2023 Masters: First-timers approach Augusta in awe

AUGUSTA, Ga — It didn’t take Taylor Moore long to realize the moment he’d qualified for the Masters. He’d just won last month’s Valspar Championship, holding a clubhouse lead while Adam Schenk and Jordan Spieth failed to match him.

“On the walk over to the trophy ceremony, I realized I qualify,” Moore said. “I think any PGA Tour player realizes pretty quickly that if they win, they’re going to the Masters.”

Of all the ways that one can qualify to play in each year’s Masters, the simplest and most efficient is this: win and you’re in. Every winner of a PGA Tour event, and a handful of other notable tournaments, gets an automatic invitation to the next year’s Masters.

One significant exception: both the winner and runner-up of the U.S. Amateur receive invitations. “I was almost more nervous during the semifinal than I was during the final,” said 2022 U.S. Amateur winner Sam Bennett, another first-time Masters visitor in 2023. “Once I made it into the final, I knew I was coming [to Augusta] no matter what.”

While the roster of automatic exemptions into the Masters includes virtually all the stars in the golf pantheon at any given moment — former Masters winners, recent major winners, consistently strong performers — the first-timers often arrive in Augusta unheralded and even unknown. They had the best weekend of their golf life a few weeks or months before now, and this week, they’ll enjoy one of the game’s finest rewards.

Special delivery

Masters qualifiers get an email inviting them to register online, just as Bobby Jones intended. The official hard-copy invitation to the Masters arrives in a deep green envelope sporting the Masters logo. If there’s enough time before the tournament, it shows up in the mailbox alongside bills and shopping circulars. (Occasionally it gets misdirected, but not often.) In Moore’s case, with only days between his Valspar victory and the start of Masters Week, the golden ticket arrived via UPS.

“I have notifications on my phone for UPS, and I got a popup that morning that something would be delivered from Augusta National,” Moore said. “It was unlike any other package that we have received before. We took a moment, my fiancé and I, before we opened it up.”

“When the letter came in the mail, it was a real eye-opener there,” said Adam Svensson, who won his way into the Masters with a victory at the RSM Classic last November. “It hit me again: ‘Wow, I’m actually playing in the Masters.’”

Masters qualifiers have the opportunity to play the course prior to their tournament. Even so, Moore stayed away until this week. Svensson played Augusta National for the first time on the Monday after The Players.

“I couldn’t believe how many people were working on the golf course nonstop,” he said. “I really couldn’t believe how hilly the course actually is. It’s a hard walk. I was struggling up those hills.”

For amateurs like Bennett, Masters week begins in earnest on Monday evening when they join Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley and other club members for dinner. After that, they’re invited to spend a night in the Crow’s Nest, the tiny dorm room-like facility at the top of the clubhouse.

“It’s just one night,” Bennett said, “and then we get back into our routine.” Bennett planned to spend the evening watching the NCAA March Madness finals.

Moore, who played for Arkansas in college, reached out to some of his fellow Razorback golfers with Masters experience for tips, including Andrew Landry and David Lingmerth.

“Most of the advice is just, ‘Take care of everything beforehand, don’t get caught up in playing a bunch of holes every day,’” he said. “The biggest piece of advice was, ‘Get into your normal work week as soon as possible. Do the same stuff you normally do.’”

Part of the preparation is dealing with everyone who’s approaching with their hands out, hoping to hook onto a player’s Augusta rocket ship. The Masters provides players with up to 12 badges. Over the course of five, and hopefully seven, days of play, that’s as many as 72 people who will want a piece of you.

“Luckily, everybody in my camp understands what’s going on,” Moore said. “It will be just my immediate family, my fiancé’s family. We already know who’s going to be at the house and who’s going to get the tickets.”

“My brother is handling all of that,” Bennett said. “He’s keeping everyone away from me.”

For the first-timers, this could be the first visit of several dozen, or this could be the only time they set foot inside the ropes. They’re trying to stay focused, but they have moments they’ll hold onto, as well.

“When they’re calling my name teeing off,” Svensson said, “that’s going to be pretty awesome.”

Moore knows exactly what he wants to do at Augusta National. “I’ve been watching golf with my dad for as long as I can remember,” he said. “Part of the reason I haven’t played Augusta is that we had a thing between us. He wanted the first time on site to be when I qualified.”

Now that that box is checked, what’s next?

“I don’t care where I stay,” Rod Moore told his son. “I just want to drive down Magnolia Lane with you.”