Whether Masters Sunday falls before, after or on Easter, at the Augusta National, we always walk on colored eggshells.
It’s not the venue’s number of rules, per se, as much as their unforgiving enforcement. Even for the generally law-abiding, rule-following citizen who has secured his or her ticket on the up and up and is about to bite into a day as sweet as a Georgia peach, a small pit of paranoia rises in the stomach as one approaches the gates. We’ve all heard the stories—the woman who accidentally brought her phone and it rang, the broadcaster who used the wrong word, the golfer who hit a second practice shot, the member’s guest who didn’t wear socks to dinner, the man who lost his senses in the pines at sunset and stole a cup of sand—so that everyone worries, even if just subconsciously, that they, too, could inadvertently commit some transgression that ends their day.
A lovely young lady greets you good morning in singsong and scans your badge, but the mute, barrel-chested state troopers by her side remind you that everything here is done with a Southern accent. And this is why the Masters has the best atmosphere of any golf tournament—dare we say, any sporting event—in the world.
Recall the ugliness of golf’s last major. OK, the Ryder Cup isn’t a major, but it might as well be for fan attendance, property buildout, TV coverage, concentration of talent and pomp. Rowdier team spirits aside, what happened last fall at Bethpage Black was a disgrace the PGA of America is still reeling from. Obscenities and beers hurled at players and their wives only begin to convey the pandemonium. A New York home game, never have I had so many golf friends tell me they either regretted going or were glad they skipped. This attitude shores up with our poll of Golf Digest+ members who overwhelmingly said they’d rather witness the putt that wins a Masters in-person than the putt that wins a Ryder Cup.
Curious, isn’t it, how so much of the energy in pro golf is being directed to create events that resemble the Masters less and less? The WM Phoenix Open, TGL and LIV Golf have many differences, but their commonality is the promotion of fan freedom. Come enjoy as you wish, as loudly as you wish, with jumbotrons to help rile you up. Ironic, isn’t it also, that if the Masters is the most coveted ticket in golf, fans … er, patrons … are saying they prefer their freedoms restricted and their scoreboards made of wood.
Of course, most of us watch it all on television, anyway. To give a sense of what it’s really like to be there, I offer our 2026 Masters Issue. My favorite article, which really rattles the flagstick of how Augusta National is navigating the preservation of timeless decorum in a modern world, is contributing editor Shane Ryan’s “Last Stand of the Masters Gnomes.” Ryan’s reporting has it the cult mania over this merch-tent bestseller has brought a level of ignominy (sorry, had to) which will lead to the ceramic doll’s discontinuation after this year.
The best place to watch golf at Augusta is the natural hillside and stadia of the par-3 16th hole, where water balls and birdies, even holes-in-one, come in bunches, and tournaments are won and lost. But it hasn’t always been so. Built by Robert Trent Jones, the 16th is one hole on the course truly divested of Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie’s design. Architecture editor Derek Duncan offers a fascinating dive in “Buried History.”
Perhaps no golfer in this year’s field embodies the sterling and steadfast character of the tournament better than our cover subject, Adam Scott, who tees it up in his 25th consecutive Masters. That’s a big number for a past champion who, at 45, still has the game to win another. I happened to do the interview. While Scott is not a conversationalist who hits many out-of-bounds or much less misses a fairway, in his words we see and hear more of what makes the Masters, the Masters.
