Much has been made about the significant changes to the PGA Tour schedule this year, which include the Players moving to March, the PGA Championship moving to May, and the FedEx Cup Playoffs sliding up to August. But perhaps a bit lost in all that news was the creation of an entirely new event on the women’s calendar — at one of golf’s most sacred venues.
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The inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur will take place April 3-6 with the final round concluding the Saturday before the week of the Masters at fabled Augusta National Golf Club. And not surprisingly, some of the tournament’s participants were excited to show off an invitation unlike any other we’ve (quite) seen before:
Of course, those look nearly identical to the invitations the guys get to play in the Masters. Pieces of stationary that even veteran golfers are thrilled to receive each year:
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur will be the first women’s event hosted at ANGC, which didn’t accept its first female members until 2012.
“I thought that this was the right time to do this,” Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said during last year’s Masters. “It was the right time for the women’s game. I thought for us to have the greatest impact on women’s golf that we needed to be committed to do it here at Augusta National.”
Aside from the location(s), the structure of the 54-hole tournament makes it unique as well. All 72 competitors (Read this for more on how to qualify) will play the 36 holes on Wednesday and Thursday (April 3-4) at Champions Retreat Golf Club in nearby Evans, Ga., before playing a practice round at Augusta National on Friday. Then on Saturday, the top 30 and ties from the first two rounds will play the final round at Augusta National.
Final-round coverage will air on NBC from noon to 3 ET, so golf fans everywhere should save this date as well.
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