How Masters champions decide when to make their farewell walk

Someone wise once said that, in matters of mortality, an athlete dies twice—once at retirement and once at the end of his life. Time has many tentacles, but an uneven reach, and while we all might understand this, it is athletes who hear the ticking first, as the hour of their initial demise draws nearer.

Among that small subset of humanity, tour golfers, by the nature of their chosen profession, have it a little better, barely noticing the hour or minute hands until the clock has run out for most of their peers. Golfers don’t have to convince themselves that age is just a number because they only measure themselves in relation to par.

For the longest time this applied to everyone everywhere except winners of the Masters Tournament. No place on earth embraces its past champions more warmly than Augusta National Golf Club. Winners of the green jacket receive a lifetime exemption, and for decades it was not only customary for older players to remain in the field, regardless of their scoring competency, but it was celebrated. No one much cared how the numbers added up.

A lifetime, however, doesn’t last as long as it used to at Augusta National. It’s not that the old guard is having its collective arms twisted to step aside from playing in the year’s first major—although former Masters chairman Hootie Johnson tried that at the start of the century. No one is being pushed out, subtly or otherwise. Green jacket owners are simply choosing to excuse themselves from the tournament proper because neither do they resemble the players they once were, nor does the course resemble the one on which they won.

What Johnson tried to do by decree has been accomplished through design evolution. That was hardly the intention, but that’s how it has played out.

This year, two-time champion Bernhard Langer makes his curtain call. The seemingly ageless German, winner of a record 47 PGA Tour Champions titles, had intended to bow out last year, but he suffered a torn Achilles tendon in early February and was sidelined three months, missing his third Masters since he made his debut in 1982. Though a notably stoic sort, Langer anticipates that his 41st and final Masters will be a supreme challenge of the heart as much as his hands.

“I'm not sure how to get myself ready for that,” he said last year before his injury. “I've never done that before. It's going to be very emotional, especially Augusta, because it's been a big part of my life. I love the tournament. I love the golf course. I love what they do for the game of golf. It's going to be a tough farewell for me walking up the 18th the last time in competitive circumstances.”

Of the eight players who have retired in the last 15 years, Langer, 67, is the oldest. He hoped to “play great,” but wasn’t sure that would be enough to make the cut for a 28th time. But that’s the best he could hope for. “I'm not going in there with a mindset of winning anymore. That train has passed,” he said.

It’s passing at an accelerated rate.

When Langer won his second green jacket in 1994, Augusta National measured 6,925 yards. Then Tiger Woods won three of the next six, including a record 12-stroke annihilation of the field in 1997 and back-to-back titles in 2001 and ’02. The former enabled Woods to complete the “Tiger Slam” on a layout that was still only 6,985 yards. Of course, that was the same year the Titleist Pro V1 made its major debut, igniting a revolution in golf ball advancements. The following year, Masters contestants were greeted to a course stretched to 7,270 yards.

The 2025 Masters will be played on a course measuring 7,555 yards.

“It used to be that the old guys could still play the golf course because it was reasonably short enough to where they felt like they could somewhat compete,” said another two-time winner, Tom Watson. “You take what the golf course has become and where equipment has gone, and you get to the point where there is no point. The gap is far too wide between today’s top players and the rest of us.”

In 2005, Jack Nicklaus summed up the difficulty of taking that tenuous next step from the emptiness of irrelevance to the ether of posterity. “I’m just an old man trying to find a way to get out of the way,” he said.

Hootie Johnson almost made the decision for him a few years earlier. The Masters chairman proclaimed in early 2003 that the club was going to institute an age limit of 65 for Masters participation starting in ’04. That didn’t go over well with four-time Masters winner Arnold Palmer, who was planning on making his 50th and final Masters appearance in 2004.

Back in those days, people still penned letters, and that’s what Arnie did. First, he shared it with Jack, who not only approved, but also sent one himself, which prompted a meeting among the two men and Johnson two weeks before the ’03 tournament. Johnson subsequently rescinded his decision.

“I merely said that I thought that the lifetime exemption was a part of this golf tournament,” Palmer, then 73, explained. “I just said that I thought ... it was important that a player decide when he should quit. I'm getting to that stage. And I'm very aware of that.

“I played with Gene Sarazen here when I first played in the Masters [in 1955], and it was one of the great experiences of my life,” Palmer continued. “Now, Gene was a much older man like I am. It was wonderful to play with him and to have some conversation with him. And I think that the people in the galleries saw that. And I think that they enjoyed seeing that. And I think they enjoy seeing it today.”

What Palmer didn’t enjoy seeing were his scores that year; he posted a pair of 83s to miss the cut for the 20th straight year. Nicklaus was even less enamored with his effort, particularly an opening-round 85 that constituted the highest round of his PGA Tour career. As he happened past Palmer on the way to the clubhouse, Nicklaus cracked, “Why’d you have to write that letter?”

At least these boys didn’t receive the letter that three other champions received following the 2001 Masters, another Johnson initiative. Dated May 7 and signed by Will F. Nicholson, chairman of the competition committee, the letter, sent separately to Billy Casper, Gay Brewer and Doug Ford, requested that they not participate in the tournament going forward, given their poor recent records. Ford, in particular, was a case study in wearing out his welcome; he hadn’t made a cut in 30 years and had withdrawn in six of his last 10 starts. In fact, in the ’01 Masters, Ford hit two shots and walked off the course without bothering to retrieve his ball.

