📍 This article is part of our Masters 2026 Hub — your complete guide to the most beautiful week in golf.
Every sport has its pregame ritual. Football has tailgating. Baseball has batting practice. The Super Bowl has a two-week media circus and a halftime show that costs more than most countries' GDP.
Golf has the Par 3 Contest. And honestly? It might be the best pregame event in all of sports.
Every Wednesday before the Masters, the world's best golfers — guys who spend 51 weeks a year grinding, analyzing, and stress-sweating over four-foot putts — gather on Augusta National's miniature Par 3 course and just... have fun. They bring their kids. They let their caddies hit shots. They laugh, joke around, and drain hole-in-one attempts while 20,000 patrons pack the tiny hillsides and lose their minds. It's the one afternoon where the Masters feels less like a pressure cooker and more like the best golf outing you've ever attended.
It's also cursed. But we'll get to that.
A Brief History of the Best Nine Holes in Golf
The Par 3 Contest started in 1960, which makes it almost as old as the Masters' television era. The DeSoto Par 3 Course at Augusta National is a nine-hole layout wedged between the practice area and Washington Road, with holes ranging from about 70 to 140 yards. It's tiny. It's gorgeous. And it produces more holes-in-one per capita than any event in professional golf.
The course was designed by George Cobb and later refined by Tom Fazio, and while it's a fraction of the size of the main course, it's built to the same absurd standard. The greens are fast. The landscaping is immaculate. The water features are strategically placed to remind you that, yes, even on a pitch-and-putt, Augusta National doesn't give anything away for free.
The format is simple: nine holes, stroke play, lowest score wins. But the vibe is anything but competitive. This is the one time all year where you see Tour pros visibly relaxed, heckling each other, letting five-year-olds attempt putts, and treating golf the way the rest of us treat it — as a game.
The Hole-in-One Factory
If you've never watched the Par 3 Contest, here's what you need to know: aces happen constantly. The holes are short enough that every tee shot has a legitimate chance of going in, and when you put the best iron players in the world on a 95-yard hole with perfect conditions, the ball finds the cup with shocking regularity.
The all-time record belongs to the event itself — in some years, the Par 3 Contest produces more holes-in-one in a single afternoon than most Tour events see in an entire season. The patrons know it, too. Every time someone stiffs one close, the roar builds. When it actually goes in, the place erupts like it's a Sunday birdie on 18.
The most memorable ace in recent memory might be Tiger Woods' 2004 shot that landed past the hole and spun back into the cup — because of course it did. But the one that lives in internet immortality is the 2016 edition, when multiple players skipped their balls across the pond on the 9th hole. It's a tradition within the tradition: intentionally bouncing your tee shot off the water's surface and onto the green. When it works, it's magic. When it doesn't, nobody cares. That's the whole point.
The Curse
Now, the part everyone really wants to talk about.
No player has ever won the Par 3 Contest and the Masters in the same year. Not once. In over six decades of the event. Think about that. In a sport obsessed with stats, superstitions, and patterns, this is the one streak that nobody has been able to break.
The curse is so well-known that players actively try to avoid winning. Seriously. Some top contenders skip the Par 3 Contest entirely. Others have been rumored to intentionally miss short putts down the stretch to avoid taking the title. When you see a guy lip out a two-footer on the 9th hole and then grin, he's not upset. He's relieved.
The most fascinating near-miss in curse history came in 2014, when Kevin Streelman and Jimmy Walker tied for the Par 3 title. Neither won the Masters that week (Bubba Watson did). But even sharing the jinx apparently wasn't enough to dilute its power.
Is it a real curse? Of course not. The Par 3 Contest field includes amateurs, past champions, and plenty of players who weren't going to win the Masters regardless of what happened on Wednesday. The statistical overlap between "Par 3 winner" and "Masters contender" is small to begin with. But golf is a sport built on superstition and ritual, and the curse has become such a fundamental part of Masters lore that it transcends logic.
Nobody wants to test it. And that makes it even better.
Why It Actually Matters
Beyond the entertainment value — and the entertainment value is enormous — the Par 3 Contest serves a real purpose. It's a pressure release valve.
Masters week is intense. The players have been thinking about Augusta for weeks, maybe months. They've been grinding on the practice range, studying pin positions, dialing in their yardages. By Wednesday afternoon, the tension is building toward Thursday's first tee shot. The Par 3 Contest breaks that tension. It reminds the players that golf is, at its core, supposed to be fun.
It's also the only time during Masters week where fans get a truly intimate experience. The Par 3 course is compact, the galleries are close, and the atmosphere feels more like a family picnic than a major championship. You can stand 20 feet from Phil Mickelson while he lets his grandkid attempt a putt. You can watch Rory McIlroy skip a ball across water and react like a kid who just hit a home run in wiffle ball. It's golf stripped down to its purest, most joyful form.
How to Watch in 2026
The Par 3 Contest takes place on Wednesday, April 8 — the day before the 2026 Masters begins. If you're lucky enough to have a Wednesday practice round ticket, the Par 3 course is a short walk from the main course, and it's absolutely worth your time. Get there early and stake out a spot on one of the hillsides. You'll be close enough to hear the players talking.
For the rest of us, ESPN typically broadcasts the event, and Masters.com streams it for free. It usually tees off in the early afternoon and takes a couple of hours. Clear your schedule, set up a second screen at work, or just call in sick. Your boss will understand. Probably.
The Appetizer Before the Feast
The Par 3 Contest doesn't decide anything. It doesn't affect the Masters leaderboard. It doesn't count toward world rankings or FedEx Cup points. In the grand scheme of professional golf, it's completely meaningless.
And that's exactly why it's perfect.
It's the last deep breath before four days of the most compelling theater in sports. It's a reminder that these robotic, analytics-driven Tour pros are actually human beings who enjoy goofing around with their families. It's nine holes of pure, uncut golf joy — no swing thoughts, no course strategy, no grinding over a par putt to make the cut.
Watch it. Enjoy it. Root for someone to break the curse. And then buckle up, because Thursday morning is when the real show begins.
updatedAt: "2026-03-15"
Getting ready for Masters week? Check out our complete Masters viewing guide, dive into Amen Corner explained, grab a free Masters pool sheet, or read up on Masters traditions every golf fan should know.
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