AUGUSTA, Georgia — Rory McIlroy went upstairs in the Augusta National clubhouse the night he won the Masters, eager to see the small locker room only for Masters champions.
He returned last month to find another locker room not nearly as exclusive but no less impressive.
“They’ve created this unbelievable new Player Services Building, and that’s where the main locker room is going to be,” McIlroy said. “I think the champions will still use the Champions Locker Room. But that new building is IN-CREDIBLE.”
He paused to smile before adding, “Take my word for it.”
Augusta National revealed some photos Friday on social media of the Player Services Building, created to make the players’ experience unlike any other.
Typical of most new structures at Augusta National, the three-story building located just behind the hitting area of the practice range is tucked among trees and looks like it has been there all along.
Players drive down Magnolia Lane, veer to the right and find a circle drive to either valet courtesy cars or go down a ramp, through a tunnel under Magnolia Lane and into an underground garage.
The walls on the corridor leading from the garage have Alister MacKenzie’s cross section architecture of every hole at Augusta National.
For being the youngest of the four majors, the Masters’ history is a rich as any.
The new locker room that caught McIlroy’s attention is on the ground floor, but players can be excused for taking their time when they first arrive. The short hallway has framed letters from Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods to the club thanking them for their week. Woods’ letter is from 1997, after his record-smashing win.
The lounge just before the locker room is a tribute to co-founder Bobby Jones, and Augusta National managed to get all four of his trophies from his “impregnable quadrilateral” — Grand Slam — in 1930 when he won the British Amateur, British Open, U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur.
Those are on loan from the Atlanta Athletic Club, to be returned the week after the Masters.
The old locker room, located in the clubhouse and down from the grill room, was small but adequate. The new one is enormous with 100 lockers (the Masters has had fewer than 100 players every year since 1967) with great attention to detail — a safe in each locker, a shelf to charge phones, even the gold-plated “map-and-flag” emblem of the Masters on the handle of each locker.
Name plates already are up in a random order, not alphabetical. McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Dustin Johnson have lockers, presumably out of convenience for when they go downstairs to use the fitness center and recovery room.
The six amateurs in the field have lockers next to Masters champions. That wasn’t a coincidence.
