re: The 2016 Masters ticket lottery is now open

If I get the email, thats what I'm giving my dad for Fathers Day this year.

1. Buy them on the secondary market for about $250-300 a day for practice rounds or $1200-1500 a day for tourney rounds. Many sell half day badges as well.

2. Have them given to you from a vendor if your position in a company warrants that type of pandering to.

3. Register on Masters website in May every year for the lottery. You can request to be in the lottery for up to 4 tickets for practice rounds. You can select all four days but can only win one days admittance. Same for the tourney rounds but you can only get a max of two instead of four. (Note:this is not the permanent patron waiting list. It was closed in 2001)


They briefly opened the waiting list up in 2001 and automatically added people who had been on the practice round list prior. Back then, practice round tickets were not to hard to come by through Augusta National. Particularly in the mid to late 90s. I used to buy practice round tickets every year with no problem. For whatever reason in 2001, they had enough permanent patron slots open up that they did a lottery from the regular registered practice round buyers to fill the pool. I was notified via email , in 2004, that I had won patron status via the lottery.

All of the people who were bumped to the official waiting list in 2001 from the pre 2001 practice round list still make up the "official" waiting list along with those who were already on it.....some since the 80s. It is purely luck of the draw for any on that list. I was only on it for 3 years when I was picked....going ahead of thousands who had been on the list for a decade or two.

Not sure with today's demand that they will ever need to bump a large block of practice round list folks to the official waiting list. They probably just do it based on yearly attrition levels every year. Fifty badges open up and they randomly select 25 names off the official list. Replace those 25 with random drawings from the practice round list. I doubt there will ever be another time when they move over a large block like they did in 2001. That whole 2001 deal might have been a by-product of AUgusta National putting an end to the old "grandfathering" of badges policy.

Every year, I see at least one couple or individual that looks like they just floated down Rae's Creek on inner tubes and snuck through the woods.

I've been lucky enough to go with The 1018 Club for a few Wednesday practice rounds. Awesome trip! I alway loaded up at the gift shop.

My cousins actually got a chance to play there. They got me a hat from the actual pro shop. Pretty cool cause it only says "Augusta National" .

One more year of trying. Probably one more year of failing.