Australian travellers and tour companies lost out when the 2020 Masters was postponed then staged without galleries. So what will future Masters trips look like?
It was as bizarre a scene as it sounds. Halfway across the world from their home, I watched four good friends pacing impatiently around a back-streets carpark in Augusta, Georgia, shortly after dawn on the Tuesday of Masters week in 2016. They were waiting for a man they’d never met but whose hands their trip of a lifetime rested in.
I had no such concerns. I was working that week and left Australia with the comfort of holding a media pass for a Masters ultimately punctuated by Jordan Spieth’s collapse and Danny Willett’s unlikely triumph. Fortunately for my friends and travel companions, the guy they’d already transferred sizeable sums of money to was as good as his word. His only sin was arriving a little later than the agreed time. The already-paid-for Masters tickets were soon in my friends’ hands and they encountered no problems for the duration of the week. They took a chance on the secondary ticket market and the reward outweighed the risk.
Not everyone is so lucky.
Simon Hetherington is a Melbourne golfer who, along with three friends, booked to attend last year’s Masters when it was originally scheduled for April. When the tournament was postponed until November due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he lost close to $10,000 as no ticket refunds were offered. Hetherington’s group purchased their tickets (officially known as Masters badges) as part of a package publicised by an Australian tour operator, which was able to provide refunds only for accommodation, pre-paid green fees and other inclusions. Not being refunded for the badges left him disenchanted with the whole Masters tour concept.
“I really am at odds with the guys who run these operations,” Hetherington says, still feeling stung one year on. “They are happy to take your money but they pass off all the risk to the punters and cover their own asses. That’s not right – ethically, morally or where I come from. If they are making a profit from a successful trip, they should also be made to wear the loss from an unsuccessful trip. And in this case, I still reckon they should be putting their hands in their pockets.
“From my point of view, I would be very sceptical about dropping a deposit down again unless I see a signed guarantee of full-fee paid service or a full refund coming back if that service is not provided. The set-up these guys are running is all for them and they pass off all the risk. I am not buying it and it should be called out by the punters, the industry, etc. They need to look at the entertainment industry – like concerts. [If there is] no concert, your funds are returned as the event was not held or not held with spectators. This is no different and it needs to be called out. Regardless of the cost to the operator, the punters who paid should be refunded in full.”
Of course, Masters travellers had the opportunity to insure themselves against such a situation, but many didn’t because no one anticipated a once-in-a-century pandemic. Yet somehow there were people who felt that while they didn’t take up the extra coverage, the tour operators they booked through should have anticipated COVID and protected them against it.
There are also two vastly different levels of loss being felt: individual and business. Consumer protections that are in place for other sporting events simply don’t exist for the Masters, and for tour operators any risk is multiplied.
“If one person is feeling stung, I’ve been stung 50 times,” says a different Australian tour operator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I haven’t slept for 12 months.”
It’s not difficult to see why with about $1 million tied up across his company’s 2020 Masters group, numbering approximately 50 people.
“We are trying our damnedest to find a positive solution for our clients, including trying to persuade all suppliers, who have no legal obligation to do so, to move everything down the track so our clients can enjoy the Masters experience when international travel is both possible and safe,” he adds.
“It highlights the complexity of the Masters. Let’s face it, the ticket system is unique – it’s a secondary market. You hear so many horror stories about badges, including people turning up to Augusta and the badges aren’t there for them. While as tour operators we are normally able to manage that risk for travellers, the circumstances of the past year are far from normal and there is only so much that even we are able to achieve.”
“I’m effectively a scalper,” admits another Australian tour operator, adding that the situation is very much one of: buyer beware.
Ways and means
It’s a murky and unfortunate situation for a lot of Australian golf fans who, prior to COVID, probably viewed 2020 as the ideal year to travel to Augusta for that ultimate bucket-list experience. Technically, however, there is no official channel through which people can purchase guaranteed entry to the Masters. Ticket allocation is conducted via random ballot, in much the same way as for Wimbledon, the FIFA World Cup and several more large events.
It’s very much a case of demand outweighing supply, which means acquiring Masters tickets can become a dark art. Part of the problem is badges move through so many hands beginning with the original holder before they (hopefully) wind up with the last people to pay for them. More hands mean more opportunities for something to go wrong.
