The Masters begins on Thursday this week and it is the first of golf’s major tournaments. There are four majors each year, with the Masters probably being the most famous, arguably because it is played on the same golf course whereas all of the other majors rotate golf courses. I was lucky enough to be at the Masters for all four days last year in the small town of Augusta.

Augusta is about 2 hours’ drive south of Atlanta, Georgia. It is an amazing golf course, with far more hills and slopes than appears on television, and every hole is basically set up to look fantastic on TV and every part of the golf course is manicured and in wonderful condition. Augusta National is probably the course most amateurs desire to play the most, and most probably also because it is the most impossible to get to play, unless you know one of about 300 members, most of whom are billionaires and includes Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric. It is being based in the south, and really has been the seat of some controversy over the years including the fact that it only allowed black members to be admitted from 1990, and only admitted its first two female members in 2012. At one stage it required all caddies to only be black! The official site of the Masters can be found at www.masters.com.