Tickets to Masters Change Hands Only After a Death

How tough is it to attend the Masters golf tournament, which begins today in Augusta, Ga.?

“Someone has to die,” said Kathryn Murphy, executive secretary to the tournament. “There’s really no other way to put it.”

No tickets, or badges as they are called, have been sold for 23 years. Not days. Not months. Years .

Those who have one of the 40,000 or so renewable badges for the four days of play do not give them up. They are kept within families, and can be bequeathed only to a spouse.

Murphy said a waiting list was cut off at 5,000 in 1978.

“We just couldn’t go on,” she said. “We figured it would take about 100 years to take care of those already on the list.”

Tickets, please: How valuable are tickets to the Masters?

When Bobby Jones started the tournament in 1934, badges were $5.50. Today, if you could get them, they would cost $90, but illegal ticket brokers ask as much as $3,000.

Then there are the more inventive offerings.

An ad in the Augusta Chronicle, for example, offered a condominium in Shipyard Plantation on Hilton Head Island, S.C., for a week, “with golf for four,” for four tickets.

Back for more: Among the 82 golfers participating in the Masters are 18 former champions.

Looking for another green jacket are Tommy Aaron, George Archer, Seve Ballesteros, Gay Brewer, Billy Casper, Charles Coody, Ben Crenshaw, Ray Floyd, Bob Goalby, Bernhard Langer, Larry Mize, Sandy Lyle, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Craig Stadler, Tom Watson and Fuzzy Zoeller.

Trivia: Michigan’s national championship in basketball made it the second school in history to have won national titles in football, baseball and basketball. Which was the first?

Nailing ‘em: The New York Islanders have failed to make the National Hockey League playoffs for the first time since 1974, and that hasn’t set too well with center Pat LaFontaine.

“It’s going to be tough watching (other teams in the playoffs),” he said. “I’ll turn my head (from the TV) as much as I can.

“Last year, I was so upset after we lost to the (New Jersey) Devils (in the first round), that the next day I started refinishing the basement. I just kept pounding nails into Sheetrock.”

Ball one: Among the 40,375 fans on hand for the Texas Rangers’ season opener was one Tom Landry, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

“I always followed (the Rangers), and I’ve been out to some of their games before,” said Landry, who tossed out the ceremonial first pitch.

The Arlington Stadium crowd gave gave Landry a standing ovation when he took the mound, but he expected the worst.

Talking to reporters before the game, Landry had warned that he might embarrass himself with his throw. “I won’t be able to reach the plate,” he joked.

Sure enough, Landry--in coat and tie but without his familiar hat--one-hopped his delivery to Texas catcher Jim Sundberg.

Weak, weaker, weakest: For the second time in three years, not one team in the NHL’s Norris Division managed to finish above .500.

The Detroit Red Wings came the closest at 34-34. So, once again, a non-winner is guaranteed a berth in hockey’s final four.

Sign here, please: Seton Hall’s basketball team was en route back to Newark, N.J., via Dallas.

During the flight, the pilot announced at least six times that the team was on board. The flight crew, too, seemed thrilled.

Flight attendant Karrie Bartusek disembarked with an odd souvenir. She had gathered the signatures of all the members of the team . . . on an air-sickness bag.

Azaleas, Dogwoods and weeds: Defending Masters champion Sandy Lyle of Scotland is disturbed by the way the Augusta National Golf Course has fallen into disrepair.

Asked if it reminded him of European courses, Lyle said: “There are not enough weeds on this course to be like a European course. I was able to find about two today--this place is going to the dogs.”

Triple misplay: Nice to see the Angels’ Doug McClure get all the kinks out on opening day.

In the team’s loss to the White Sox, McClure hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and was called for a balk.

Talk about going three for three.

Trivia answer: Ohio State.

Quotebook: Hord Hardin, chairman of the Masters, on the golf tournament’s continuing resistence to commercialism: “We don’t want to become the Pizza Hut Masters.”