Often, desperation takes over. As this writer walked away from the gates of Augusta National after the third round of the 2007 Masters, a man on the street offered me $US3,000 for the media pass still hanging around my neck, even though it had my name and photograph on it and was good for only one more day. I confess to feeling tempted for a second or two, but didn’t succumb.
While the Masters website makes it clear badges should not be purchased for re-sale, it does acknowledge that brokering tickets is legal if buyers and sellers have their correct paperwork and are not within 2,700 feet (832 metres) of the property. A warning offered by the Augusta Chronicle pulls no punches: “Anyone caught buying, selling or handing off tickets within a 2,700-foot boundary around the Augusta National could face misdemeanour charges or get a ride in a police car.”
Buying Masters badges online also breaches all of Augusta National’s policies and tour operators and their clients constantly remain vulnerable. Tickets were confiscated during stings at the 2018 and 2019 Masters, with holders questioned where they’d sourced theirs. As a result, tour operators are becoming more careful with their marketing. Even the term ‘Masters’ is starting to slide into the background in promotional material, as ‘trips to Augusta in April’ instead becomes the prevailing message.
There are more ways to operate cleverly. Our anonymous tour operator has added security for clients in recent years by renting the Augusta-area houses of badge-holders. They pay a drastically inflated price to rent the house for Masters week but officially pay nothing for the badges, which sidesteps the ticket-sourcing problem.
A matter of trust
PGA professional Michael Mosher first led a group of Australians to the Masters with Teed Up Golf Tours in 1999 and until last year hadn’t missed one since. He expects part of the wash-up of COVID and the postponement by seven months of last year’s Masters to result in fewer operators in the Masters tours market.
Several tour operators in Australia and overseas suffered significant financial losses. The not-insignificant difference between the tournament’s postponement compared to a cancellation perhaps caught out some operators in the fine print, while our research reveals at least two other tour companies found themselves in legal wrangles with clients about refunds. One large American ticket and hospitality supplier went under, a company that a lot of tour operators use to source tickets (although not one that Teed Up deals with).
“I think they’re connected,” Mosher says of the financial hit some companies took. “The big American company was not able to guarantee they can supply tickets for future Masters, so some operators would have lost the money they paid across completely. Ticket security at the Masters; we’ve always prided ourselves on how good our connections are and there are not as many hands in the deal between the ticket coming out of Augusta [National] and getting to us. So, I suppose that’s where a couple of new companies have come unstuck.”
What confuses Mosher is the amount of faith – and money – Australians place in strangers on the other side of the world when it comes to the centrepiece of their dream trip: Masters badges.
“I still can’t believe people just pay all this money over the internet to people they don’t even know. It just amazes me,” he says.
“Every year prior to COVID, every year, some random [person] comes up to me at our house at Augusta and says, ‘Are you Mike?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yes.’ And they will say something like, ‘My family and I have just driven down from Canada. I was told you could help me with real tickets, as the guy that we’ve paid said he would meet me at the hotel down the road and he’s not answering his phone anymore and we’ve come all this way.’ Every year. People would trust someone over the internet with all that money.”
Mosher is one who says in the chase for tickets, you usually get what you pay for.
“If you want to pay bottom-dollar for a ticket and try to get the lowest price you can, then you’re playing with fire because if the market goes up the week of or the fortnight before the tournament, ticket prices go through the roof. Then that guy on the street who’s got no money but has 10 badges can make an extra $100,000 if the market goes up. And so a lot of those people who ‘fish down the bottom’ don’t get their tickets and they’ve got to run around trying to get tickets and then pay ‘overs’.
“We’ve always paid more than what the street price was to try to get away from the bottom and so if it does go up, our suppliers look after us as we have been their best customer now for more than 13 years. And because we’re paying a fair price, they are not going to try to sell our tickets elsewhere for a better price. They are also on-site with us over there, so if there are any problems with the tickets they are on-hand.
“It’s hard for some people to understand,” Mosher concedes. “It’s similar to the Super Bowl. We’ve done a few Super Bowls and the ticketing process is similar.”
