AUGUSTA, Ga. — At Augusta National, there’s more traditions than we can count. The green jacket. The Champions Dinner. Skipping balls across the pond. The Par-3 Contest. The list goes on and on.
But we recently stumbled upon another we didn’t even know existed. And if a handful of golf writers didn’t know this was a thing, there’s a good chance most of the general public didn’t either.
What is it, exactly? A golden locket presented to the defending champion, given to them at the beginning of the Champions Dinner every Tuesday of Masters week.
During a Q and A with Colt Knost at a Cabot event in Augusta on Wednesday night, two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw explained the locket and its significance.
Crenshaw has served as host of the Masters Champions Dinner since 2005, a gig that Byron Nelson previously held. One of his duties is presenting the defending champion — in this case, Jon Rahm — with an inscribed gold locket in the form of the club’s emblem, which serves as their certificate of membership into the Masters Club.
“My favorite thing to do is to award the defending champion this beautiful locket, a solid gold locket that the club gives to the defending champion,” Crenshaw said on Wednesday. “It’s a pendant that is supposed to go to your wife. It’s a beautiful gold locket that opens up three ways and you open it up and it has a silhouette of the Augusta National clubhouse … Bobby Jones. … It’s just a beautiful piece of art.”
While Crenshaw said it’s supposed to go to players’ wives, that actually might be something that manifested over the years.
“It’s really the mens’ locket, but what does a man do with a locket?” Julie Crenshaw, Ben’s wife, told GOLF.com. “So he said let’s put it on a necklace, so all of the wives have started to wear it.”
Julie wasn’t sure when exactly the tradition started — perhaps with Barbara Nicklaus, she said — but added that she wears her necklace the entire month of April.
But no matter how many times you win at Augusta, it’s just like the Masters green jacket: “This is symbolic that you are in the Champions’ Club, so you only get one,” Julie said.
Check out the video below to learn and see more of the locket.