WALDRON GRAIN & FUEL

04/03 08:04 CDT MASTERS '26: Exclusive locker room, shared company MASTERS '26: Exclusive locker room, shared company By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) --- Rory McIlroy returned to Augusta National for the first time as the Masters champion without his golf clubs and with high anticipation. The night after he finally won the green jacket last April, McIlroy climbed the 13 spiral stairs to the second floor of the clubhouse and walked through a door that says, "Masters Club Room. Private." Champions only. He couldn't wait to see the most exclusive locker room in golf, intimate and understated, only 27 lockers. Missing that April night was his nameplate, and so his return in December to work on a Prime Video documentary made him eager to find out whose names would be on his locker. It felt like Christmas morning the way he talked about finding out. Ben Hogan 1953. Raymond Floyd 1976. Rory McIlroy 2025. "I was wondering who they were going to put me with," McIlroy said. "Were they going to put me with another European? I didn't really know. But having Hogan's locker? That's pretty cool, another guy who did the (Grand) Slam. And then Raymond, who I've known for a long time and has been a good friend to me in golf over the years. "Incredible," he said. "It never gets old." The champions' exclusive room was created in 1978 and since renovated, but not expanded, which is why lockers are shared (not by active players). The locker room in the new Players Services Building is more spacious and grander. Masters champions will have a locker there, too, for convenience when they use the fitness and recovery area on the basement level. But they'll still be upstairs in their own room, mainly because they can. "It's hard to put into words," Hideki Matsuyama said through his interpreter about returning as Masters champion after his 2021 win. "When I went back for the first time, I knew I could go in, but it just didn't feel right. It was like, ?Really? I can go in?' It's not that I was nervous or my English. It was just, ?Wow.'" Tiger Woods shares a locker with Jack Burke Jr., who died in 2024. Jack Nicklaus shares with Horton Smith, the first winner of the Masters. Trevor Immelman has Nick Faldo. Imagine how it felt for Jordan Spieth when he saw his name next to Arnold Palmer on a locker. "It never crossed my mind until I got there," Spieth said. "They said, ?Here's who you're sharing your locker with. I didn't know they shared lockers." Spieth was the defending champion at the Masters Club dinner in 2016, the last one Palmer attended. His mission now is to get an old pair of shoes belonging to Palmer to put in the locker, just to give the King a presence. "That would be cool," Spieth said. Scottie Scheffler had seen the room when his Texas team took trips to Augusta National, so his curiosity was running high when he returned as champion for the first time. It was a Texas theme, his name next to Charles Coody and Byron Nelson. "Charles for sure, because I see him in there using it," Scheffler said. "I mean, we truly share a locker. He changes his shoes. He has his green jacket. When he shows up he puts his jacket on, and when he leaves he puts his jacket up." Adam Scott shares a locker with Gary Player, whom he referred to as "probably the greatest international player ever." The 5-foot-6 "Black Knight" is 90 and still hits the ceremonial tee shot. "I was curious and pleasantly surprised to be sharing with Gary, although I didn't know he'd use all my stuff," Scott said with a laugh. One time Scott needed to put on his green jacket for a function during the Masters, and the sleeves came halfway up his forearm. "Looks like Gary took the wrong jacket again," Scott said. Few others had a more memorable discovery of sharing a locker than Mark O'Meara. He had seen the room before because he stayed upstairs in the Crow's Nest when he played as the U.S. Amateur champion and snuck down one night to see it. He walked in the front door as a Masters champion with two sets of shoes, knowing his name would be on another's locker, not sure whom it would be. "There's three small tables, four chairs at each one, and one person sitting there," O'Meara said. "The locker room attendant says, ?Let me show you where you are.' I knew who was sitting in the chair. It was Gene Sarazen, sitting with his back to where we came in." Two lockers down he saw the nameplates --- Gene Sarazen 1935, Mark O'Meara 1998. "So I'm sharing a locker with Gene Sarazen, who is actually sitting with his back turned to the locker," O'Meara said. "I put my hands on the back of his shoulders and said, ?Mr. Sarazen, I hate to inform you, I'm your locker mate.'" They had met before because O'Meara used to play in the Sarazen World Open. "He said, ?Mark do me a favor. At this stage in my life, I don't get a lot of free (stuff). Can you leave a couple of extra dozen golf balls when you leave?'" O'Meara said. O'Meara said he would mail as many as the Squire wanted. Sarazen died a month later. The centerpiece of the intimate room is a glass case that honors the current champion, including a mannequin with the green jacket draped on the shirt the champion wore in the final round, along with a club used for a meaningful shot in the win. There's also the original letter Hogan wrote in 1952 suggesting a "stag dinner" for Masters champions. Twenty-six of the lockers were empty when McIlroy returned in December --- green jackets are kept in a separate room. His contained a surprise. "There was a note in there from Jack," McIlroy said. "He'd been there one or two weeks previous and it just said, ?Welcome to the club.' "It's a wonderful perk." ___ AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf