7 things about the Masters we never noticed (or tasted!) until this year

Collectively, the GOLF.com edit crew has been to its share of Masters, including the 2025 edition just last week. (In case you missed it — but, really, there’s no chance of that — Rory McIlroy made history.) After a few visits, you might think you’d seen, heard and tasted it all, but that’s the beauty of the Masters and Augusta National: Every trip ’round the property reveals something you missed on a prior loop. Upon their return from this year’s tournament, we asked our fleet of staffers what new observations caught their eyes.

Sneaky-good vantage point

The best place to watch the Masters? It’s left of 7 green. That’s right — on the front nine, not the back. I’m not sure how this viewing place evaded me over the years, but it is my new favorite spot (see red circle below). You can see wedges zip in on 7, ripped drivers going for the green on 3, that downhill, roping long-iron players go with on 2, and its opposite going up 8. All deeply important shots, and you don’t even have to wheel around to see any of them. Better yet, there’s a concession stand 80 yards away. — Sean Zak

An under-appreciated craft  

I love the no-phone policy, and I love that we have to rely on roars and giant scoreboards to guide us through what’s happening during the rounds — but until last week I had never noticed the dramatics those clever scoreboard workers put into their craft. On Sunday, for example, as Rory, Justin and Ludvig battled it out, the patrons gathered around the 18th green were fixated on the scoreboard between the 10th and 18th holes, and each new number kept them in the know. But the way the operators posted the numbers — quickly and in unison, as if they were simultaneously ripping off Band-Aids — was a subtle yet important technique I have never picked up on. It was fun — and I bet those in charge of posting the scores were giddy knowing the power they possessed. — Josh Berhow

Concession newcomer

I happen not to be a meat-eater. Don’t eat the bird, the hog — anything with feet. Was delighted to see a new item on the club’s concession-stand menu: the tomato pie. It looks like a McDonald’s apple pie but it is, per its name, a tomato kind of thing.

My friend Bertis said, “Yeah, well — you know what makes it so good, don’t you?”

No.

“It’s the lard.”

I could not tell if he was joking or not. I asked one of the young people working behind the counter if she knew about the ingredients in the tomato pie. She said she did. I asked if there was any meat in it. She said there was not — that it was a vegetarian dish. I asked her how she could know that.

She said, “We were told that during training.”

Augusta — the club, the tournament, the concessions — is run the way the rest of the world should be run. — Michael Bamberger

A celebrity sighting…unlike any other

Does this count?! I saw Roger Federer! That stood out as extremely cool. Roger Federer! In real life!

There are a lot of famous people at the Masters, and it’s cool seeing them, too — I watched Rory McIlroy’s 17th hole from next to a screaming Noah Kahan, for example, and it seems like at least a third of the NFL’s starting quarterbacks make it out here, and the Mannings are now both members, and Ken Griffey Jr. was in the media center — but Federer’s aura is on another level.

I had just asked Xander Schauffele a question in the post-round interview area and Federer walked behind him by the clubhouse and I legitimately thought about pausing to say, “Hey, Xander, check that out, it’s Roger Federer!” I didn’t. But I wonder if Schauffele left Augusta thinking to himself, ‘Damn, Federer was there and I didn’t even see him?’ I hope not. — Dylan Dethier

About that grass…

It’s no secret that Augusta National’s grounds crew mows the fairways and chipping areas into the grain, i.e., from green to tee. “The result,” as my colleague Josh Sens noted in 2020, “is a beautifully uniform look, without the varying shades of green you see on clubs that mow in striped or checkerboard patterns.” They’re also a strategic reason for the mowing pattern: chipping off upgrain grass is said to be more challenging.

Last week, though, I learned that there’s an exception to the rule: the area in front of the green at the drivable par-4 3rd.

“The only place that’s downgrain,” Jordan Spieth said after his third-round 69 on Saturday. Spieth’s press conference that day was dominated mostly by his frustration with the preponderance of mud balls he had encountered during his round, but toward the end of his session, he brought up the oddity on the 3rd hole.

Of the downgrain mowing pattern in front of that green, he said, “that rewards you for a phenomenal shot, and it makes that second shot not get so crazy if you just happen to not quite pull it off. The better the second shot can kind of hang up in the fairway.”

He added, “I kind of like it in that regard.”

Earlier in the day at the 3rd, Spieth had left himself 44 yards into the green. He drove a low, spinning wedge into the front-right pin to 11 feet, setting up stress-free par.

Presumably he liked that, too. — Alan Bastable

Something in the air

I never knew I had seasonal allergies. In fact, I never knew I had allergies of any kind.

Then I arrived on site in Augusta and my skin literally changed pigments.

Turns out, the golf course was having one of the worst years ever for seasonal allergies — the highest “spore levels” in 80 years, someone told me — driven in part by Hurricane Helene. My eyes were red and itchy, my skin was blotchy. It was miserable. Then my coworker Claire handed me an Allegra, and my life changed for the better.

The big lesson here? When Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley says it’s a great year for the Azaleas, pack your allergy meds. — James Colgan

Witness to history

As a Masters first-timer, everything I saw, heard and tasted was uncharted waters — from the echo of cheers as the manual scoreboards updates to the taste of my first Georgia peach ice-cream sandwich to seeing my childhood crush (Joe Jonas) rip a stogie outside the clubhouse. 

But the one thing I will never forget: I weaseled my way through the crowd to get a direct eyeline to Rory’s putt on 18 in regulation. I’m superstitious so I closed my eyes, not being able to bear the thought of me jinxing the moment. Silly, I know. The groans told me the result. 

When Rory came back up 18 in the playoff, I said, screw it, I’m watching this time. And I did. And it was epic. 

Oh, one unexpected downside of standing my ground on 18: half of my face got sunburned. — Emma Devine