If the neighborhoods surrounding G&G’s Charleston offices are any indication, the famous azaleas over at Augusta National should be peaking right as the Masters practice rounds come to a close and golf’s biggest names tee off for tournament play. But the florescent pink flowers (and those pro athletes) are only part of the allure. Like Wimbledon and the Kentucky Derby, the Masters is built on tradition, and that means lots of history and plenty of quirks. Below, we run down a bit of both, by the numbers.
Photograph courtesy of The Masters
0: Number of cell phones allowed on the grounds.
0: Number of times you’ll be allowed back if you ignore the above rule.
0: Number times you will hear TV announcers call attendees “fans.” At Augusta National they are called “patrons,” thank you very much.
1.5 dollars: The price of an illustrious Augusta National pimento cheese sandwich.
5 dollars: The price if you get a sweet tea and chips with your sandwich. Or $8 if you get beer instead of tea. At the average college football game you’ll pay at least double for a similar haul—sans beer.
At least 6: Number of female club members at Augusta National. South Carolina native Darla Moore and Alabama-born Condoleezza Rice were the first women admitted to the club, in 2012.
12: Number of Masters champions who have won the annual just-for-fun 9-hole Par-3 Contest, where friends and family can serve as caddies, including Mike Weir in 2022. Number who have won both competitions in the same year: 0.
11, 12, 13: The holes that make up the course’s famous Amen Corner. Sports Illustrated writer Herbert Warren Wind coined the nickname in 1958—borrowing from an old jazz recording Shoutin’ in That Amen Corner.
20: Number of Southerners who have taken home green jackets, including some of the game’s greats: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Ben Crenshaw, and Jordan Spieth. And eight of that elite group have won the major more than once.
19: Number of holes co-founder Bobby Jones originally wanted the course to have. No, not a bar, but an actual 19th hole, where a losing golfer could go double or nothing to win back his money.
30+: Varieties of azaleas that bloom each year at Augusta National during the Masters…hopefully. Occasionally Mother Nature has her own ideas, though.
42: Number of German POWs who helped restore the course after 200 head of cattle were allowed to graze there from 1943 to 1944 as part of the war effort.
85: Number of years green jackets have been associated with the tournament. Originally the blazers were worn only by members. Sam Snead was the first tournament winner to be awarded one in 1949. The signature fairway-green wool is sourced from a plant in Dublin, Georgia.
86 to 100: Number of players. That’s the smallest field of the four golf majors.
325 dollars: The cost of a Masters badge for all four rounds of tournament play. Such badges are extremely hard to get, but they’re one of the cheapest cost-of-entries in major league sports.
70,000 dollars: The amount Bobby Jones and a handful of other businessmen and club founders paid for the land Augusta National sits on in 1931. Before it was a golf course, the nearly 365-acre tract had past lives as an indigo plantation and—fittingly for the stunning course—a garden nursery and orchard.
90,000: The size in square feet of Berckmans Place. The club’s swank new hospitality venue opened in 2013, and highlights include putting greens (downscaled replicas of three Augusta National greens) and several restaurants—each with a full bar. Mackenzie’s, named for course designer Alistair Mackenzie, stocks 25 single-malt Scotch whiskies, but we’d bet you could wrangle a decent bourbon, too.
