Believe it or not, the 2021 Masters is less than 100 days away.
That’s not a lot of time to put on a major championship but when you have unlimited resources, no sweat. But The Masters is struggling with the ongoing COVID crisis and has delayed its ticketing process for the 2021 version where Dustin Johnson will defend his title.
It’s ball-in-the-air (“Fore please, now driving Dustin Johnson!”) on Thursday, April 8 and the powers-that-are behind the gates at “The National” will have to make a decision very soon.
Patrons received an email from the club that read:
“As planning continues on how to stage the 2021 Masters Tournament safely and responsibly, we would like to inform you that Augusta National is delaying the ticket process for Patron Series Badges, which traditionally begins Jan. 1,” the club said in an email to ticket holders.
“Our intention is to communicate our decisions for the 2021 Masters to all patrons of record by the end of January. No further action is needed with your account at this time.”
A Masters Series Badge is the most coveted and hardest to land ticket in all of sports. For those lucky patrons, the price of a badge for last year’s Masters was $375. The club offered to defer those badges to 2021. Practice rounds are a horse of a different color. Those tickets are distributed for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday via a lottery conducted the previous spring. Those tickets were also deferred to 2021.
Because all of these tickets and badges are pre-sold, Augusta National Golf Club has a difficult problem in figuring out how to proceed with presumably a smaller number of spectators allowed on site.
The Masters never reveals the size of spectators but estimates are that approximately 30,000 badges are sold.
Chairman Fred Ridley said last November that he hopes the “tournament in April will be more normal than it is now,” but offered no assurances that it will be any different, given the current uncertainty with the pandemic.
“We would need to see objective data that would give us a high level of confidence that we could bring large numbers of people onto the grounds for April,” Ridley said on Nov 11. “I think the vaccine — I don’t want to get into medical prognostications — but just logically as a lay person, the vaccine, while it will be wonderful when it happens, there are all kinds of issues.
“As it relates to [COVID-19] testing, there are some real opportunities there. Our staff has been exploring those very deeply. We have a number of people who are very interested in helping us. It is something we will be looking very hard at. It’ll be a wonderful circumstance if we could test large numbers of people.”
For the November Masters every person on the grounds had to have a negative COVID-19 test before being admitted. But that wasn’t a monumental task as all tallied fewer than 2,000 were on the grounds, including all staff and maintenance crews.
This will be an ongoing story line as we move into the new year.
So stay tuned.
4 Comments
baxter cepeda
Obviously the situation is in good hands. Augusta has its options open while remaining responsibly cautious and all well communicated.
Textbook as expected.
This does bring up an interesting issue.
As more and more frontline workers and high risk people get vaccinated despite delays; it makes sense some of the first regular people whom get vaccines are folks with special tickets to large gatherings just like the Masters.
What I’m saying is let’s get everyone with an imminent once in a lifetime opportunity to the front of the vaccine lines. This could be anything: spectating, competing, whatever it may be.
Why not?
Tom Edrington
Baxter, what a an of worms you suggest opening…..get to the front of the line because you have Masters tickets? That would never fly and anyone who suggests that would open themselves to unmitigated abuse from social media not to mention the insanity of the suggestion.
baxter cepeda
I understand what you say Tom and Maybe you are right; but I don’t care.
Like I said this idea is for once vaccines go to the masses. How do you choose the order?
I’m not just talking about the Masters. Anyone whom has serious travel plans should be closer to the front of this massive vaccine line. And really no one should travel sans a vaccine once it becomes more available.
Vaccinating travelers is Not just to protect themselves but to protect everyone else.
I read this week some harrowing stories of passengers and airline workers disregarding protocols. People dying of covid on a plane. Then the flight continuing.
People whom are out and about traveling need to get vaccinated; testing is nonsense.
It makes sense because It’s for everyones good.
It’s good for the country economically to run big events while great for health and safety.
I do understand the power of every fool with a social media account. But I would ignore them and do it anyway.
Personally I don’t even care about a vaccine until we start needing to travel for tournaments and stuff.
Tom Edrington
Baxter, at this point, you’re leaving golf behind and getting into vaccine politics….sorry