Augusta & Atlanta, Georgia
Visit on the US Masters Package
Augusta, Georgia is the most hallowed address in golf — the home of Augusta National, the green jacket, and a tournament so steeped in tradition it makes every other Major feel like a warm-up. Atlanta, an hour up the highway, is one of America’s great cities: the birthplace of the civil rights movement, a world-class food scene, and a Southern energy entirely its own.
History & Culture
Augusta was founded in 1736 as a British colonial trading post on the Savannah River — one of the oldest cities in Georgia, and one shaped by the full complexity of the American South. Its antebellum architecture, its role in the Civil War, and its deep musical heritage give the city layers that visitors who come only for the golf often miss entirely. An hour north, Atlanta’s history is even more defining: this is the city that gave birth to the modern civil rights movement, the hometown of Martin Luther King Jr., and a metropolis that has rebuilt itself from Civil War ashes to become one of the great American cities of the 21st century.
Augusta National was built on a dream — that the perfect golf course could be created on imperfect land. Everything that followed was inevitable.
The founding vision of Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts
Must Visit
Augusta National Golf Club
Augusta National is closed to the public for all but one week of the year — and that week is the Masters. To walk Magnolia Lane, to stand behind the 12th green at Amen Corner, to watch the world’s best players navigate Rae’s Creek on a Sunday afternoon is an experience that golf fans spend lifetimes hoping for. Founded in 1931 by Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts on the grounds of a former indigo plantation, the course was designed by Jones and Alister MacKenzie to mirror the great holes of Britain and Ireland on Georgia soil. The result is the most recognisable course in the game.
Civil Rights Heritage
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery (Day Trip)
For Masters visitors extending their Georgia trip, Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site is essential. The birthplace of Dr King, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached, and the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change form a neighbourhood-scale memorial to the most important American of the 20th century. Auburn Avenue — the beating heart of Atlanta’s Black community for generations — runs through it. No visit to Georgia is complete without this context.
Historic Augusta
Augusta’s Olde Town & the Riverwalk
Augusta’s historic downtown along the Savannah River preserves some of the finest antebellum architecture in Georgia. The Riverwalk Augusta — a broad promenade running the length of the historic levee — connects the city’s museums, restaurants, and event spaces with river views that have changed remarkably little since the 19th century. The Augusta Museum of History tells the full story of the city: from colonial settlement through the Civil War to its unexpected role as the home of the world’s most exclusive golf club.
Atlanta Landmark
The World of Coca-Cola & Centennial Olympic Park
Atlanta is the birthplace of Coca-Cola — invented by pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886 — and the World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta is one of the city’s most visited attractions, a surprisingly fascinating exploration of brand, culture, and global commerce. Adjacent Centennial Olympic Park, built for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, anchors a downtown district that also contains the Georgia Aquarium (the largest in the Western Hemisphere) and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Architecture
Swan House & the Atlanta History Center
The Atlanta History Center’s 33-acre campus in Buckhead is the finest history museum in the American South — its permanent collection spanning the Civil War, the 1996 Olympics, and the full arc of Atlanta’s remarkable reinvention. The 1928 Swan House, a grand Italianate mansion on the grounds, has become one of Atlanta’s most iconic buildings (and a filming location for The Hunger Games). For Masters visitors staying in Atlanta before travelling to Augusta, the History Center is the ideal cultural grounding for the region.
Lifestyle & Fame
Augusta during Masters week takes on a character entirely its own — a normally quiet Southern city transformed into the most concentrated gathering of golf’s elite anywhere in the world. The Masters is unique among major sporting events in its deliberate restraint: no mobile phones on the course, no commercial signage, a menu of pimento cheese sandwiches and egg salad at prices that haven’t changed in decades. That studied simplicity is part of the mystique. Away from Augusta National, Atlanta’s food and lifestyle scene offers one of the great American dining experiences — a city that has combined Southern cooking traditions with a cosmopolitan modern restaurant culture to produce something entirely its own.
Augusta during Masters week is the only place in sport where the prices go down and the exclusivity goes up. There is nowhere quite like it.
