Tom Scully and Tom Mc Gowan outside the clubhouse in Augusta.

If you are a golfer and have a bucket list then a trip to see the Masters is likely to be an ambition.

We decided back in May 2016 to travel and set about planning for the various arrangements that needed to be put in place. Decisions ón flights, car hire and hotels are fairly straightforward but the key issue of tickets for the golf proved to be very difficult and elusive.

We got an early break when a friend of ours won 2 tickets for the Wednesday practice day and offered them to us at face value $65 each.(see below re: Annual draw for Masters tickets).

However tickets for tournament days became a major obstacle to our plans and after much research we can summarise the situation as follows;

a) if you are lucky enough to have a friend who is a member of Augusta you are “on the pigs back”
b)there are several established resellers who advertise tickets ón websites at about £1200-1300/day

c)We found a couple of tour organisers who sell packages of 5to 7 days with 2 days at the Masters + lunch and hospitality arrangements costing €5k to €8.5k without flights.

Over our period of research we built up some promising contacts for tickets but with time running out we were forced to make a decision ón flights and hotels. We decided to take a chance that one or other of the links would come good and travelled with some reeasonable expectation that tickets would become available at maybe $400-600 each..

In the event we failed and with Wednesdays practice called off at 10.30 am we were feeling very sorry for ourselves. We called into a bar in the town of Augusta ón wednesday afternoon and loo and behold the luck of the Irish came through. We bumped into a total stranger, a golfer who was a frequent visitor to Ireland and making it short he made a call and got 2 tickets from a Reseller for Thursday at $1200 which we now saw as a bargain.
We got full value for our money and watched the best players in the world up close from 8am to close of play at 8pm. MAGIC.

Augusta is a great expierience but dont take it ón unless you have tickets “ in your pocket”.

As to the cost, well maybe there are cheaper options but in any event if golf is your game , put it ón your list.

Masters tickets annual draw; The organisers issue a number of tickets every year at face value $100/day. Anyone can apply. Go to tickets.masters.com