Like the increasing momentum that pulls us toward Christmas the closer it gets or the magnet that raises speedometers as Atlanta approaches, the Masters has a similar effect.
It’s out there like those giant moon moments that hang over the horizon, so big it takes a moment to sink in.
The Masters is like nothing else in golf, and not just because it has been almost nine months since Cam Smith hugged the Claret Jug and then walked off to join LIV Golf, leaving a major-championship void that feels as wide as the Grand Canyon.
It is the most aspirational event in golf – for players and for those who keep the game close – and the Masters has become one of the most transformational leaders in golf.
That’s a notion that seemed preposterous not that many years ago when Augusta National was protective of everything, especially its privilege and privacy.
Those are still prized pieces of the exclusive membership, but over the past two decades, Augusta National has become a leader rather than an impossibly green monolith. It has not ignored its place, its power or its moment, instead embracing them to help guide the game forward.
There are some who insist the club wields too much influence, but what’s the value in having a voice if it’s not used? The same goes for the club’s famously closed doors, which now feel opened wider than ever, at least for the coming 10 days.
This weekend, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur will conclude there, and what some consider the happiest day in golf, the Drive, Chip & Putt Finals, will celebrate the future with gap-toothed smiles and high-fives from green jackets, members and past champions alike.
A place that once refused to televise more than the back-nine holes will host a live, streaming celebrity-speckled video game event on Sunday evening after the Drive, Chip & Putt, celebrating the club’s inclusion in the latest iteration of the PGA Tour’s licensed video game.
Then comes the main event, which has an almost mystical ability to create drama and find the right champions.
That, of course, will be played with a strict no-cell phone policy still in place and with white, hand-operated scoreboards gradually telling the story of what’s happening around the property, two elements that should remain in place going forward.
Augusta National sits on 365 acres, tucked a long magnolia-framed driveway from Washington Road and its fast-food smorgasbord, but its reach is global.
When chairman Fred Ridley speaks on Wednesday morning of Masters week, the golf world will be listening.
This is a tumultuous moment in golf. Acrimony hangs in the air like pine pollen.
The PGA Tour-LIV Golf battle, while tilting heavily in the tour’s favor at the moment, will be brought into sharp focus when players from both sides mingle at the Masters. Meanwhile, the battle over a potential golf ball rollback for elite male players is likely to dominate conversation among the game’s leaders gathered under the famous oak behind the Augusta National clubhouse.
When chairman Fred Ridley speaks on Wednesday morning of Masters week, the golf world will be listening. Though Ridley has spoken in support of the game’s traditional structure, the club stuck with its traditional qualifying criteria rather than deny LIV Golf members invitations. It was the right move.
It was Ridley, though, who made the difficult decision to extend the par-5 13th hole by 35 yards amid the dynamic distance gains in recent years, and his take on what the USGA and R&A have presented regarding a rollback will resonate. For years, there have been suggestions that Augusta National might create a slightly rolled back ball for Masters play, but it never happened.
If the USGA and R&A enact the rollback scheduled to begin in 2026, it’s expected that Augusta National will go along. If it doesn’t, it would undermine the efforts of the rules makers, effectively dooming the idea.
The other major championships have their particular charms and personalities, but the Masters stands apart, riveting, romantic and, potentially, revolutionary.
The creation of the Asia-Pacific Amateur and the Latin America Amateur championships widened the scope of amateur golf, and the addition of the ANWA has been even more successful than it was surprising when Ridley introduced it in 2018.
The club funds two scholarships and the women’s golf program at nearby Paine College as well.
The Masters could have remained as it was, insular and above the fray, but it has become more than it was.
It has retained what separates it: the global familiarity with a course that few will ever play; the demands of Amen Corner; the abundance of springtime in the South; the pimento cheese sandwiches; the language of sound rumbling up from down the hill; a sense of civility; and, now, what feels like a sense of responsibility.
The Masters matters, perhaps now more than ever.
E-MAIL RON
Top: The Masters is more than just the most aspirational stage in golf.
scott k. brown, angc