Here are 18 reasons why the masters are the best.
AP photo / Chris Carlson
From the Archives: This play was initially published in March 2018.
The World Series? We love it. The Super Bowl? So good that we buy new flat screens each year. The Olympic Games? Epic – But occasional! Therefore, allow us to present the 18 reasons why Masters in Augusta National is the biggest sports event.
18. The moments
Even if we weren’t there to look at it, we are all of Jack Nicklaus’s first-hand witnesses! putt; to Larry Mize chip-in; Six from Phil Mickelson of the pine straw. Like no other tournament, the Masters leave a coil of historical moments that play highly in all our minds.
17. The website
There is practically nothing like the masters. Literally. Witness The website of the most smooth tournament of the gameWith its monitoring of interactive players and high live streaming. Like Augusta’s green vegetables, it is a love at first sight – but much easier to navigate.
16. Amateurs
From their arrival at Crow’s nest at the fence ceremonies, they are sewn in the fabric of the masters, just as Bobby Jones wanted. Amateurs are welcome in other majors, but nowhere else, they are so firmly adopted.
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15. Anticipation
They say that the masters do not start before the nine rear on Sunday, but the accumulation begins months in advance. The first promotions, filtering through the waves in the heart of winter, fill us with a promise: spring is fast approaching, and the great golf ritual will soon be there.
14. The field
Bernhard Langer, sixty-seven years, of Germany will be there; So, for the best sports players in the 20s and 30s. The two represent an invitation with geographic and generational scope. Other tournaments have more difficult fields, but The Masters is the most beautiful illustration of golf as a precious game of a lifetime, eagerly played in the world.
13. Mythology
Each sporting event is a form of escape. But this is particularly true for masters. In this idealized setting, the problems of the world are retreating, the song of birds continues and Jim Nantz considers us all “friends”. That we know that it is fiction does nothing to spoil fantasy or pleasure.
12. Bridges
Lands abound in historic monuments – a pond appointed for a president, a plaque honoring Jack – but none stands as well as the Hogan, Sarazen and Nelson bridges. More than paths, these are precisely perfect metaphors: spans that connect the present to the past.
David Cannon / Getty images
11. Sounds
Sunday afternoon, in the natural amphitheater of the National, the Masters gives birth to the most moving soundtrack in golf, the silence of a bottled drop passing towards excited murmurs and explosive celebrations that swell and calm. The things you hear – and do not hear – are as revealing and convincing as any sporting action that your eyes could see.
10. Basic rules
No race. No mobile phones. Not to act like a yahoo. Call them Fuddy Duddies, but credit the green jackets for preserving a sense of decorum. There are many other places to organize cadet races, slam selfies and shout without thinking “you da man!”
9. The competition par-3
These are the miniature masters, without pressure, with children and wives dubbing in caddies and players who jump fire through the ponds. Person who has never won it claimed the green jacket the same year, but there is just to participate in it is a win-win.
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8. Minimum commercial interruptions
No place of 60 seconds with boys of beer frat or middle -aged men with an erectile dysfunction. Just a brief word of good taste of one of the rare sponsors, then return to action and the comment whispered.
7. Magnolia Lane
When is a beautiful campaign also a great approach? When you reduce the most legendary entrance to the game, a white clubhouse framed in quasi-discount by an arcade with flower trees.
6. Concessions
Prices on Grub are a long -standing sports tradition. But not on the field of Augusta National, where a Pimento cheese sandwich reports $ 1.50. It doesn’t matter that this has the taste for Elmer’s glue. Additional $ 3 give you a beer to wash it.
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5. The green jacket
In any other context, a sport coating the color of a jägermeister bottle would be a cheesy fashion declaration worthy of Al Czervik. But slipped on the winner of the tournament, he acquired an aura of Arnold Palmer Cool.
4. Amen Corner
The three -hole section where Rae’s Creek meets the golf course ranks among the most holy holy places in the game. Seeing him on television is inspiring. To experience it in person is as close to the spiritual as the observation of sports.
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3. Theme music
It is an inseparable song of the occasion, the version of the golf world of “Here Comes The Bride”. Full of sap? Maybe. But its strains are also soothing and reassuring, a signal to all those who listen to that something wonderful is in progress.
2. Honorary starters
Only their achievements are immortal. The power of these moments lies in this fact. Since 1963, when Jock Hutchison and Fred McLeod have struck the first symbolic starting strokes, only seven other adults have played the role that Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson fulfill today. Like Nelson, Palmer, Snead, Sarazen and Venturi before them, they will not be there forever. But we look at them knowing that their inheritance will last.
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1. The course, of course
For all the adjustments of half facts during the decades – Greens and rebuilt t-shirtsStretched and tightened fairways – The beautiful bones remainMajestic and undoubtedly, as is Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie arranged them. Other majors can be staged on a number of courses. Masters cannot take place anywhere else.
