It didn't used to be this crazy, this frantic, this ultra-exclusive.
In 64 years, our own little Southern slice of a golf tournament has evolved from just a simple celebration of the world's greatest golfers and golf course into a massive rubbing of the biggest elbows in all of sports and business.
If you're lucky or connected enough this week to own the hologram-adorned, credit card-sized series ticket-badge, hold on tightly. What you possess, face-valued at $100, could be worth at least 50 times that -- enough for a European vacation or a good portion of your annual mortgage.
It's so cherished that it nearly cost one man his professional reputation. It cost another his life just last year. Still another would rather not tell his delightful Masters ticket story, unless you don't use his name.
``It was very different in 1934,'' Augusta native Bertha Carswell said of the first Masters Tournament. ``We loaded up the car, rode right down famous Magnolia Lane and bought a $5 ticket for the entire week. And we parked just about anywhere we wanted to.''
Ms. Carswell, now 82, was a math teacher at all-female Tubman High School when her carload of friends took in Augusta's newest golf event. Professional events over the previous years at Augusta Country Club and Forest Hills Golf Course had developed a slew of area golf fans. Ms. Carswell's brother, J.J. Carswell Jr., even served as a runner at an early Masters for famed sports writer Grantland Rice, one of the club's original members.
Ms. Carswell hasn't attended a tournament in nearly a decade, mainly for health reasons. But she remembers her friends spreading out a blanket and enjoying a picnic on the grounds. Golfers would frequently walk by and greet spectators. Tickets were plentiful.
``It's the Olympics of our area,'' said Ms. Carswell, who now gives her four tickets to friends and relatives each year. ``You'd see people out there you hadn't seen in a thousand years. It was the thing to do.''
Ms. Carswell was a benefactor of the original tournament ticket policy.
The patron's list was started by Augusta National Golf Club co-founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones in 1934. All golf clubs within 225 miles of Augusta -- cities such as Atlanta, Macon, Ga., Charlotte, N.C., Charleston, S.C., and Columbia -- were asked for a list of their members. The clubs that declined were asked to forward a letter from Augusta National to their members.
The list later was expanded to cover clubs in other states, mainly for people who wintered in Florida and would be returning North each spring.
The Depression-era South responded positively to favorite son Mr. Jones' golf tournament, particularly hometown Augusta. The city rallied around the event, providing numerous volunteers, holding a parade, naming a Miss Augusta and distributing tickets from street-corner downtown booths, well into the 1950s.
Still, tickets remained plentiful until the late 1950s when the rest of the world discovered the tournament, thanks to golf legend Arnold Palmer and television. By 1962, the year of Mr. Palmer's third of four Masters triumphs, ticket-booth operators were telling customers there would be a mailing list the following year.
The tournament first sold out in 1967 and the patrons list was closed in 1972 at an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 badges. A waiting list was closed in 1978 as the list grew to ``such proportions that any additions would not be able to receive tickets in the foreseeable future,'' according to Augusta National. Masters officials have said that length of time could be approximately 50 years.
By 1995, overcrowding at the practice rounds forced Augusta National to start a yearly lottery for tickets to the three days preceding the tournament. Those who haven't attended in previous years and those from the local area are given priority in the lottery formula. Augusta National will not divulge the system or percentage used to assure Augusta-area fans of getting practice-round tickets, a similar longstanding system which has been used for series badges.
By 1997, the price for a tournament series badge had zoomed to as much as $7,500 and Martinez businessman Allen Caldwell III, who dabbled in selling tickets, had committed suicide after a deal went bad.
``Last year was totally unusual,'' said a national ticket broker who asked that his name not be used. ``You had people in town who were promised tickets and didn't get them. They would do anything to go. That's why the price soared.''
The case of a North Carolina real estate man is particularly poignant in showing the life of a Masters badge. Despite talking freely in years past, he asked that his name not be used because ``if just one person out there (Augusta National) reads this and doesn't like it, they could just take my tickets.''
In 1955, the man's father-in-law invited him and his bride down for the Masters. The father-in-law's Columbia grocery business had numerous tickets.
``I walked in the gate one year with 19 tickets and no one to give them to,'' the man recalled. ``I had Trophy Room badges and everything. There just wasn't a demand for them.''
With the onset of Mr. Palmer, the father-in-law retired and the ticket well dried up. But the man was hooked on the Masters. He had to get his wife and three children in to witness this spectacle.
