AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | “Ain’t it good to be together again.”
On Thursday morning, Tom Watson shared his folksy observation made earlier in the week to fellow past champions at the Masters, but it held a double meaning here at Augusta National Golf Club.
A professional game fractured by dissent has united, if only for a week, in the spirit of reunion and rebirth amid the spring bursting of color at the season’s first major championship.
Earlier in the morning, after a 2½-hour rain delay, Watson joined Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player for ceremonial opening tee shots to start the 88th Masters.
In a place steeped in traditions, the Thursday gathering of Masters legends is one of Augusta National’s most revered moments. Nicklaus, who owns a record six Masters victories, has combined with Player (three) and Watson (two) to win 11 green jackets and make 140 tournament starts. The chance to glimpse golf royalty together, in such a glorious setting, lures the spectators as surely as a restocking of garden gnomes in the merchandise center.
On the first tee, ringed by patrons 5-10 deep on three sides, with hundreds more gathered near the iconic live oak and craning for a view, the legends played to their crowd.
Player, an 88-year-old marvel to health and fitness, rifled a tee shot down the fairway, then playfully high-stepped as he tipped his cap. Nicklaus, now 84, followed by poking a draw down the left side.
“Jack, you’ve never hit a hook off this tee in your life,” the 74-year-old Watson said jokingly before pegging his ball.
“That was a neck pull,” retorted Nicklaus, who lived by the power fade in his prime.
Nobody was there to measure results but merely revel in the moment.
And so it went. The patrons soaked it up.
It’s a tournament tradition that dates to 1963, with Jock Hutchison and Fred McLeod, major winners whose best seasons and tournament success predated the Masters’ 1934 debut. Over the years, the ceremony has featured Masters winners Byron Nelson, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson, who replaced the late Palmer in 2022. Ken Venturi and Lee Elder made one-year cameos.
Nobody was there to measure results but merely revel in the moment. Surrounded by the applauding spectators, the Masters’ version of the Big Three paraded toward the clubhouse and eventually to meet the media.
In a 40-minute question-and-answer session, the golf legends spoke forcefully, laughingly, sincerely and often self-deprecatingly about their successes, their failures, their rivalry and their shared hope for the future.
Player, a South African, touched on familiar themes dear to his heart: support for the ball rollback (“there are no more par 5s”), an admiration for America and its freedoms (“the greatest country that God ever made”) and the key to a long and healthful life (“ice cold bath every morning” and “undereating”).
Watson (left), Barbara and Jack Nicklaus, and Player enjoy their Thursday morning at Augusta National.
Watson, picking up on the theme, counseled to “surround yourself with people you love” and “do things in life for other people.”
Nicklaus mentioned his five children, 24 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren as keeping him young at heart.
But the conversation kept coming back to golf, past and present.
Their collective power of recall, at times aided by one another, proved to be remarkable.
Nicklaus was asked to discuss his mindset after a rare bad shot in a career that produced 73 PGA Tour victories. Notably, a shank, of all things, at the par-3 12th hole in the 1967 Masters.
“Sixty-four,” Nicklaus said in correcting the questioner’s reference to the year, drawing laughter from the audience.
“It was an 8-iron, and I almost killed [club co-founders] Bob Jones and Cliff Roberts. Shanked it right over their heads in the last round. … I use that as one of my most embarrassing moments in golf.”
“There’s confrontation; it’s unhealthy. … The public don’t like it, and we as professionals don’t like it, either.” – Gary Player
Watson reminisced laughingly about a whiffed stroke in Australia, prompting Nicklaus to recall a similar gaffe in an Open Championship at Muirfield.
Men comfortable in their respective skins yet with plenty on their minds. And they’ve earned the right to talk about a path forward for the game.
LIV Golf has lured some of the game’s top players into leaving the PGA Tour, offering massive sums of money from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Thirteen of those LIV players, including seven past Masters champions, are part of the 89-man field here this week. The honorary starters, who sat at the Champions Dinner with seven of those LIV disruptors earlier in the week, addressed the game’s future.
“There’s confrontation; it’s unhealthy,” Player said. “You’ve got to get together and come to a solution. If you cannot – it’s not good. The public don’t like it, and we as professionals don’t like it, either.”
Said Nicklaus: “The best outcome is the best players play against each other all the time.”
Added Watson: “It’s a difficult situation for professional golf right now. The players really kind of have control, I think in a sense. What do they want to do? We’ll see where it goes.”
On this day – and for this week, at least – it’s a game united by the Masters and three of its most revered champions.