AUGUSTA, Ga. — Just inside the north gate of Augusta National, there is a small, one-story white building with blacked-out windows.
“Authorized Personnel Only,” reads a sign staked out front amid the azaleas.
Shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, a line formed outside that building of nearly two dozen patrons who were waiting patiently to get their days started for Round 1 of the 2026 Masters.
The delay for those patrons was due to Augusta National’s continuing efforts to restrict the Masters ticket resale market. Like what happened at the 2025 tournament, some patrons are once again being stopped upon arrival and questioned about the origin of their Masters passes.
While some of the questioning could be random, it is believed many of these people are being flagged by Augusta National for having passes that were resold, sources tell Front Office Sports.
Here’s how the process was playing out Thursday morning.
If a patron’s weekly Masters badge scans abnormally, the ticketing attendant then calls over a security officer. The patron is then escorted over to the special white building, where they hand over their badge and proof of identification to a tournament employee, who then takes the credentials inside.
Every few minutes, a tournament employee emerges from the building and calls the name or names of specific patrons. Some are given their badges back and are free to go into the course. Others are brought inside for questioning.
At least four patrons observed by FOS immediately left Augusta National after questioning, although most were allowed to go into the course with their original tickets.
At the south gate, a similar process played out, but there was no noticeable line or backup in the late morning. Some were told there was simply an unknown scanning issue before being let go.
One patron told FOS the process took nearly an hour, with the majority of the time spent waiting outside before a roughly 10-minute questioning session inside, which included probing on where and how they got their badge.
“I guess if you can answer the questions, they let you go,” another patron said.
By Thursday afternoon, the line of patrons under question at the north gate had died down, although there were still a few waiting outside the white building.
Some fans online have also reported not being allowed in with their tickets this week, including at the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur on Saturday.
Local Shift
There was a smaller-than-normal resale market for Masters tickets this year on major secondary ticketing platforms. SeatGeek decided not to resell Masters tickets this year. On Thursday morning, StubHub had only two listings available.
Local ticket brokers are still lining the streets of Augusta with signs saying they will buy or sell tickets. Many who decided not to sell their inventory to national brokers like StubHub this year have had fewer issues with badges getting flagged on-site, one source tells FOS.
An Augusta National spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment by FOS.
