You won't hear golfers talk about playing their way into the Masters by winning on the PGA Tour anymore because it can't happen.
Starting with the 2000 Masters, one of the tournament's traditional and most exciting qualifications is being dropped. No longer will winners of PGA Tour events receive automatic invitations to the Masters. The last time that qualification was in effect came last week in the BellSouth Classic in Duluth, Ga.
If the qualification had been dropped for the 1999 Masters, there would be 10 fewer players in the field. Three of those -- Tim Herron, Rocco Mediate and Gabriel Hjerstedt -- won their PGA Tour events in the months since the 1999 season started in January.
While dropping this qualification, the Augusta National is adding two for the 2000 Masters. Instead of the top 30 money winners from the year-end PGA Tour money list earning invitations, the top 40 will get them. Also, the top three players on the PGA Tour money list four weeks before the Masters, if not already in the field, will receive invitations.
Also, starting with the 1999 Masters, the top 50 players on the year-end World Golf Ranking and the top 50 four weeks before the Masters were invited. Twelve players made the field that way.
``It is the U.S. Masters, and we are the U.S. tour,'' Billy Andrade said of the PGA Tour. ``I don't know if they're catering enough toward the U.S. player. If a guy you've never head of wins the Quad Cities Open or one of our smaller tournaments, he should get all the benefits of winning a PGA Tour event -- like getting in the Masters and the Tournament of Champions.''
``It's their tournament and they can do whatever they want, but if you win out on tour, it's a major accomplishment,'' said Olin Browne, who won the Hartford Open to earn his ticket into the 1999 Masters. ``If you win, it's not hard to finish in the top 40 on the money list, too. I think what they're trying to do is strengthen their field as much as they can. They feel perhaps there are some tournaments that don't merit an invitation.''
If the 2000 qualifications were in effect this year, six of the 10 players who are in the field based on their tour victories would not be here. They are Andrade, Browne, Mediate, Hjerststedt, Joe Durant and J.P. Hayes. The other four would have made it by being between 31st and 40th, respectively, on the PGA Tour money list.
``I don't think it's a good change,'' Andrade said, ``because you're talking about guys who have proven themselves by winning a tournament and maybe not had the best year and didn't finish in the top 40 and are not going to get in Augusta, which I think is a shame. That qualificiation should stay intact. When I was a child, you knew if you won a PGA Tour event, you were in Augusta. It was such a huge thing. It's going to hurt. I think that's too bad.''
The change will no doubt take some of the excitement out of the tournaments leading up to the Masters. When Herron won the Bay Hill Invitational in mid-March to get in, he joked that having to change his plans to play in the Masters ``isn't a bad deal.''
In 1995, Davis Love III made no secret of the fact that the only reason he was playing in the prelude to the Masters, then held in New Orleans, was because he needed a win to play in the Masters. Love won in dramatic fashion, then finished second to Ben Crenshaw in the Masters.
``That's a tough change,'' Love said. ``It will probably be a good change in the long run, but it sure was kind of neat to have a guy win to get in.''
Will Nicholson, chairman of the competition committee for the Masters Tournament, said the change was made in an effort to identify the best players in the world and make sure only they are in the Masters.
``We thought with the evolution of the world ranking and by increasing our money leaders on the U.S. tour from 30 to 40 that we will be getting the most consistent players on the tour under our criteria,'' Nicholson said. ``Not to say that the tournament winners aren't very good players, but we wanted the most consistent players over the balance of the year and we wanted to strengthen the field that way.''
Two-time Masters champion Tom Watson favors the change.
``I think it's a better indication when it comes off the world ranking,'' Watson said. ``Winning a tournament, you obviously feel like `I'm in the Masters.' On the other hand, the Masters wants the best. They want the Masters. Just winning a tournament and doing nothing else, you may not rank in the top 50 in the world ranking.''
``That's one I hate to see go,'' said 1987 Masters champion Larry Mize. ``I think it was a tradition that when you won a tournament, you got in the Masters. I understand what they're doing but I am disappointed that one had to be knocked out.''
Durant, one of those golfers who wouldn't be in the 1999 Masters under the new 2000 qualifications, said, ``It was always one of those perks that if you won an event, you knew it was going to get you in the Masters. I thought about it the last couple of holes (in his victory at the Western Open) because it had always been a dream of mine to get in the Masters. For it to come true, I had trouble sleeping that night.''
Good timing
Here are the golfers in the 1999 Masters field who would not be in the tournament under the qualifications to be introduced for the 2000 Masters. They are winners of PGA Tour events who would not have finished among the top 40 on the PGA Tour year-end money list, a qualification that will be expanded from the top 30 to top 40 in 2000.
Billy Andrade, Canadian Open
Olin Browne, Hartford Open
Joe Durant, Western Open
J.P. Hayes, Buick Classic
Gabriel Hjerstedt, Tucson Open
Rocco Mediate, Phoenix Open
Winning on tour no longer assures ticket to Masters 
