Golf: Augusta Masters 2021
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
Yet another first for a major sporting tournament!
This time, this year’s Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club, US, known simply as the Masters, in which, for the first time, the event was won, by one shot, on 11 April 2021, by a Japanese golfer, namely, 29-year-old Hideki Matsuyama.
Matsuyama told the media that:
“I am really happy I played well…..[and] hopefully I will be a pioneer and many other Japanese players will follow and I am glad to open the floodgates.”
This success, indeed, is expected to have a positive effect on the popularity of golf in Japan, especially this year with, hopefully, the staging of the postponed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, in which golf is one of the Olympic sports.
The Masters is one of the four major championships in professional golf and is always held at the same course. The event was first held on 22 March 1934 with a first prize of $US 1,500.
This year’s winner will take home prize money of $US 2,070,000!
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
