How Augusta National builds up to the Masters on social media

It may well be the most eagerly-anticipated golf tournament ever.

Some Ryder Cups might be able to match it, but this year’s Masters Tournament at Augusta National will take some beating.

Not only is Rory McIlroy coming into form, but Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are already waiting for him there. Then there’s the usual suspects we’ve come to fall in love with over the last few years – guys like Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Jon Rahm. Justin Rose will be up there, too.

Then you throw in the inclement, snowy weather that most of Europe and even North America has had to deal with over the last few weeks, and you can see how such a hot tournament played in the most beautiful location in sport might be so exciting to so many people.

Even the lesser-spotted Masters social media accounts are beginning to bloom like the Azaleas around Augusta.

Exactly three weeks before the tournament, the Masters’ account tweeted for the first time since November. It was the start of something. The #cominginapril hashtag has been used to promote a series of build-up videos designed to hype up the one tournament that needs no hype with a suitably low-key tone – focusing on the course, its beauty and its history, rather than the golfing Royal Rumble it may well play host to in just over a week’s time.

It shows, if we didn’t already know, how hard it is to keep an event relevant when it happens once a year, and even then only for a very short time. The likes of another major, the Open Championship, has a similar issue, as does Wimbledon – though The Championships get longer to showcase their own greenery. Even the Olympic Games has to ensure its events – which take place every two years, in either summer or winter – stay in a prime location in fans’ minds.

The sport this year needs no hype. Nor does the beauty of Augusta National. It is a tournament which captures the imagination because it is golf’s first major, but also because of how it heralds spring; how it is so utterly pristine as to be simply magical and otherworldly.

18 days until #themasters and 1,600 azaleas in bloom along No. 13. #cominginapril

A post shared by The Masters (@themasters) on

It might be hard to keep The Masters relevant for the other 51 weeks of the year, but you wouldn’t think it should be too hard to whip up some excitement for that when you’re in the middle of a cold, harsh winter.

Spring is on its way, and so is the Masters. And a hotly contested tournament could be on the cards, too.

About author

Chris McMullan
Chris McMullan 831 posts

Chris is a sports journalist and editor of Digital Sport - follow him on Twitter @CJMcMullan_

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