You don’t even have to be a golf fan to recognize the iconic sounds of the Masters theme song: a simple acoustic guitar joined by tinkling piano keys and background strings. The song’s power is in its nostalgia and its positive associations — the start of spring, the beginning of the golf season, flowers blooming, incredibly green grass and so on. But now, Augusta National has a brand new theme song to add to the mix.
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur released its new theme song on Monday in a behind-the-scenes video from a recording studio in Dallas, Texas. The tournament, which begins on Wednesday and heads to Augusta National on Saturday, started from scratch in an effort to write a theme that would resonate with NBC’s viewers. This is the second such behind-the-scenes theme song release from NBC in recent months; the Players theme was released just before the tournament in March.
The players involved in the ANWA theme discussed the thought process behind the new score. “We played around with probably, I don’t know, five or six different melodies trying to capture the emotions that align with this groundbreaking tournament,” one offered, holding his guitar.
The words they used in the video are typical Augusta National. Prestige. Class. Emotion. But in this case, an emphasis on the tournament’s significance meant focusing on bringing women in and have them heavily involved in the entire process.
“We found it would be a very nice touch to get all female musicians to play the strings, which are really driving the piece,” another musician said.
The ANWA theme stayed away from the tinkling piano keys, favoring strings instead, punched up with a strong horns section.
“When you put together a session like this, there’s an energy of women coming together and that was exciting for us to do,” one violinist said. You can hear the entire theme song here.
A new theme for a new day.
This is the soundtrack for the inaugural #ANWAgolf. pic.twitter.com/T83KPfrWSK
— Augusta National Women's Amateur (@anwagolf) April 1, 2019
Thus far, it sounds great. But the true test will come in Aprils years to come, when the ANWA theme song comes on. If our thoughts turn to exciting golf, cherry blossoms, sunny days and all things spring, that’s when we’ll know for sure it’s been a success.