So starting in the late 1960s, on the way south to Augusta, he would stop at a Pinehurst, N.C., store to buy fresh country hams to use as barter for a ticket. The destination was the parking lot of the old Piggly Wiggly grocery -- now Whole Life Ministries church -- across Washington Road from Augusta National.
``I'd buy about three or four hams and put them in my trunk,'' the man said. ``People looked kind of shocked when I said I'd trade a ham for a duckett. But it wasn't that tough -- and it worked. I'd just work the crowd.''
On one occasion, he even confronted a preacher and a carload of people about a ticket at a gasoline station at the intersection of Washington Road and Interstate 20.
``I asked if they had any tickets. The preacher said `no,' reluctantly, and I could tell he was lying,'' the man recalled. ``Finally, after I pried for a while, he said he had one, but couldn't sell it because he needed it back the next day. I gave him $100, my driver's license, my credit cards, whatever, and we set up a meeting time that afternoon.''
The man and the preacher met in front of the main scoreboard beside No. 1 fairway and the preacher seemed astonished that the man had actually shown up.
``Hey mister,'' the preacher said after the ticket return. ``When I get back home Sunday, I'm going to preach a sermon about your honesty.''
For a regular ticket source, the man also befriended an older lady who lived across the street from Augusta National. Like Ms. Carswell, she had a long history as a ticket-holder but no interest in attending anymore. He paid for her two tickets every year -- parking in her yard included -- and stayed in touch during the summer and fall with letters and telephone calls.
Through all this finagling, he also went through the procedure of getting on the Masters patrons waiting list. In 1972, he began writing Augusta National annually to check on his place on the waiting list ``to let them know I was still alive.'' In 1993, at age 63, the man finally received the form for two badges of his own.
This week, the man and Mr. Palmer are celebrating their 44th straight year at the Masters.
``It makes me so proud,'' the man said in 1994. ``Augusta National doesn't do anybody any favors. They don't give anybody any slack. Whether you're worth $10 million or $100, you get food out of the same spoon there.''
Some disagree with this ticket procedure, where Augusta National controls everything. Unlike other big sporting events -- such as college basketball's Final Four, the Super Bowl and the Kentucky Derby -- tickets are largely only available for public sale on the black market, a place where prices are sky-high and ethics are apparently non-existent.
``Because of the limited number of badges and Augusta National's stringent policy toward its badge-holders, there's no doubt it's a tough, tough ticket,'' said one national ticket broker who requested anonymity. ``The Final Four is tough because you don't know what schools will play until the week before. But you can count on the Masters being No. 1.''
Another broker is more forthright.
``If you have the hottest event in the world, don't complain when everybody wants to go,'' the broker said. ``If you don't want anybody to come, then make it the dog event that it was 25 years ago.''
As usual, Augusta National officials won't talk about their ticket policy or how they oversee rule-breakers. But it is known that the club monitors badges on a spot basis, matching names from the list with people who show up wearing them. Undercover police are hired by the city and the club to shake out scalpers and counterfeiters.
All these high-priced ticket deals are nothing new. Ms. Carswell recalls the first Masters when some spectators would take a $5 ticket, tear it in half and stick one end inside their shirt or in a pocket to give the appearance of a full ticket.
``But those Pinkerton (security guards) finally got on to that,'' Ms. Carswell said. ``They were pretty particular even then.''
This year, all employees and media -- from the volunteers' supervisors to the high school kid in the concession stand to the sportswriter from The London Times -- are required to have an identification badge with a picture. Media photo badges are checked at a special entry point to the grounds.
In past years, a simple concession badge was quite the rage. High school kids could work one day, sell the badge for more than $1,000 and cruise the rest of the week.
Counterfeiting has been reduced considerably since holograms were added to the badges in 1991. That came after Dr. William James Biggins, a dentist in Camden, S.C., provided a badge for counterfeiting, which resulted in 41 fake badges for the 1989 and 1990 tournaments. The badges, which cost $90 at that time, sold for as much as $850 each.
Dr. Biggins and the three men who counterfeited the badge were caught and tried in Augusta under federal anti-counterfeiting laws and convicted. Dr. Biggins was sentenced to three years of probation, fined $3,690 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.
In 1994, he felt like Augusta National was making an example of his case. He still comes to the Masters, using a friend's badge.
``But I do get teased by friends on occasion,'' Dr. Biggins said in 1994. ``They say, `I'm sure he can get us some tickets to the Masters.'''
It didn't used to be this way
