about the tournament. I headed out the front door when we were done, to fetch my car from the press parking lot and head to the airport for my flight home since I was not covering the actual tournament. I remember walking by Greg Norman just as he was getting out of his car in front of the clubhouse. Back home in Connecticut, I turned on my TV in time to watch the start of the second nine and the heart of Norman’s collapse. It was something to see.
Favorite Masters tradition?
Green: Augusta National’s strict adherence to the no-cell-phone policy goes against seemingly everything in our culture these days and I hope it never changes. Patrons talk to one another, no one is holding their phone up to video the golf they should be watching and everyone is reminded we can get along just fine without our phones for a few hours.
Hopkins: It’s a combination of the Saturday night dash by journalists to a downtown bar to initiate the latest colleague making their first visit to the Masters, the honorary starters ceremony, and the tradition of rewarding journalists who have covered at least 40 Masters with their own parking place and nameplate within a pitch shot of the press building.
Mair: The way two or three old-timers hang around after hitting their celebratory drives from the first tee and answer as many questions as you ask of them. Never is there a better time for the media to uncover a series of previously unused stories, even if it does involve one heck of an early start.
Michaux: Gathering under the tree. That sprawling live oak behind the clubhouse is quite simply the center of the golf universe where everyone who is anyone in the game – past champions, players, officials, club members, journalists, et al – mingle in the spirit that Bobby Jones intended.
Steinbreder: I love that the club continues to enforce its no-cell-phone policy, and the idea of being able to sit in other people’s unoccupied chairs around the greens and tees through the competition is so very quaint. And having covered more than a dozen honorary starters ceremonies, I find that kickoff hard to beat as well.
Favorite Masters concession item?
Green: I will leave others to debate whether the pimento cheese or egg salad is the sandwich of choice (I generally have at least one of each during the week), but the fried chicken sandwich is sneaky good, especially with some barbecue potato chips. Finish it off with some Masters mini moon pies and it would please even chef Gordon Ramsay.
Hopkins: The egg salad sandwich takes some beating. So does the box of pecans from a farm owned by Billy Morris, a straw-hatted, green-jacketed Southern gentleman member.
Mair: Everything is an absolute delight after years of eating pimento sandwiches which did not necessarily accord with old-fashioned British taste. When you take your pick from today’s first-class fare, you can almost see Gary Player giving an approving nod and saying we will write all the better for it.
Michaux: Might as well ask us to pick our favorite child. The egg salad, still only $1.50, is the best sandwich. The Southern cheese straws are the best snack. The cola is Coke, as it should be. Crow’s Nest is the best beer on tap.
Steinbreder: Is there anything better than the Georgia peach ice cream sandwich? And a cold Crow’s Nest Wheat Ale tastes pretty good at the end of a sultry spring afternoon, once my story for the day is filed.
Favorite Masters merchandise?
Green: In recent years, it feels as if I’ve done the very grown-up thing of buying a necktie with a subtle Masters logo at the bottom should I ever need to wear a tie. I have acquaintances who swear by the ladies’ straw hats and it is a nice touch to pour a glass of wine in Masters stemware. But my favorite items are still the plastic beverage cups, particularly the green ones in which unbranded beers are sold. Should the dishwasher ever break, I have enough Masters cups – both plain and green – to drink from a clean one for more than a month.
Hopkins: Were you to visit my home and stay overnight you might find a plastic cup stamped and dated with the Masters logo in your bathroom, in which to place your toothbrush. And on an evening, you might be offered a gin and tonic in one such plastic cup, too. The cost of said cup out on the course, even when including a soft drink such as "Diet Cola" didn’t approach $5. Remarkable.
Mair: Quite often, the merchandise centre has been my favourite point of call. Why? Because so much is so very different from what the other majors have to offer. The Open used to be on a par, selling lots of golfing antiquities and Scottish cashmere sweaters, the latter of which used to be lapped up by Jack Nicklaus’ wife and Arnold Palmer’s. My guess is that the Masters might come up with green jackets for patron’s dogs some day, if they haven’t done so already.
Michaux: I am still kicking myself for not recognizing how awesome the gnome was the first time they showed up. Every year my wife begs me not to bring another one home. Every year the challenge is securing the latest. Hope to collect a seventh this year.
Steinbreder: Ankle-length socks with the Masters logo. I buy at least a dozen a year. Honorable mention to the gnomes. I have never actually purchased one, because they kind of creep me out. But I love how popular they have become.
Favorite to win the 2025 Masters?
Green: Ludvig Åberg. He learned what not to do when in contention last year and he occasionally makes the game look so impossibly easy one wonders how he ever makes a bogey.
Hopkins: Sepp Straka, a name from left field. The least-known player in the world’s top 20. Otherwise Scottie Scheffler, who has been progressively improving from his self-inflicted hand wound. Either man would satisfy my head. As would Jordan Spieth. But my heart would burst if Rory McIlroy won.
Mair: Shane Lowry. He’s been playing well on a regular basis this year and would make for a jolly champion in an era when too many, to use that hideous cliché, don’t look as if they’re “having fun out there.”
Michaux: At the risk of being Charlie Brown kicking the football, I am ever hopeful that this will indeed be Rory McIlroy’s year.
Steinbreder: Rory, because I invariably bet with my heart and not my head. And for some reason, I think Jordan Spieth might make a run this time around. Wouldn’t that be a fun final pairing?