December 31, 2020 | BY AAGD STAFF
In trying to plan a safe Masters Tournament for spectators and players, the ticketing process for the 2021 Championship has been delayed.
This first major of the season hopes to resume spectator participation which was banned due to the national coronavirus pandemic and moved from April to November.
The countdown to the first round of the April 8, 2021 Championship is just 100 days away, so the pressure is on organizers to quickly make a decision.
“As planning continues on how to stage the 2021 Masters Tournament safely and responsibly, we would like to inform you that Augusta National is delaying the ticket process for Patron Series Badges, which traditionally begins Jan. 1,” the club said in an email to ticket holders.
“Our intention is to communicate our decisions for the 2021 Masters to all patrons of record by the end of January. No further action is needed with your account at this time.”
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Patron Series Badges give badge holders access to the four-tournament rounds only and do not include practice rounds. The cost of a badge for 2020 was to be $375, and when the Masters announced in August that it would play in November without spectators, it offered to defer those badges to 2021.
When it comes to accessing practice rounds, spectator tickets are distributed for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday by way of a lottery which is conducted the previous spring. Due to the pandemic, tickets for these events were also deferred to 2021.
Since all tickets and badges for these Masters events have been pre-sold, Augusta National Golf Club is put in a precarious position, trying to figure out how to resume operations with presumably a smaller number of spectators allowed on site. In the email, the club thanked its patrons for “continued patience” as it looks to communicate a definitive answer.
Crowd sizes are not announced, but it is generally believed that around 30,000 series badges are sold, according to ESPN.com. Trying to reduce that number down to about half will be a challenge, maybe only allowing for a limited number of days or, again, deferring attendance a year.
Masters chairman Fred Ridley said in November that he hopes the “tournament in April will be more normal than it is now,” but Ridley could not provide any such assurances, and understandingly so, with the constantly changing pandemic situation across the country.
“We would need to see objective data that would give us a high level of confidence that we could bring large numbers of people onto the grounds for April,” Ridley said on Nov 11. “I think the vaccine — I don’t want to get into medical prognostications — but just logically as a lay person, the vaccine, while it will be wonderful when it happens, there are all kinds of issues that point to beyond April [for the vaccine] as the silver bullet.
“As it relates to [COVID-19] testing, there are some real opportunities there. Our staff has been exploring those very deeply. We have a number of people who are very interested in helping us. It is something we will be looking very hard at. It’ll be a wonderful circumstance if we could test large numbers of people.”
To proceed in hosting the 2020 Masters this past November, spectators were only admitted to the grounds once they showed proof of having a negative COVID-19 test. Organizers also administered rapid-response tests through a local pharmacy, however, perhaps fewer than 2,000 people received these tests, according to ESPN.com.
Although Ausugta Nationa may have no problem with the financial costs required to having all spectators undergo testing, along with arranging access for acres of parking facilities, the overall effort would be huge undertaking.
