FROM the weather to a lack of bustling crowds, much will be different about a Masters forced from April to November by the COVID-19 pandemic, but for Tiger Woods the most unsettling thing will be the absence of that familiar Augusta National soundtrack.
With no phones allowed on course and only a few manually operated scoreboards to provide updates, it is the roars echoing through the Georgia pines that have delivered the news at Augusta National during Masters week. With no fans allowed on site, golfers will be operating in the dark.
“There’s no other place like it,” said Woods on Tuesday as he prepared to defend his title at the ZOZO Championships, moved to Thousand Oaks, California from Japan due to COVID-19. “It echoes there, it travels.
“When you know the pairings, you know where certain players would be at that particular time and you can figure out who’s doing what, and the roars for certain people are louder than others, and then you hear eagle roars and hole-outs on 16, or whatever it may be.
“It’s unlike any other place in the world.”
A trip to Augusta National offers sensory overload from the sweet fragrance of the azaleas to the taste of a Masters pimento cheese sandwich.
