This page will contain wikis about The Masters, as they become available.

The Masters Tournament

The Masters is one of four major championships in men's golf and the first to take place each year. Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held every year at the same location, Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in Augusta, Georgia, USA. The Masters was started by Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones who designed Augusta National with legendary course architect Alister MacKenzie.

In addition to a cash award, the winner of the tournament is presented with a distinctive green jacket, awarded since 1949, highly coveted among professional golfers. The green coat is actually the official coat worn by members of Augusta National while on the club grounds; each Masters winner becomes an honorary member of the club. Winners keep their jacket for the first year after their first victory, then return it to the club to wear during tournament week each following year.

In line with the other majors, winning the Masters gives a golfer several privileges which make his career much more secure, if he is not already one of the elite of the sport. Masters champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors (the US Open, British Open and the PGA Championship) for the next five years, and earn a lifetime invitation to the Masters. They also receive membership on the PGA TOUR for the following five seasons and invitations to THE PLAYERS Championship for five years.

Controversy

In 1975 Lee Elder became the first African-American to qualify for the Masters. Then, in 1997, headlines were made around the world when Tiger Woods won the Masters. More recently, the club was targeted by Martha Burk, who organized a failed protest at the 2003 Tournament to pressure the club to accept female members.

The club awards successive one-year television contracts to CBS and USA Network. In 2005 CBS televised the Masters for the 50th consecutive year.

Winners

Numbers in brackets after "Playoff" indicate the number of players involved.

Multiple winners

The following men have won the Masters Tournament more than once to 2005 inclusive.

  • 6 wins
    • Jack Nicklaus: 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1986
  • 4 wins
    • Arnold Palmer: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964
    • Tiger Woods: 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005
  • 3 wins
    • Jimmy Demaret: 1940, 1947, 1950
    • Sam Snead: 1949, 1952, 1954
    • Gary Player: 1961, 1974, 1978
    • Nick Faldo: 1989, 1990, 1996
  • 2 wins
    • Horton Smith: 1934, 1936
    • Byron Nelson: 1937, 1942
    • Ben Hogan: 1951, 1953
    • Tom Watson: 1977, 1981
    • Seve Ballesteros: 1980, 1983
    • Bernhard Langer: 1985, 1993
    • Ben Crenshaw: 1984, 1995
    • Jose Maria Olazabal: 1994, 1999

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The following men have won the Masters Tournament more than once to 2005 inclusive. See The Legend of Zelda, among numerous examples. Numbers in brackets after "Playoff" indicate the number of players involved. Artificial legends are the stock-in-trade of computer gaming. In 2005 CBS televised the Masters for the 50th consecutive year. They learned their stock in trade, their stories, typically from an older storyteller, who might (or more usually might not) have actually been there when the "story" was "history" bardic schools. The club awards successive one-year television contracts to CBS and USA Network. Storytellers abounded.

More recently, the club was targeted by Martha Burk, who organized a failed protest at the 2003 Tournament to pressure the club to accept female members. Before the invention of the printing press, stories were passed on via oral tradition. Then, in 1997, headlines were made around the world when Tiger Woods won the Masters. Conspiracy theories are similar to legends in that the linchpin of the conspiracy is usually a plausible, but unprovable secret agenda which exclusively drives the story and links otherwise unconnected happenings into a satisfying pattern. In 1975 Lee Elder became the first African-American to qualify for the Masters. What distinguishes legend from chronicle, however, is that legend applies a structure that reveals a moral "meaning" to events, which lifts them above the meaningless repetitions and constraints of average human lives and gives them a universality that makes them worth repeating. . Some legends we "know" today may have their basis in historical fact.

They also receive membership on the PGA TOUR for the following five seasons and invitations to THE PLAYERS Championship for five years. When a legend that is rooted in a kernel of truth is so strongly affected by an ideal (perhaps of chivalry) that it conforms to expected literary conventions of behavior, it becomes Romance. Masters champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors (the US Open, British Open and the PGA Championship) for the next five years, and earn a lifetime invitation to the Masters. It may be crystallized in a literary work that fixes it and which affects the future direction it will take: compare Hamlet (legend) and Shakespeare's Hamlet. In line with the other majors, winning the Masters gives a golfer several privileges which make his career much more secure, if he is not already one of the elite of the sport. A legend or legend fragment is a meme that propagates through a culture. Winners keep their jacket for the first year after their first victory, then return it to the club to wear during tournament week each following year. See the entry Euhemerus for more detail.

