TEE-TIME TALES: Sleek new hospitality venue opens near Augusta but costs over £13k for a weekly pass - while AI is set for big feature and a buried coin inspires one golfer
- The high-end corporate facility includes chef-inspired food concepts and drink
- Artificial intelligence will narrate in both Spanish and English for online coverage
- Matthieu Pavon has revealed he has been inspired by his mother's unusual trick
This year sees the opening of Map and Flag, the course's first off-site corporate hospitality venue.
A high-end facility on an intersection a seven-minute walk from the course, it costs around £13,600 for a weekly pass.
That figure includes 'chef-inspired food concepts' along with beverages.
Described as a giant sports bar, it also features an all-important retail store for that premium Patron experience.
A new corporate hospitality venue has opened at Augusta (pictured: the Masters course)
AI IN AUGUSTA
Artificial intelligence has landed in Augusta. Fans following the tournament online can hear AI narration in Spanish and English.
Computer giant IBM will also provide a feature that will reveal how each hole has been played in the tournament now and over the last eight years, thanks to a memory bank of more than 170,000 shots.
BIBLE REMINDERS
Patrons receive regular reminders they are in Bible-belt country on the roads outside the course.
Vans with giant - and often gloomy - religious signs painted on the back, such as, 'The creator repays sin with global catastrophe' are regularly spotted on Washington Road.
PAVON INSPIRED BY GOLD
Fifteen years ago the mother of Matthieu Pavon visited the Masters and buried a coin on the Augusta grounds in the hope it would inspire her son to play at the venue.
It appears to have done the trick. The 31-year-old, from Toulouse, is here following wins on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour in the last six months.
'I'm probably going to get a coin myself, bury it somewhere, to wish that my son one day will come as a player over here,' he said.
Matthieu Pavon's mother buried a coin at Augusta in the hope her son would one day play there
A SAD LOSS
A rite of passage for many visitors to Augusta is a trip to TBonz Steakhouse, which is viewed as the 19th hole. This year will be the first without co-owner Mark Cummins, who died in October at the age of 66. Cummins was very popular with caddies - thanks in no small part to his willingness to stay open late.
