The Masters’ secret love of technology

The no-tolerance policy [against cell phones and other technology] fits Augusta National’s image. The club fancies itself as the most tradition-bound of golf bodies, one that prohibits anything high-tech from disturbing the peace on its grounds. The scoreboards for the Masters are all manually operated. The only prominent clock at Augusta National is a sundial dedicated to Bobby Jones. Blimps are forbidden in the skies overhead. Even electric vacuum cleaners are taboo in the clubhouse.

All of this makes for great theater, as golfers, visitors, and TV viewers are transported back to a world free of Jumbotrons and Gnarls Barkley ringtones. But while the Masters brass has carefully cultivated a technology-hating image, all this Luddism is a façade. Beneath the club’s manicured greenery lies an arsenal of technological wonders that keeps the course looking timeless and pristine. Indeed, take a deep enough divot at Augusta National and you’ll unearth the most technologically advanced setup in golf.

The greens, for one, are state-of-the-art. Beneath each putting surface is a latticework of pipes, pressurized valves, electric motors, and radio controls. Most clubs manually aerate their greens to get oxygen into the soil profile. At Augusta National, a groundskeeper fires up electric motors that pump oxygen directly to the roots from pipes below. If it starts to rain, the groundskeeper can switch the motors to “vacuum mode” and suck water out of the green almost as fast as it is pelting on the surface. Last year, the greens were just as fast after a stormy Saturday as they had been at the start of the week.