Dan Jenkins covered his first Masters in 1951, and has been a staple at the season's first major ever since.
The Masters has long been associated with tradition: green jackets, pimento cheese sandwiches, and Dan Jenkins providing his singular take on the season's first major.
Though Jenkins will be providing his insights and barbs throughout the Masters on Twitter, you can catch up on some of the highlights of his past Masters coverage for Golf Digest below.
1986: At 46, Nicklaus turns back the clock
If you want to put golf back on the front pages again and you don't have a Bobby Jones or a Francis Ouimet handy, here's what you do: You send an aging Jack Nicklaus out in the last round of the Masters and let him kill more foreigners than a general named Eisenhower.
On that final afternoon of the Masters Tournament, Nicklaus' deeds were so unexpectedly heroic, dramatic and historic, the taking of his sixth green jacket would certainly rank as the biggest golf story since Jones' Grand Slam of 1930. That Sunday night, writers from all corners of the globe were last seen sitting limply at their machines, muttering, "It's too big for me."
Let it be recorded that Jack played those last 10 holes in 33 strokes -- with a birdie at the ninth, a birdie at the 10th, a birdie at the 11th, a bogey at the 12th, a birdie at the 13th, a par at the 14th, an eagle at the 15th, a birdie at the 16th, a birdie at the 17th and a par at the 18th. Poor Jack. The guy almost didn't know how to make a par.
1989: Faldo feels right at home winning at Augusta
As so often seems to happen to Greg Norman on the final hole of a major, his suitcase flew open, as they say. Further proof that Greg's strength lies in his long driving and his highly marketable charm lies in his golden dome, which is starting to rank up there with Notre Dame's. He also wears clothes well. Golf shots are another matter.
As on other occasions, it was like watching Norman being undressed before thousands of his adoring fans, then hearing them gasp at the discovery that his body is made of flesh and bone after all.
Scott Hoch lost the Masters twice in three holes. After hitting the most imaginative pitch shot of the tournament at the 71st -- a closed-face sand wedge that skittered up a damp bank and dived at the flagstick -- he blew the par putt from about five feet. Then on the first sudden-death hole against Nick Faldo, he blew it from 24 inches for the win. Two feet!
1992: Fred finally shows up
It took Fred Couples 12 years to win a major. Possibly that's because it takes that long to find a ball that will stop short of the water going straight downhill. No ball hitting the bank short of the 12th green ever stopped short of the water before. Not on Sunday. Not in all of the Masters Tournaments that had ever been played.
Sometimes you get a break of one kind or another when you're winning majors. Bobby Jones once had a wood shot skip across a lake to help him win a U.S. Open. Gary Player won the Masters one year after a fan leaped up to bat Gary's ball back onto a green when the shot was straining to find a water hazard.
Time will tell if Couples really wants the burden of being No. 1 in the world.
It gets heavy, as Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson or Lee Trevino or Arnold Palmer can tell you.
1995: Inspired by the lessons of his late teacher, Ben Crenshaw rides his magic putter to another emotional victory at Augusta
Not to bury the lead, but all in all, this Masters was a very bad week for atheists.
1996: When Greg Norman self-destructed, Nick Faldo was right there to claim his third green jacket
A strange object slowly bled to death before our very eyes for four hours, and it wasn't even a shark. Although Norman did it to himself and unleashed every Great White Can of Tuna joke in the book, his undoing also wrought sympathy from his most cynical critics. On the one hand, you could appreciate why Faldo hugged Greg on the final green. Why wouldn't you hug a guy who's been that nice to you?
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- Golf Digest,
- Jack Nicklaus,
- Masters,
- Dan Jenkins,
- Augusta National
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