The Masters Experience
Iconic Tradition
The Masters Experience On the Course
Augusta National operates under a code of conduct unlike any other sporting venue in the world. Spectators are called patrons — a deliberate distinction. Mobile phones are banned. Commercial branding is invisible. The food concessions sell Masters pimento cheese sandwiches and cold beverages at prices unchanged since the 1980s, as a matter of policy. The result is an atmosphere of hushed reverence punctuated by roars from the galleries that carry across the whole course. Walking the grounds at Augusta National during the Masters is, by universal consensus among those who have done it, one of the great sporting experiences of a lifetime.
Premium Hospitality
Experience Sport Masters Hospitality
Just steps from the main entrance of Augusta National, Experience Sport’s exclusive Masters hospitality venue offers a retreat of genuine luxury during tournament week. Gourmet food throughout the day, a premium open bar, private outdoor patios, climate-controlled indoor space, daily pairing sheets, and large-screen TVs ensure you never miss a moment of the action between your time on the course. The hospitality venue is the perfect base for groups and corporate guests who want to combine the Masters experience with first-class entertaining.
Dining — Augusta
Augusta’s Restaurant Scene During Masters Week
Augusta’s dining scene is modest in scale but genuinely rewarding — and during Masters week, the city’s best tables become among the most in-demand reservations in American sport. Frog Hollow Tavern on Broad Street is Augusta’s most acclaimed restaurant: a farm-to-table destination built around Georgia’s extraordinary produce, from Sea Island shrimp to Vidalia onions, in a beautifully restored historic building. Book weeks in advance for Masters week. The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds at Lake Oconee — one of the Experience Sport partner hotels — offers its own fine dining experience in a setting that rivals anything in the region.
Dining — Atlanta
Atlanta’s World-Class Food Scene
Atlanta has become one of America’s most exciting restaurant cities, and its dining identity is unmistakably its own — Southern tradition reimagined with global technique and local produce. Bacchanalia in West Midtown has held its position as the city’s benchmark fine-dining destination for decades. The Optimist serves the finest seafood in the South. Buford Highway — a stretch of road northeast of downtown — is home to one of America’s great concentrations of authentic international cuisine, from Vietnamese to Korean to Mexican. For Masters visitors spending time in Atlanta, this food scene is the ideal companion to a week at Augusta National.
Hotel Icon
Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee
The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds at Lake Oconee is one of the finest resort properties in the American South — a lakeside retreat of 251 rooms and suites set on 374 acres of Georgia woodland, an hour from Augusta National. The resort’s world-class golf facilities (Reynolds Lake Oconee has six championship courses), spa, and waterfront dining make it the most complete Masters base in the region. For Experience Sport guests who want to combine the greatest tournament in golf with a genuinely exceptional hotel experience, the Ritz-Carlton Reynolds is the answer — and it is available as part of your bespoke Masters package.
Sporting Life
The Masters is not the oldest Major in golf, nor the one with the most storied history in its earliest chapters — but it is, by the consensus of players, broadcasters, and fans worldwide, the greatest golf tournament in the world. Augusta National’s combination of course beauty, competitive drama, and iron-fisted tradition has produced more iconic sporting moments than any other venue in the game. From Jack Nicklaus’s 1986 back-nine charge to Tiger Woods’s 1997 demolition of the field, from the Amen Corner roars to the Sunday pin positions on 12, the Masters rewards its patrons with moments that stay with them for the rest of their lives.
A tradition unlike any other. Those four words have been spoken before every Masters broadcast for over fifty years. They remain, in golf, simply and completely true.
The enduring promise of Augusta National
The Main Event
The Masters Tournament — Augusta National, April 2027
The 2027 Masters runs from 5–11 April at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia — golf’s first Major of the season and its most celebrated. The tournament format is 72 holes of stroke play across four rounds (Thursday–Sunday), preceded by three practice rounds open to patrons (Monday–Wednesday). The green jacket, awarded to the champion by the previous year’s winner in the Butler Cabin ceremony, is the most coveted prize in golf. Experience Sport packages include your choice of practice round or tournament round badges, accommodation across three hotel options, and full pre-travel support from our Masters specialists.
