![]() ![]() Much of the plan’s reach is tied to the club’s land acquisition. ![]() Another person familiar with the club’s business dealings clarified that the plan has no end point rather, it is constantly augmented and rolls on. “It’s closer to 30, 40 years down the road,” says one member, who has been with the club for more than two decades. However, multiple members and former workers at the club suggest the plan spans more than 20 years. Yes, the club bought an entire neighbourhood that, currently, is used for parking one week of the year. In 2016, Payne’s answer was in response to a question about the club’s acquisition of an entire neighbourhood obtained plot by plot over the course of 30 years, ultimately turning that neighbourhood into a carpark. Some pressing questions need to be answered to maintain this station and continue the club’s trajectory. Does Augusta National run the Masters or vice versa? Aggressive expansion in influence and physical footprint has transformed Augusta National from a club that hosts a tournament into a club whose actions and direction matter well beyond four days in April. Augusta’s standard of excellence presents challenges when considering its direction. The LIV controversy, which has ripped the professional game apart, has dragged the club into a lawsuit backed by Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund and entangled the club in an antitrust probe from the Department of Justice. How the game is played has been transformed by equipment advancements. ![]() However, excellence must be defended, and growing pressures warrant consideration. Everything related to the Masters experience is excellence personified. What the club hasn’t introduced it has improved, from efforts as advanced as the agronomic methods and subterranean turf-conditioning system needed to keep the course in pristine shape to notions as elementary as concession efficiency. The Masters was the first 72-hole tournament to be played across four days the first tournament to use leaderboards and the over/under-par scoring system the first to introduce grandstands and gallery ropes the first to be broadcast on radio, in colour on television, in 3-D and streamed to let fans see every shot hit on every hole. ![]() However, as much as Augusta National honours the past, the club has been mindful of the future. The tournament’s perception as a dependable, unchanging entity in an ever-changing world is one of many reasons the Masters is beloved. It is the closest thing the game has to a holiday, a gathering not only of the best players but of zealous fans, socialites, the media, power brokers, aspiring parvenus, vendors, salesmen and those simply trying to get warm by the fire. Yet, for all that Augusta National can plan, there remains plenty it cannot.įew things in sports are as venerated as the Masters Tournament. “Whether or not my 20-year plan would be embraced by the person that follows me is, you know, subject to debate,” Payne said. Among the rumoured ambitions are a banquet hall, on-site housing for all Masters competitors and media, a tournament-only exit off I-20 that goes straight to Augusta National’s carpark, a re-imagined fan village and a new golf course that presumably would host the opening rounds of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. The club plans reach far into the future. They include a redesigned Par-3 course for the tournament’s Wednesday contest that will have more patron viewing areas, a new entrance for patrons, a merchandise pavilion that will exit to Washington Road on the east side of the course, two new cabins (one of which is rumoured to be a steakhouse for members) and a 40-metre extension of the famed 13th hole. Some changes patrons will encounter at the 2023 Masters were envisioned about the turn of the century. To dramatic change depending on who the chairman is at the time.” “We have plans for every couple years of iteration going all the way out to 20 years. “Corporately, we plan 20 years down the road,” Payne said. Payne politely laughed off questions about specifics, but he provided insight into the club’s strategy. ![]()
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