★ The Masters

01Por que importa

The Masters is the most watched and the hardest to attend of golf's four majors, and its authority rests on a decision the club made early and has never revisited: to control the event completely rather than to maximize it. The field is small, the course is unchanging, the commercial presence is restrained, and the ticket is allocated rather than sold at market. In our reading, that combination is why the tournament reads as a fixed point in the international calendar rather than as an American sporting event: it is the week the golf year starts, the first weekend of the American spring social season, and the only major whose date, venue and format a traveller can plan around a decade ahead.

02A semana ao seu redor

Augusta is a city of a few hundred thousand and the tournament roughly doubles it.

The tournament's satellite programme is unusually large and almost entirely private, run from those leased houses by equipment manufacturers, financial firms and apparel brands.

03Quando chegar

The practice rounds are the ones to try for. Monday and Tuesday give the run of the course with players on it, access to the merchandise building, and a fraction of the crowd; Wednesday adds the Par 3 Contest and is the most oversubscribed of the three.

04Onde se hospedar

There is very little conventional hotel stock near the course, so the week runs on house rentals. The neighborhoods immediately around Augusta National, along Berckmans Road and toward the Country Club Hills area, are where most of the corporate housing sits and are within walking distance of the gates. Downtown Augusta along Broad Street and the river has the city's small hotels and its restaurants and bars, ten minutes from the course.

05Acesso e hospitalidade

Augusta National allocates rather than sells. The long-standing four-day series badges are held by patrons on a list that opened in 1972, closed in 1978, reopened briefly in 2000 and closed again; those badges pass only to a surviving spouse, and the club has never reopened the list. Everyone else applies through the club's online random selection, which is the only authorized route to a ticket and which covers the three practice days and a small number of daily tournament tickets. Applications are made in the months after the tournament for the following year and every applicant is notified by email whether or not they are drawn. Reporting by Golf Digest gives the club's 2027 prices as USD 125 for the Monday and Tuesday practice rounds, USD 150 for Wednesday and USD 160 for each tournament day, which are a fraction of what the secondary market charges; Wikipedia records the four-day series badge at USD 525 for 2026.

06Onde ocorre a actividade social

On the property, the public gathering points are the lawn beneath the oak tree behind the clubhouse, which is where the golf industry stands all week, the concession pavilions, and the merchandise building. Everything else at Augusta National is closed.

07Como chegar

08Aspectos práticos

09Histórico

Bobby Jones retired from competition in 1930 having won the amateur and open championships of both Britain and the United States in a single season, and with the investment banker Clifford Roberts he built a club in Georgia where he could play in private. The Augusta National Invitation Tournament, first held in 1934, was conceived as a gathering of Jones's friends and contemporaries; it took the name Masters in 1939.

10Quem está presente

Series-badge patrons, many of them multi-generational holders from Georgia and the Carolinas; the golf industry in full, including manufacturers, agents, media and tour officials; corporate hospitality from American finance, law and industry entertaining in leased houses; and an international minority of golf travellers who have waited years for a ticket.