With thunderstorms threatening in Augusta, organisers rearranged Masters Sunday to send the players out in the morning in threeballs and with the leaders off at 9.20am local time, 2.20pm in the UK.
In a place of traditions, it was something startlingly different. Two of our writers explain how it felt to them.
An early Masters Sunday pay-off was worth it
It didn’t bother me at all, writes Alex Perry.
Yes, I had to cut short an afternoon with my young family but I’ve got the rest of my life to spend with them, haven’t I?
How many more chances am I going to get to see Tiger Woods in contention on Masters Sunday?
If you’re asking me the ideal time to watch the biggest golf events, I’d want the leaders teeing off at around 6pm in the UK to be done by 10.30pm.
Of course, in this job, which involves watching it all, then writing about it and then curating our website, that’s when the work really starts.
I am by no means complaining, because I love doing it, but on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the Masters this year I didn’t finish until 3am.
The early start on Sunday meant I was done and dusted and tucked up with my teddy bear before midnight.
So as a viewer and golf fan, I wouldn’t have liked it.
As someone who runs a golf website for a living, I bloody loved it.
Please, never again – not on Masters Sunday
There are many reasons why I love the Masters, a big one being its timings, writes Mark Townsend.
I like the whole limited coverage, though the app was out of this world, and the weekend especially is all cuddly and homely thanks to the fake birdsong on the TV and relative peace in my head/house.
West coast majors are horrific for the UK viewer so Georgia in April is just about perfection. Saturday night was exactly how I wanted it: all nice and normal with two golfers in each group and me sat there with my toast and lemon curd as an 11pm pick-me-up – my own Masters tradition unlike anyone else’s.
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And then storms are predicted, I’ve got a two-tee start, they’re off in threeballs and I’ve promised my wife – and indirectly my three kids – that I will be well-adjusted, attentive and part of the family until at least six o’clock before descending into my usual major weirdness.
None of it feels right. I’ve been building up to Masters Sunday, which has provided some of my genuinely happiest memories late into the night, for the past eight months. It’s like the World Snooker final, it needs to finish at a time when you should be tucked up.
Now I’m watching Frankie, Tony and Tiger tee off and I’ve barely finished my lunch. There is other stuff going on to try and keep abreast of, like Liverpool-Chelsea, and I can’t settle.
I make pathetic attempts to check on family matters before scuttling back off to the gloom of Augusta National. And just as the players were coming down the closing stretch I’m starving and lemon curd will no longer cut it.
I don’t suppose too many will look back on this year’s Masters Sunday as anything other than TW hugging his kids and achieving the seeming impossible. I’m afraid I’ll look back on it as a day of over-anxiety.
I was so upset that at one point I even googled what time it was in Melbourne and wondered how they were coping.
Why does the Masters champion receive a Green Jacket?
Did you like the early start and finish on Masters Sunday? Let us know in the comments below, or join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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