The Augusta National Golf Club has changed chairman to Fred Ridley, and Ridley is a former US amateur champion, and he actually played in the Master's a few times in the 70s. This is the first person to lead the club and also be a real golfer, and that means that the tournament could change a lot in the coming years. I expect the course to get smarter, and I expect that The Masters will start to steal even more prestige from the other majors that it competes with. We think of The Masters as the biggest tournament of the year, but they have such a stranglehold on the market that they could do a lot to make it more fun.
More coverage
The Masters has the best TV coverage of any event in the history of sports. It is even better than Wimbledon and the Olympics, and that is saying a lot considering how good the Olympics and Wimbledon look on TV. The Masters could have more people at every hole calling every day of the tournament, and they could start doing more marketing that will help people get more familiar with the course. There are a lot of people who are lauding the cheap food on the course during the tournament, and they could up the menu while keeping the prices lower. They might have the chairman of the club coming out to swing at one of the first balls, and they will have a better understanding of what it is like for the players to play in the tournament.
This is the next best thing aside from naming a former winner the chairman of the club.
Can the tournament get better?
I think it can get better because Ridley knows what it means to be a competitive golfer. He could also make sure that the course is adjusted in tiny ways to make it much more fun to play than something like a US Open course.
The US Open gets killed every year because they always have a course that is too hard. Ridley could honestly start promoting this tournament course as something that regular people can play. Obviously, they would not get the scores of the pros, but he could put a lot of pressure on the USGA to make the US Open. He has all the power in the world to make golf more exciting, and he can even help make little things like the Masters app more fun to use.
Will we remember him?
I think that we will remember Fred Ridley if he helps add more women to the club and make it feel more inclusive. It still sits in the middle of a backward state that has a lot of progress to do. Maybe Ridley could make the tournament something that is even more welcoming to all.