“Your record is not indicative of active participation,” Nicholson wrote. “We know you want to abide by the spirit of the invitation, and therefore we believe that your participation in the 2001 Masters should be your final one.”

Ford and Brewer, champions in 1957 and ’67, respectively, did not play again. Casper, who leaked the existence of the letter to this writer, skipped the next three, but returned in 2005 for one last round. Twice a winner of the U.S. Open, Casper had earned his green jacket in 1970, a win, he said, “that made me look on my career a little differently.” The letter, unfortunately, made him look again.

“It’s probably the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me in golf,” Casper said. “To be told, in effect, that you’re not welcome, at least as you have always been welcomed in the past, is a heart-breaking thing to read.”

He shot 106 that day and didn’t turn in the card. But he went out on his terms, just as Palmer had done the year before and Nicklaus did, sort of, one day after Casper. A lengthy weather delay forced a two-tee start, and because of poor planning, the man with a record six green jackets, six top-three finishes, 15 top-10s and 29 top-25s in 45 starts ended his Masters career on the ninth green. On Saturday morning.

“I think you say goodbye when you think you can still play a little bit,” the Golden Bear said after rounds of 77-76. “It’s great, and it’s fun to play in the Masters. It’s no fun to go hack it around and struggle to figure out some way to break 80. That’s never been the way I’ve operated, and I don’t believe that I should be out there.”

Ben Crenshaw can’t believe it’s been 10 years since he played in his last Masters. The winner in 1984 and ’95, Crenshaw has been immersed in his role as host of the Masters Club Dinner—otherwise known as the champions dinner—to such a degree that he hasn’t much thought about when he stopped competing in the tournament. In fact, he couldn’t remember the year. But he remembers the reason why he retired from playing.

“It just gets a little bit beyond your capabilities,” Crenshaw said. “Those of us who've been lucky enough to win there, you just have to look back and say, ‘Well, I've had a good run here. But it is past your time.’ For me, it wasn’t just about the physical aspect of it. I just couldn’t do it in my own mind. You have to think you can still do it and be honest about it.”

It has been 16 years since a Masters champion 70 or older participated in the tournament. Gary Player was 74 when he played in his 52nd and final Masters in 2009, a record perhaps only Jordan Spieth might threaten. Player knew he couldn’t be competitive, but he felt he wouldn’t embarrass himself. He exited after rounds of 78-83 to miss the cut for 15th time in 16 years, the exception coming in 1998 when he finished 46th. That same year a 58-year-old Nicklaus ended up T-6.

Fuzzy Zoeller and Ray Floyd also stopped playing in 2009, with Floyd waiting until the 2010 Masters to announce that he was finished, fearing he would embarrass himself. Zoeller initially said that he was quitting after an opening 81 in 2008 but then recanted the next day and took a final bow on what was the 30th anniversary of his victory—the last man to win a green jacket in his debut. He was 58 when he hung it up. Floyd was 66 when his name last adorned the tee sheet.

Since then, the champions retreat has looked like this: Craig Stadler, 2014 (age 60); Crenshaw, 2015 (63); Watson, 2016 (66); Mark O’Meara, 2018 (61); Ian Woosnam, 2021 (63); Larry Mize, 2023 (64); Sandy Lyle, 2023 (65); Langer 2025, (67).

Crenshaw is mildly surprised that Langer doesn’t linger a bit longer.

“It’s a hard stage to leave,” said the soft-spoken Texan. “Gosh, Bernhard has been so good for so long. I certainly plan to mention him in the brightest light [at the champions dinner]. I think he's been one of the most consistent performers that golf has seen for a long time. Nobody's played as well as he has, as long as he has. It's just remarkable how well he's kept his game up. He still hits it so solid, and he's very disciplined, of course, about his game and knows what he can and can’t do.”

And, apparently, Langer knows he can’t do Augusta like he used to, even though he made the cut as recently as 2020, when he finished T-29.

“It’s a very easy decision when you are confronted with shots that you just can’t play,” said Watson, pointing to approach shots at Nos. 7 and 17, in which running the ball onto the green isn’t feasible and landing on it is futile because the ball won’t hold the putting surface. “You can love the golf course all you want, but that just isn’t enjoyable golf.”

“It was a tough decision … and an easy one,” said 1987 champion Larry Mize. “You really don’t want to go out there and shoot scores you don’t want to shoot.

“I remember in the fall of 2020 [when the tournament was played in October because of the pandemic], Langer and I both broke par the first day. And I didn’t play well the second day [70-77]. And I kind of knew going forward that those days were probably going to be more common,” Mize continued. “I might have even felt before that how difficult it was becoming, but, you know, the competitor in you thinks you can still do it. You can still hit longer clubs in there and get up and down and make putts and still be there for the weekend, but it becomes a struggle not just in length, but tougher in every phase.”

An Augusta native, Mize is grateful that the Masters allows its champions to break out a few clubs each year in the Par 3 Contest held on Wednesday of tournament week. It’s the one chance for golfing afterlife that used to be available to all past major champions but now is reserved only for Masters invitees—those who have won a green jacket and the men trying to add their name to the roster.

“Growing up there as a kid, that was one of my favorite things to do was grab lunch and go sit out there and watch all the players, the young guys and the legends,” said Mize, who will be recovered from recent hernia surgery in time to play the short course. “The great thing is it’s still a competition. You are still competing and trying to hit good shots. As long as I can swing a club and they let me, I will play the Par 3. It’s a great tradition. It’s perfect. It keeps you going, and we all want that.”

Don't we, though.