Doug Mills/The New York Times
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The men met for dinner at Augusta National Golf Club on Tuesday night. They donned their green jackets, asked after grandchildren, cracked wise, drank wine and thought back to the long-ago shots that were their meal tickets now.
They gathered because that is what most men who won the Masters do during tournament week. And despite the coronavirus pandemic, it was unfathomable to many of golf’s princes that they would miss a meeting of one of the most hallowed fraternities in sports.
“I’m going to put my mask on and drive over there,” Tommy Aaron, the 83-year-old champion from 1973, said by telephone last week, his voice as soft as his intentions were firm.