THEY play professional golf for most of the year now and where once there were months of hibernation, there are now tournaments in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Dubai. For most of us, however, the golfing year begins at Augusta National. The Masters is the tournament that encourages those who play to get out more often and the one that tempts those who have never tried.

Many of the great memories in the game are framed against Augusta’s backdrop of colourful azaleas and dogwoods. Are you old enough to remember Sandy Lyle’s seven iron from the bunker at the final hole 20 years ago, that gave him the chance to become the first British player to win The Masters? Perhaps you came to the tournament a year later when Scott Hoch missed that two-foot putt at the first playoff hole against Nick Faldo in 1989. Faldo had that effect on people. Hoch lost at the second playoff hole.

The most extraordinary demonstration of the Faldo factor came in 1996 when poor Greg Norman succumbed to the pressure of playing in one of sport’s greatest theatres against one of its fiercest competitors.

That afternoon Faldo chipped away at Norman’s confidence until he found a rich seam of pure vulnerability. In the end, the unravelling of a champion became hard to watch. How often does that happen in sport? Perhaps once in our lives. But that’s The Masters. Extraordinary things happen. The other evening the young English player Nick Dougherty hit a sweet eight iron to the 12th and as it flew high towards his target, he realised it wasn’t descending. It flew the green, landed in a bush on a bank high above it; he hit a provisional ball into the water and prayed he would find the first. He got lucky. Still, he had to take a penalty drop, chip over the bush and then get up and down for a double-bogey five.

That put him three over par and heading for the exit door. On his knees after 12, Dougherty stood up on the 13th and started again. He birdied that hole, then birdied 14 and 15, lipped out for birdie on 16, birdied 17, just missed birdie on 18 and finished four inside the cut.

Dougherty learnt the game by following his dad around Bootle Golf Club, just as Ian Poulter was hooked by his dad cutting down a three-wood to a size suitable for a four-year-old. Without that encouragement, would they have become high-ranking professionals? Not a chance.

This week, for the first time, the committee at Augusta has allowed free entrance to all spectators aged eight to 16, provided they show up in the company of an adult with a ticket. The initiative has not come about by chance. In the US particularly, fewer young people are taking up the game and after the incredible growth during the early years of Tiger Woods’s reign, there are fears for the future. Neither is this a solely American problem. Look at your local golf club and see how few juniors there are. For that, all of those who play and love the game are to blame. Equipment, membership fees and tuition fees are too expensive and there are few concessions for juniors.

How wonderful it would have been to have had your son or daughter alongside the 15th green late on Friday afternoon as the 22-year-old amateur Michael Thompson stood over a 15ft birdie putt. He was four over and fighting to stay in the tournament. As he drew his putter back, a gust of wind moved his ball ever so slightly. Perhaps nobody but Thompson saw it but he informed a nearby rules official that he was calling a one-shot penalty on himself, as the rules of golf state he must. Chances are your son or daughter would have been astounded at such honesty and been full of admiration for Thompson. At that point, you could have drawn a gem from the lore of the game and quoted the founder of Augusta National, the great Bobby Jones. “Praising a man for following the rules of golf would be like praising a man for not robbing a bank.” By excluding young people from golf, we deny them a wonderful opportunity, we diminish ourselves and we betray the game.