The green coat is actually the official coat worn by members of Augusta National while on the club grounds; each Masters winner becomes an honorary member of the club. Explaining the origins of myth as former historical legends in this fashion is termed "euhemerism". In addition to a cash award, the winner of the tournament is presented with a distinctive green jacket, awarded since 1949, highly coveted among professional golfers. To take an example, myths surrounding Cadmus, a Phoenician immigrant credited with bringing the alphabet and other Near Eastern culture to Bronze Age Greece, may have begun as a series of legends gathering around the memory of the historical founder of certain coastal cities in Greece. The Masters was started by Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones who designed Augusta National with legendary course architect Alister MacKenzie. Legend may be interpreted for its ontological consequences and be treated as myth. Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held every year at the same location, Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in Augusta, Georgia, USA. Thus "legend" gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and "spurious".

The Masters is one of four major championships in men's golf and the first to take place each year. By emphasizing the unrealistic character of "legends" of the saints, English-speaking Protestants were able to introduce a note of contrast to the "real" saints and martyrs of the Reformation, whose authentic narratives could be found in Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Jose Maria Olazabal: 1994, 1999. Its first blurred extended (and essentially Protestant) sense of a nonhistorical narrative or myth was first recorded in 1613. Ben Crenshaw: 1984, 1995. The word "legend" appeared in English ca 1340, transmitted from medieval Latin through French. Bernhard Langer: 1985, 1993. The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day.

Seve Ballesteros: 1980, 1983. They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography. Tom Watson: 1977, 1981. Jacob de Voragine's Legenda Aurea or "The Golden Legend" comprises a series of vitae or instructive biographical narratives, tied to the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. Ben Hogan: 1951, 1953. Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Byron Nelson: 1937, 1942. If it included an ass that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable.

Horton Smith: 1934, 1936. The parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. 2 wins

    . The talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief parables as fables, not legends. Nick Faldo: 1989, 1990, 1996. Legends that exceed these boundaries of "realism"— a term that has no practical application unless it is bound within particular cultural perspectives— are "fables". Gary Player: 1961, 1974, 1978. But compare the Voyage of Saint Brendan, and the "Black Legend" of the supposedly fanatical and cruel national character of Spain.

    Sam Snead: 1949, 1952, 1954. Like metaphors, legends may be living or dead: the vital signs of a legend depend upon its being fiercely defended as true, which eliminates the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Jimmy Demaret: 1940, 1947, 1950. From the moment a legend is retailed as a legend, its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a sly literary anecdote with "Gothic" overtones, which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend. 3 wins

      . The myth of the Gordian Knot is the founding myth of Gordium itself, justifying the authenticity of its line of kings. Tiger Woods: 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005. The legend concerns Alexander the Great, who, when confronted with the ancient knot of cornel bark that secured the pole of the sacral ox-cart at Gordium in the winter of 333 BC, severed it with a slash of his sword.

      Arnold Palmer: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964. A clear example, which distinguishes what is myth from what is legend, is the story of the Gordian Knot. 4 wins

        . The distinction is carefully drawn by Karl Kerenyi in the opening pages of The Heroes of the Greeks (1959):. Jack Nicklaus: 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1986. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localises romantic stories in some definite spot.". 6 wins
          . Hippolyte Delehaye, (in his Preface to The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography, 1907) distinguished legend from myth: "The legend, on the other hand, has, of necessity, some historical or topographical connection.

          For the purpose of the study of legends, in the academic discipline of folkloristics, the truth value of legends is irrelevant because, whether the story told is true or not, the fact that the story is being told at all allows scholars to use it as commentary upon the cultures that produce or circulate the legends. In short, legends are believable, although not necessarily believed. Thus modern "urban legends" are quite correctly termed legends: "it happened to the brother-in-law of someone my friend's mother knew". Modern retellings of the legend of Saint George omit many of the miraculous happenings that were central to earlier versions, but which have lost credibility.

          Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic. A legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. William Tell. Roland.

          Robin Hood. Vlad the Impaler; the legend from which vampire mythology is said to derive;. El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth, which both evolved from legend to myth;. The Holy Grail;.

          King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, when the "real Arthur" is identified in 6th century Cornwall;. Bruno of Carthusia;. Cenodoxus, or the Damnation of the Good Doctor of Paris, an event leading ultimately to the Sanctification of St. Atlantis, especially when its "actual site" is hunted for (Plato used the myth as a parable);.