Augusta becomes international
AUGUSTA, Ga. – When Jack Nicklaus played in his first Masters Tournament in 1959, there were eight international players in the field. Augusta National Golf Club was an American golf course staging an American event, but over the years, the character has changed. A thicket of flagpoles now stands behind the huge leaderboard near the first tee.
Forty-four international players – nearly half the field of 100 – will tee it up today when the 69th Masters begins. They come from England, France and Spain, Ireland and Germany, from Argentina and Paraguay, South Africa and Zimbabwe, Korea and Japan.
They come from everywhere.
“It’s a major event, so we should have the best players in the world,” reasoned the man ranked No. 1, Vijay Singh, a Fiji native who got his start as a club pro in a Borneo rain forest. “The U.S. is not the only tour out there. There are great players from Europe, and I know that a few years ago there were only Europeans winning here.”
That would be 1980 through 1999, when Spain’s Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal, Germany’s Bernhard Langer, Scotland’s Sandy Lyle, England’s Nick Faldo and Wales’ Ian Woosnam won 11 of the 20 titles.
It’s a new world order. Three of the planet’s top five players were born outside the United States, as were six of the top 10 and 11 of the top 18. Golf has gone global and the world’s best are finding their way to America in greater numbers.
“When I first played here in 1959, golf in central Europe was not even played. It was an elite sort of game,” Nicklaus said. “The game has changed tremendously in Europe. There were virtually no Asian players that were playing tournament golf. You’ve got players from every place in the world now that are playing tournament golf and playing it well.”
Augusta threw open the door in 1999. That’s when its primary qualification criteria became the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, rather than winners of PGA Tour events. Thirteen foreign-born players competed in the 1985 Masters. Twenty-three played in 1995. That number jumped to 29 in 1999, 35 in 2000 and it has continued to climb.
Three-time champion Gary Player was the only international contestant to win during the Masters’ first 43 years. He still marvels at how egocentric American golf can be.
“Every time someone came over and played well, people would say, ‘I’ve never heard of you,’ ” Player recalled. “It’s like Mark McNulty (of Zimbabwe) winning on the Champions Tour and everybody saying, ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
“Well, Mark McNulty won 50 championships all over the world.”
America has no monopoly on great players, but it has the best-conditioned courses, the finest practice facilities, fair weather, ease of travel, good accommodations and the fattest purses in professional golf.
Those are among the reasons the PGA Tour’s international membership has increased from 21 five years ago to 78 this season.
Irishman Padraig Harrington thought he had established himself with 12 titles on the European tour until an acquaintance dismissed his record of achievement with the admonishment, “You haven’t won a PGA Tour event.”
Harrington was insulted. He was appalled. He vowed that would change this season.