If you want to get tickets to The Masters, you have to win them. Augusta National holds a Masters ticket lottery to get in. They open applications in May for just a few weeks. They then notify the ticket winners via email.
It’s free to enter, and you can ask for up to 4 tickets for any or all of The Masters‘ 3 practice days or 4 tournament days.
The Fine Print
“Applicants may apply for any and all days, however, are eligible to win only one day.
PRACTICE ROUNDS TICKETS
Practice Rounds tickets are daily grounds passes valid for one of the three Practice Round days (Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday). Practice Rounds tickets for Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday cost $65 each.
The application deadline for Practice Rounds tickets for the 2015 Masters® Tournament is June 30, 2014. All applicants will be notified in mid-July via email when the random selection process is completed.
DAILY TOURNAMENT TICKETS
Daily Tournament tickets are daily grounds passes valid for one of the four Tournament days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday). Daily Tournament tickets cost $100 each.
The application deadline for Daily Tournament tickets for the 2015 Masters® Tournament is June 1, 2014. All applicants will be notified in mid-June via email when the random selection process is completed.” – Masters.org
If you want to experience The Masters, it’s worth a shot entering The Masters ticket draw.
I’ve entered for just the third time this year and, once again, I have my fingers crossed.
Buzzy And Fuzzy
My first golf memory is sitting in the basement of our home at 187 Chelsea Rd in Kingston, ON watching Fuzzy Zoeller win the 1979 Masters.
I was 9 and thought it was funny that a man named Fuzzy was on the tv playing golf. Ed Sneed also sticks out as a memory from that tournament and era, probably because his name sounds like a Dr Seuss character.
I would play golf through my youth, mostly on community pitch and putt courses with hand me down clubs. I was ‘interested’ in it, but really didn’t start playing the game seriously until my late 20s. You could say I’m a Tiger-era convert to the game of golf.
There’s no deep, rich, personal history with The Masters other than I now love to play golf, and I remember watching that ’79 tournament with my father and grandfather.
Still, the game draws me. I went with my grandfather to the 2002 World Golf Championship at Sahalee in Seattle. I watch Ernie Els smoothly smack the ball. I saw Vijay Singh lope along the fairway. I chanted Fred-Dy as Fred Funk experienced a surge in popularity. I walked a couple of holes with Mike Weir. We then sat greenside on the 13th hole to wait for Tiger. He popped one just off the green right in front of me and I sat in whisper silence watching the greatest of all time.
3 years later I walked the course at Shaughnessy with my father at the 2005 Canadian Open.
Last year I made a point of catching an early train from Edinburgh the day after my Team Diabetes Half Marathon to play golf at St Andrews.
I bought my first HDTV to watch The Masters. I have a standing reservation in the basement on the second weekend in April. I have an agreement with the family that Daddy gets Saturday and Sunday afternoon to be left alone, do his taxes, and watch some golf.
So while golf and I don’t have a lifelong love affair, we’ve been pretty good friends for a long time.
Next on the bucket list? A chance to go to Augusta with my grandfather, dad, son, or best friend. I’m not picky, I just want to have the chance to have Buzzy follow Fuzzy. One day we just might stroll up Magonlia Lane. One day.
Image via Shannon Hurst Lane on Flickr