Peter Williams: It's exclusive, it's pure, it's unique - it has to be the Masters

There can be no environment which is as purely golf as the Masters and Augusta National. In the past quarter of a century professional tournaments have evolved into part sports event, part commercial activity and part party.

But, apart from the sheer beauty of the place, the most striking aspect of this tournament and golf course is the complete absence of any sponsorship or corporate enterprise which is not run by the club itself. The US and British Opens lead the way in hosting huge tented villages with merchandise displays and hospitality areas. They're usually tacky and unwieldy but they play an integral part in those tournaments' multimillion dollar revenue streams.

There's none of that here. There are no hospitality suites for corporate executives to entertain clients, no sea of canvas under which the industry can show off the latest clubs or balls or mowers. Apart from the occasional portable toilet just for players, every structure here is permanent - until they remove it and build a bigger one. At the Masters, the golf tournament is what matters most.

Sure, the club is involved in obvious money-making activities. The main golf shop near the public entrance, and its other branches dotted around the course, sells a startling array of merchandise labelled with the Masters logo. Shirts, jackets, sweaters, caps, towels, umbrellas, and crockery line the shelves. With around 50,000 people on course for the practice days, and the majority having a ticket for just one day, more than a dozen checkout operators are busy from eight in the morning until seven at night. Come tournament time the business is marginally less brisk. By then, fortunate patrons usually have season passes and many have been before.

Like with almost everything else at Augusta National, the golf shop is green. So are the toilets, the TV towers and the entrance gates. Even in the press centre the carpet, the table tops, the cardboard coffee cups and the plastic wraps for the cheese sandwiches are green.

There is plenty of corporate schmoozing - but all they can do at the golf course is watch the golf. The hospitality happens elsewhere, usually in one of the hundreds of houses that Augusta residents rent for up to US$10,000 a week to companies and their clients.

The Masters logo in its unique italic style is unchanged from the first time the name was officially used in 1939. So is the club's emblem featuring a flagstick emanating from Georgia on the map of the United States. As the people at Coca Cola's head office in nearby Atlanta know, there's real value in cultivating the look of a famous brand.

The success of the Masters and Augusta National is based on exclusivity. The club alone decides who will play and who's allowed at the tournament. The green jacketed members are not dictated to by the United States Golf Association or the PGA Tour.

That exclusivity, which is absolutely deliberate and has been cultivated (not without controversy) since the beginning, shows no sign of lessening the appeal for players and those who want to watch them. The Masters remains the highest rating golf event on TV and a pass to get on the grounds is still the most prestigious ticket in sports.

But, more than its exclusivity, it's the purity of the Masters which gives it such appeal. The brilliance of the colours, the absence of advertising hoardings and the impeccable manicuring of the course contribute to an atmosphere which feels unpolluted in every way. The real world is just outside the front gate but it's no wonder so many millions love this tournament above all others.

-HERALD ON SUNDAY