AUGUSTA, Ga. – There are only a handful of ways non-members can play Augusta National Golf Club, and none of them are particularly easy.
But if you were given the chance to play the famed course down Magnolia Lane, what would you be willing to give or spend? Earlier this year the folks at Time 2 Play asked more than 1,000 golfers – 79 percent male and 21 percent female – from various income brackets and some of the answers are bound to surprise.
Players who earn more $100,000 a year would pay, on average, $3,189 for a round. On the flipside, players who earn less than $20,000 per year would pay $388 on average, which is short of what it would cost for a round at two of the other popular PGA Tour stops, Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass.
Enough about money. What else would the participants give up?
- Almost half would shave their heads (only about 12 percent of the women, though)
- 36 percent would give up drinking for a year, while 21 percent would do so for three years
- 17 percent would get a visible tattoo
- Nearly 10 percent would give up TV and movies for three years
- 3 percent said they would miss the birth of their child, and we hope the 2 percent that said they’d put their kids up for adoption were kidding
And if they got to pick who to play with? A friend was the top answer at nearly 23 percent. In second place were fathers just above 16 percent, followed by Tiger Woods in third. Two percent of participants want to play with the likes of Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Jack Nicklaus, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson.
So, what would you do to play Augusta National?