AUGUSTA, Ga. – The thing about Masterswhen all is said and done, you’re playing for a coat. A green jacket! The idea is so retro that no one would dare to invent such a prize today. (When was the last time you saw someone boarding a domestic flight in a sport coat? It was once strict.) Rory McIlroy wanted one Augusta National club coat from the day in 1997 when he saw Tiger Woods win his first. Tiger wanted one from the day he saw Jack Nicklaus win his sixth in 1986. Jack saw Bob Jones in a club jacket hundreds of times over the years.
“Rory, the last time you were here, you wore a green jacket for the first time and now you’re back as the Masters champion,” John Carr, son of Irish golf legend Joe Carr, told McIlroy on Tuesday afternoon. They sat side by side against a wall in the Augusta National press building, a sea of reporters in front of them. Carr was there as the interview moderator and was also wearing a club coat. “Tell us how it feels.”
“It feels absolutely incredible,” McIlroy said. “I can’t believe it was 12 months ago that I was sitting here trying to take it all in. To be able to come back and do this press conference in a green jacketthat feels pretty good. It’s been an amazing 12 months, bringing this thing around the world, the excitement on people’s faces when they see it, the excitement I still have putting it on.”
A coat. So much fuss.
You are playing for a coat, a locker in Augusta National Club to keep him in and a coat-and-tie dinner on Tuesday-night Masters week. Rory McIlroy, the reigning champion, is hosting the Tuesday night dinner this year. He will be in the club’s shirt. Every last person at the table will be wearing a club coat. And that’s what makes the Masters – the winner’s green jacket and all that owning one entails.
No one knows or cares how much money Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy won when they won their first Masters. (Well, in the unlikely event you care, let us save you the trouble: Nicklaus, 1963, $20,000; Woods, 1997, $486,000; McIlroy, 2025, $4.2 million.) We know they got a coat, a locker, a seat at the table. In this narrow view of life, they are the envy of the world.
It is much more difficult to win the first coat than the second. Bubba Watson and Scottie Scheffler and Bernhard Langer and Ben Crenshaw, among others, will tell you that. That’s because you’re already inside. The pressure is off. On Sunday afternoon, you can breathe when others are gasping for air. On balance, no one should be surprised to see Rory McIlroy claim this year. Jon Rahm and Patrick Reed, same. Winning or not involves many things beyond the control of any player. But to fight all you need are huge reserves of talent.
“The nice thing now is instead of being, ‘Come on, Rory, you know you can do this,’ it’s now, ‘Get behind me!'” McIlroy said Tuesday. “There’s a real positive connotation to it. Instead of ‘Geez, Rory: We’ve been waiting a while – when are you going to do this?’
“I feel a lot more relaxed. I know I’ll be back here for many years, I’ll enjoy the benefits that the champions get here. It doesn’t make me any less motivated to go out there and play well and try to win the tournament. Just more relaxed about it all.”
Last year, McIlroy came to the club for dinner with Justin Rose on Tuesday evening of Masters week. Since neither had won a Masters, neither had an invitation to the Champions Dinner. Agents in their coats—Augusta National’s club coats—were gathering for dinner.
“I was pulling up Magnolia Lane, and you go in a circle, and I’m like, ‘Should I go and park in the lot?’ Because I will not park in the parking lot of Champions.
At that moment, the champions were sipping their cocktails on the balcony. I say: ‘I don’t want to serve, go out – they will see me and it will be strange. Thankfully that was the last time I had to do that. I think it’s one of the best traditions in sports. And I’m very grateful to be a part of it.” Dinner. The winners in their club coats. The reigning champion picks up the tab.
Ben Hogan started Dinner of Championsa year after he won the 1951 Masters. In his invitation to his fellow winners, he said, “My only obligation is that you wear your green coat.” They all did and have since.
In the past, first-time winners have been given a club coat for Sunday evening purposes, replacing it as needed later, usually for a better fit. McIlroy did not. The coat he was given on Sunday night a year ago is the one he will wear to Tuesday’s dinner. The coat he was given a year ago is the one that will hang in his closet, the one he shares with Ben Hogan (in perpetuity) and Ray Floyd.
The coat has been all over the world. It didn’t take him to the tailor or the dry cleaners.
“I’m scared,” McIlroy said. “I’ve tried to be very careful.”
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
;)
