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The Masters’ hallowed green jacket has an Augusta National patch stitched on its left breast pocket, three custom brass buttons, is lined with rayon and takes a month to produce at a cost of about US$250. A detail of a green jacket at Augusta National Golf Club on April 6.Michael Reaves/Getty Images
The 95 greatest golfers on the planet are gathered in Georgia this week to compete amidst the breathtaking azaleas, magnificent magnolias and towering pines at Augusta National. Sunday’s winner will receive US$3.5-million, but more importantly will be granted the right by the exclusive golf club to take home and wear one of its iconic blazers for a year.
The Masters’ hallowed green jacket is crafted by a tailoring company in Ohio that uses polyester and wool from a mill in Georgia. The garment has an Augusta National patch stitched on its left breast pocket, three custom brass buttons, is lined with rayon and takes a month to produce at a cost of about US$250.
To the Masters winner, however, it is priceless. It places them among a list of winners that includes some of the pre-eminent players of all time: Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, Sam Snead, Nick Faldo, Ben Hogan and Gary Player, among others.
“The jacket is emblematic of excellence in golf,” Jim Nantz, who will call this weekend’s tournament for CBS, said during a video call last week. This will be his 40th Masters broadcast. “If you win a green jacket, you have reached the highest level achievable in the game.
“There is never a discussion about purse money and how much you win. It’s about a coat. Tell me something that compares to that. You won’t come up with anything. You know what it is? It is immortality in golf. You achieve it and find a place in history. It’s forever.”
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The reigning Masters champion is allowed to take home his jacket and wear it in public for the year. It is presented to the winner by the previous year’s champion during a ceremony. Once the year is up, however, the jacket must be returned to the club where all the Masters winners’ jackets are kept in the Champions Locker Room.
Only two golfers have broken the rule. Mr. Player took his jacket back to South Africa after he won in 1961 and failed to return it, and Seve Ballesteros did the same after spiriting his off to Spain in 1980. Club officials allowed Mr. Player to keep it once he promised it would not be worn in public. The late Mr. Ballesteros was an outlier. He ignored requests for the sport coat’s return.
The green jacket has been a part of Augusta National’s history since the 1930s. Bobby Jones, a co-founder of the club and the Masters, borrowed the idea from the Royal Liverpool Golf Course in England, where he noticed former club captains wore snappy red blazers at dinner.
Members of Augusta National were given green jackets for the first time in 1937, and it has been a tradition for the winner to be awarded one since Sam Snead won the Masters in 1949. The jacket’s colour is officially identified as “Brilliant Rye Green Pantone 342,″ but most often it is simply referred to as Masters green.
Augusta National maintains jackets in a variety of sizes to have one that is a close fit available for the post-tournament ceremony, after which one is tailored to perfectly fit the winner. There are occasional gaffes, of course. When Mr. Nicklaus won his first of six Masters in 1963 as a paunchy 23-year-old, he was given a size 46-long to wear during the presentation.
“It looked like an overcoat,” Mr. Nicklaus said at the time.
In 1994, an Augusta National green jacket was found on a rack with other $5 coats in a Toronto thrift shop. It presumably belonged to a club member rather than a Masters winner because Augusta National keeps such close tabs on them. The jacket, whose original owner’s name had been cut out from the label, was resold in an auction in April, 2017, for US$139,000.
Winners have paid in homage to their jackets in unusual ways.
Billy Casper, who won the tournament in 1970, was buried in his in 2015 after his wife was granted permission by club officials. When Mike Weir became the lone Canadian to win the Masters in 2003, It was Mr. Woods that slipped a green jacket over his shoulders.
The next night, Mr. Weir wore it while he made a ceremonial puck drop before a Maple Leafs playoff game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
“When I go to Augusta National and open my locker and see my green jacket, I look myself in the mirror and I’m blown away that I am part of the history there,” he said.
The morning after Phil Mickelson won his third Masters in 2010, he wore his jacket in a drive-through at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in Augusta. He ordered three dozen of the sweet treats – a dozen glazed, a dozen chocolate and a dozen mixed – and posed for a picture in his car taken by the restaurant manager.
Charl Schwartzel, the 2011 champion, left his valuable coat in the back seat of a vehicle driven by a tournament volunteer. The driver noticed it and brought it back to him. “It could have been worse,” a relieved Mr. Schwartzel said afterward. “If I left it in a taxi, I would have never seen it again.”
Hideki Matsuyama, who won the Masters in 2021, declined to have his dry-cleaned in the year that followed. He was worried that it would somehow go missing. “I didn’t want to let it out of my sight,” he said after he returned it to Augusta National.
After Scottie Scheffler won the first of his two Masters championships in 2022, he wore his jacket while throwing out the first pitch at a Texas Rangers baseball game. He admitted that he was overwhelmed by pressure and cried before the final round.
That’s how important winning the Masters – and a green jacket – means to golfers.
“When you have the Masters tournament there is never a discussion about purse money and how much you win,” Mr. Nantz said. “Yes, there is money involved but it is never discussed. I couldn’t even come close to telling what first place pays at Augusta and I don’t care and nor do the players.
“It’s refreshing in a time in sports where all we hear about is money, guaranteed contracts and outrageous numbers that most people can’t relate to. The numbers are just fantasy to them.”
