00:00The US Masters is one of the most closely followed events in the golfing calendar, but
00:04if you think you know everything about Augusta National, think again. Here are some things
00:09that even the most seasoned US Masters watchers may not already know.
00:15All of the hole yardages at Augusta either end with a zero or a five, which is odd. The
00:2012th measures 155 yards, the 13th is 510 yards, the 18th is 465 and so on. Did you know that
00:28the Masters started out as the Augusta National Invitational Tournament? It only got its current
00:33name in 1939, five years after that first invitational event. The course used to be a plant nursery
00:40and the club purchased the land from a hotel chain that bought the old plant nursery but
00:45ran out of money. The inaugural Invitational Tournament was held in 1934 with Augusta City
00:50Council stumping up $10,000. Horton Smith won $1,500 more than both the US Open and PGA
00:57Championship first place prizes at that time. The winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship
01:03earns an invite to play at the Masters. Hideki Matsuyama won the inaugural Asia-Pacific
01:09Amateur in 2010 and went on to win the Low Amateur at the 2011 Masters before, of course,
01:16winning the Green Jacket in 2021. The fans, or patrons as they are known at the Masters, aren't
01:21allowed to bring their mobile phones onto the golf course. So, when you watch the big moment
01:26at this year's tournament, you'll notice the fans watching without holding their phones
01:30up in front of them. It makes a nice change. The current Augusta National Chairman, Fred
01:35Ridley, won the 1975 US Amateur Championship. He also represented the USA at the Walker Cup
01:41and played in three Masters tournaments as an amateur. He's the only Augusta National
01:46Chairman to have also played in the tournament. The first and second round TV coverage of the Masters
01:51only began in 1982. Previously, armchair fans had no way of watching the first two days play.
01:57And not only that, 18-hole coverage on Sunday only started in 2002 and the Par 3 contest only
02:04started being televised in 2008. Moving on to the caddies. Players were only given the option of using
02:09their own caddies during the Masters in 1983. Before that, they were allocated one of the club's own
02:14caddies to use during the tournament week. The front nine actually used to be the back nine. The nines
02:20were reversed in 1935, a year after the inaugural Augusta National Tournament. I think it's fair to
02:25say that move was a very good idea. The hardest hole in the history of the Masters is the Par 4-10th,
02:31which averages 4.3. The easiest is the Par 5-13th, with an average of 4.77. The Masters is by far the
02:39hardest men's major to qualify for because it has the smallest field of the four majors. In 2018,
02:45it had just 87 players, the lowest in its history. Last year, the Open had a field of 156 competitors.
02:52The Masters trophy, a model of the clubhouse, was introduced in 1961. It was made in England and
02:58features 90 separate pieces of silver. And finally, the now-famous Wednesday Par 3 contest started in
03:051960. And since then, nobody has won that and the green jacket in the same week. The Par 3 course
03:11measures 1,060 yards, with holes ranging from 70 to 140 yards. So there you have it. That completes
03:18our look at some of those things about Augusta National that you may not already have known.
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