Tickets to the 4 day Masters tournament are handed down from generation to generation. They have closed the waiting list to get on the waiting list. That is not say they are impossible to get. For a price nearly anything can be had.
My wife and I don’t golf and are not really into following it as fans. We used to go to one of the practice rounds each year in the early 90s, because it was like $5 to get in and you just walked up to the gates on the day and in you went. It would be like living in Indianapolis and never going to the 500, so we went. The course is better looking in person than it is on TV and during practice the golfers are loose and having fun, you could take pictures and get autographs. Always thinking how cool it would be to go to the actual tournament.
Somewhere around 1995 they made a decision to limit even the practice round tickets. Can’t blame them the place was getting too crowded and the crowd was getting boisterous and the traffic jams outside the gates were getting really troublesome. The first couple of years after they instituted the lottery we got tickets, but since then we have been shut out. It seems like the tickets are going to all out-of-towners that come to Augusta and spend big bucks on hotels and meals. Of course the officials claim that it is a fair lottery, but too many of the locals who used to go are getting shut out too. Urban legends have cropped up of getting distant relations to apply for the practice round tickets and then pass along to the locals so they can go.
Tonight my across the street neighbor called and asked if we wanted a couple of tickets to go see the Masters tomorrow. We turned him down. We have nearly all our vacation for the year either taken or scheduled. Plus it is going to be raining and low 50s. If the weather was going to be sunny and 75 we might have burned one of the last two free vacation days we have left free. I wonder if our neighbor will think of us next year or was this our one and only shot at this.