Masters Tournament

You cannot actually keep the Green Jacket. When a player wins the tournament, they get to take the iconic jacket home for exactly one year, but after that, they must return it to the club where it stays in a highly guarded locker room forever.

The pimento cheese sandwiches are shockingly cheap. While most major sporting events charge an absolute fortune for terrible food, Augusta National still famously sells their iconic, deliciously simple pimento cheese sandwiches for just a dollar and fifty cents.

Magnolia Lane is an absolute botanical masterpiece. The famous entrance road to the clubhouse is lined with exactly sixty-one massive magnolia trees that were planted way back in the 1850s, long before the property ever became a golf course.

Broadcasters have a strict vocabulary. If you listen closely to the television broadcast, announcers are strictly forbidden from using the word fans or spectators, and must instead respectfully refer to the massive crowd as patrons.

Amen Corner got its name from a jazz song. A famous sports writer coined the legendary nickname for the incredibly difficult three-hole stretch of the course in 1958, pulling the inspiration from an old jazz record he loved.

Cell phones are strictly banned on the property. If a patron is caught sneaking a smartphone into the tournament to take a quick picture, security will immediately escort them off the grounds and completely revoke their ticket privileges for life.

The fairways are basically painted. Because the tournament takes place in early spring, groundskeepers actually use a safe, green food coloring to touch up any brown patches of grass so the course looks absolutely flawless on high-definition television.

The Champions Dinner has an incredible menu. Every Tuesday before the tournament starts, the previous year’s winner gets to choose the exact menu for a highly exclusive dinner attended only by past Masters champions, leading to some wild culinary choices over the decades.

Cows used to mow the lawn. During World War II, the club was forced to close down due to a lack of resources, so they actually bought a massive herd of cattle to eat the grass and keep the fairways somewhat maintained.

A giant oak tree is the ultimate networking spot. The massive oak tree sitting behind the clubhouse is considered the nerve center of the golf industry during the tournament, where wealthy executives, agents, and players casually negotiate million-dollar deals.

Caddies must wear identical white jumpsuits. You will never see a caddie wearing their own gear at Augusta, as the club strictly requires them to wear iconic, heavy white jumpsuits and green hats, regardless of how blisteringly hot the Georgia weather gets.

The sand in the bunkers is not actually sand. Those brilliant white traps scattered around the course are completely filled with a crushed quartz byproduct from a feldspar mine in North Carolina, which is why they look so incredibly bright on television.

Ike’s Pond is named after a president. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a massive fan of the club and actually suggested building a dam on the property to create a fishing spot, which the club happily built and named in his honor.

They pipe in fake bird noises on television. For years, fans swore they could hear species of birds on the broadcast that are not native to Georgia, and CBS eventually admitted they used to play recorded bird sounds to enhance the tranquil atmosphere.

Winning comes with an actual silver cabin. Along with the legendary jacket and a massive multi-million dollar paycheck, the tournament winner also receives a beautiful silver replica of the clubhouse to proudly display on their mantle back home.