Teed Up minimises its exposure to any ticket chicanery by employing a woman who is from the Augusta area to buy the badges directly from the holders. More than 20 years of establishing that relationship and firming up the process has led to almost no problems.
“We’ve had two tickets that haven’t worked at the gate over that time, but the customer came straight back to us and we were able to give them a new ticket and they went straight back in,” Mosher says. “We’ve always been able to bounce back and cover that ‘what if’ [scenario].”
Few, if any, Australians are likely to be in the galleries at Augusta National this month. Mosher suspects that if patron numbers are limited, the longest-holding badge holders will be given priority with the rest rolled over to the 2022 tournament.
What will future Masters trips look like?
The allure of the Masters remains, and there will be Australians still harbouring a desire to attend in the future. Once upon a time, hearing another Australian accent in the gallery caused heads to snap sideways and eyes (or ears) to search for the fellow Antipodean in the crowd. Hearing Aussies at Augusta is now commonplace, partly thanks to the proliferation of tour operators.
Journeying to Georgia will happen again, but when? Mosher suspects attending the Masters could begin to look like pre-2020 again as soon as next April. But instead of 100 or more people touring with them, Teed Up is leaning towards leading smaller groups in future, with fully flexible booking terms.
“I’m always the optimist,” he says, “but I think the world will turn on as quickly as it turned off. And I think Augusta thinks of themselves as a leader in this – they don’t run with the pack. Knowing how much effort is put into running the tournament, they would be putting all that effort into working out how they can get the most people there. So much detail goes into the planning of everything, from the bathroom attendants to the concession stands – they’re working out what they can do. Everyone will probably get Masters-logoed facemasks as they go in.”
“People will be more wary,” adds our anonymous tour operator. Yet, at the time of writing, his company had only two clients opting not to attend the Masters at the next available opportunity. He echoes Mosher’s sentiments about bringing smaller groups – but for a different reason. Larger groups mean greater exposure and a higher chance of ticket scrutiny on the grounds.
While many Australians might be reluctant to travel to the USA in the coming years, others could view a clean and safe Masters as a low-risk environment. Plus there is the undeniable element of itchy feet for those who have long been anticipating being at the Masters in person.
“The feeling I’m getting now on the ground is: we’re going to get run over when we’re open and allowed to travel again because people have just been so stuck and want to get away,” Mosher says. “We have clients that come with us as their annual holiday every year, and a lot of them are just, ‘Let me out! I want to go! When are we going?’
“We feel like we might just pull back and do smaller tours, make sure it’s more personalised and make it all a bit more secure. Tickets will be trickier. Our suppliers are fine, but the big American company going down, I don’t know where the people will go from them and that could have an effect on the price, too.”
One seemingly logical move is to think Augusta National should take all ticketing in-house. Yet if that were to happen, fewer regular golf fans would see Masters badges than do now, as the tournament’s corporate partners would more than likely take the lion’s share. It might make an already dubious ticket-acquisition situation worse.
For Australians hoping to attend future Masters Tournaments, doing so through a trusted tour company has never sounded more important.
“Financially, we’re really stable. We have money put aside that’s helped us through this,” Mosher says. “We also have our relationships on the ground in America that are fantastic that, again, have been in this with us the whole way through. Those two things should make people look at us. Also our cancellation policies are very flexible now. On the website it says, ‘End of September: full cancellation, 100 percent back,’ and if it’s still grey we’ll move that month by month. We’re going to go out of our way to run the deadlines with payments so people have more protection.
“It’s become more than a business for us because the customers have become life-long friends and want to tour with us most years, so we take a long-term view.”
Shared experiences can certainly have that effect… if you manage to experience anything in the first place. Count Simon Hetherington among those unfortunate would-be 2020 Masters attendees for whom the prospect of a make-good trip next year doesn’t sound as appealing as it perhaps should.
“You may not even want the trip in ’22,” he says. “A few of us were wondering what we’d do if we were suddenly offered tickets to the Masters next year and if we’d go. And I don’t think I would. I think I’m a bit over it. I think I’d go to The Open instead.”
This article first appeared in issue #606, April 2021
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