'Under the Tree': A Masters Meeting Place Unlike Any Other

Tuesday was my first full day at the 2026 Masters, and it got me thinking about meeting places. Ask around my neck of the woods in Los Angeles, and you'll get an invite to The Tower Bar, or ask someone to meet you at Hotel Jerome. Text you when I'm close.

But because you can't have your phone on property at Augusta National, if you've got people to see, you end up having to organize your entire day's schedule either super early in the morning or late the night before. I'm too familiar with these frantic texts that go out at 7 a.m. every day, trying to coordinate meeting places across the grounds. There's no "text me when you're headed in and I'll meet you at the gate," or "Come find us at the Fan Shop I'll let you know if we leave."

Despite all the technological road blocks, Augusta National is a surprisingly easy place to schedule meetings with people because of one factor: The Tree. It's where everything funnels.

The players, the crowds, all of the green jackets—everybody in the world of golf ends up congregating underneath The Big Oak Tree (the official name, and yes, it's capitalized) outside of the clubhouse. It's not my first Masters, but it remains amazing to me that the entirety of the world of golf, high finance, Green Jackets and celebrities all know exactly where to go. I don't really know of any other place like it.

The Tree is a live oak estimated to have been planted around the 1850s, predating the club itself by nearly 80 years. Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts founded Augusta National in 1931, but the tree was already there. Suspension cables support some of its enormous limbs, and a lightning rod protects it from storms. It's roughly 175 years old and still the most valuable real estate on the property.

Photo: Chad Mumm

I've been to a lot of other sporting events, but The Tree is specific and it's special to the Masters. I think about some of the famous meeting spots—the Polo Lounge in L.A. and Lamb's Club in New York to name a few—but what makes the tree so special is you get a mix of heavy hitters and everyday patrons who are there for the first time. These other monuments of power brokerage, they're filled with Names, standing reservations, memorized drink orders. At The Tree, you've got as many seven figure deals being verbally codified as you have groups of buddies planning out who to follow for the day and analyzing how many green cups they can fit into their luggage later.

I remember when I was first trying to put together Full Swing, I had the rights from the PGA TOUR, but we were trying to convince some players to sign up. I got introduced to a couple of agents.

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They said, are you going to be at the Masters? "Yes, of course I'll be there."

I had no access. I had to find myself a pass.

But everybody who wanted to meet with me, all these agents who were willing to hear the pitch for the show, they just said, "Hey, meet me under the tree." At Augusta, you're reminded that some of the best things in life are just that simple.

Whatever sort of power broker setting you're used to—the ones never in the view of the public— it can't really hit in the same way that the Big Oak does at the Masters. Everybody's just there to have a good time, to appreciate the tradition, to be a part of the space.

And if you're reading this, come find me there this week.