The announcement that Gary Player has been chosen to join Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in hitting the first drives at the Masters further enhances the game's best annual ceremony. With the longevity of its champions providing much to remember and celebrate, and its venerated settings offering dramatic stages, golf is wonderfully suited to ceremony. These formalized links to the past provide necessary reinforcement to the idea that the more the game changes, the more it stays the same.
1. Opening Drive at the Masters
Simple and natural and always imbued with history, the early Thursday morning ritual never fails to feel right. It began in 1963 with Fred McLeod, who played in the first Masters in 1934, and Jock Hutchinson, who played in the second. The ceremony was discontinued after 1976, but picked up again in 1981 with Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen. Ken Venturi was the sole starter in 1983, but Nelson and Sarazen returned in 1984, along with Sam Snead. Various combinations of those three would continue the tradition until 2002, when Snead did the honors alone. Arnold Palmer was chosen to be the sole starter in 2007, and was joined by Jack Nicklaus in 2010. Player's inclusion means the Big Three will perform together again.
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