The Course
Augusta National — Hole by Hole
Every hole at Augusta National has a name drawn from the flora that surrounds it — Tea Olive, Pink Dogwood, Flowering Peach — and walking the course during Masters week, when the azaleas are in full bloom, is a visual experience unlike any other in golf. The back nine on Sunday is where legends are made: the driveable par-4 15th, the diabolical par-3 16th, and the treacherous 18th have combined to produce more dramatic finishes than any stretch of holes in the game. Amen Corner — holes 11, 12, and 13 — is the pilgrimage site every golf fan must stand beside at least once.
Practice Rounds
The Practice Rounds — A Masters Secret
Augusta National’s practice rounds — held on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Masters week — are something of a secret among first-time visitors, and an open secret among those who have been before. With the full field on the course but without the intensity of competitive golf, practice rounds allow patrons to walk freely, position themselves at any hole, get much closer to the players, and take photographs (the only time cameras are permitted at Augusta National). Many veterans consider the practice rounds the best days of the week. Experience Sport packages include the option of one practice round badge as your Masters entry point.
The Green Jacket
The Green Jacket & Masters Traditions
The Masters green jacket — awarded since 1949 to the tournament champion — is the most famous garment in sport. Champions keep their jacket for a year before returning it to Augusta National, where it remains stored unless they are on the property. The jacket’s specific shade of green has been manufactured exclusively for Augusta National since 1967. Beyond the jacket, the Masters operates by traditions found nowhere else in sport: the par-3 contest on Wednesday (where players are caddied by family members), the Champions Dinner on Tuesday (where the defending champion chooses the menu), and the ceremonial first shots that open the tournament.
Atlanta Sports
Atlanta — A City of Champions
For Masters visitors spending time in Atlanta before or after the tournament, the city offers a full complement of professional sport. The Atlanta Braves — 2021 World Series champions — play at Truist Park in Cobb County, one of the finest ballpark experiences in baseball. The Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta United play at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta, an architectural landmark that has been called the most beautiful arena in the United States. April falls within both the MLB opening month and the NFL off-season, making a Braves game the natural Atlanta sporting companion to a week at Augusta National.
Augusta & Atlanta in April — US Masters Weather Guide
The Masters runs 5–11 April 2027
🌡️ Temperature
Early April in Augusta is Spring at its finest — average highs of 20–23°C (68–73°F), lows of 9–12°C (48–54°F). Warm enough for shirtsleeves on sunny afternoons but cool enough that walking 18 holes of Augusta National without overheating is comfortable. Atlanta, an hour north, runs 1–2°C cooler. Evening temperatures drop noticeably — 10–13°C (50–55°F) — making a layer essential for post-round gatherings.
☀️ Sun & Rain
April in Augusta averages 7 hours of sunshine per day, but spring showers are a genuine feature of the tournament week — historically around 9–10 rainy days in April, often brief thunderstorms in the afternoon. Augusta National’s drainage is exceptional; play rarely stops for long. The azaleas that define the course’s visual identity are at peak bloom in the first week of April — the combination of flowers and spring light makes the course genuinely extraordinary in good weather.
👗 What to Wear
Smart casual is the Augusta National patron standard — polo shirts, chinos, or neat trousers; no athletic wear, no cutoffs, no items with competitor logos or branding. A light rain jacket (plain, no large logos) is strongly recommended — Augusta doesn’t cancel for showers. Comfortable walking shoes are essential; the course covers considerable ground and the hills are steeper than television suggests. A light jumper or layer for early morning rounds when the dew is still on the course.
💡 General Tips
The azaleas at Augusta bloom almost exactly to tournament week — in a good April they are extraordinary, in a warm year they may be past peak. Check the bloom forecast; it genuinely affects the visual experience of the course. Sunscreen and a hat are advisable for full-day patron tickets. Umbrellas with any branding are not permitted on the course; Augusta National sells plain green ones inside if needed. April in Atlanta is equally pleasant for sightseeing — the city’s parks and outdoor spaces are at their best in spring.
Ready to Experience the Masters?
Experience Sport’s 2027 Masters packages combine first-class accommodation near Augusta National, your choice of practice round or tournament badges, exclusive on-site hospitality, and the expertise of a team that has been delivering unforgettable Masters experiences for years. The green jacket awaits.
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