It’s August, not April, so I did a double-take when I looked last week at the upcoming DP World Tour schedule and noticed the next two tournaments on that docket: the Betfred British Masters, which concluded Sunday, and the Omega European Masters.
Call me old-fashioned, but I always thought there was only one tournament worthy of being called Masters. That would be the annual spring affair on the old Berckmans tree nursery in east Georgia that is not only one of professional golf’s four major championships but arguably the most prestigious tournament on the planet. Then, I remembered all the other events that have adopted that appellation.
Call me old-fashioned, but I always thought there was only one tournament worthy of being called Masters.
Earlier this year, for example, the DP World Tour staged the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, and next month the Asian Tour will hold the Mercuries Taiwan Masters.
Even the amateur game has been hanging that handle on its competitions. Consider the Australian Master of the Amateurs, which next takes place in January 2026 and will once again present the winners of its men’s and women’s divisions with a green jacket (albeit of a somewhat darker shade than the ones they hand out at Augusta National).
A few months after that, the Society of Seniors will be putting on its annual Senior Masters tournament in the Southern California desert.
Other tournaments have absconded with the Masters name. Such as the Australian Masters, which was held from 1979 to 2015 and once described by its founder, David Inglis, as “an unashamed copy” of the real thing. And the Club Colombia Masters, which was played for a spell at the Country Club of Bogotá in that South American land.
Lord knows, there have been more. Lots more. Like the Avantha Masters, which took place in India in the early 2010s. Also the BMW Masters that was played during that same period in Shanghai, China. Sergio García was the host of the Castelló Masters for a four-year stretch from 2008 through 2011, with the one-time winner of the actual Masters taking the ersatz edition on two occasions. For many years, the European Tour concluded its season with the Volvo Masters.
There was a German Masters, an Indian Masters and a Scandinavian Masters, too. Ones in Singapore, Rome and Portugal as well.
Masters, Masters, everywhere. Imitation, it appears, is the sincerest form of flattery.
But surely, there have to be other names.
John Steinbreder
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