'It just feels different here': what makes the Masters

Augusta National Golf Club hosts the Masters for the 89th time from Thursday.

"It is a different place, there's an aura about it, one of the weirdest places on Earth," Lee's coach Ritchie Smith tells AAP.

"The players are treated very well and it's a course that you know before you turn up at."

Baker-Finch thinks it's that familiarity that resonates with the world's sporting public, even if they haven't been there themselves.

"1985 was my first time here," the Australian golfing great, boasting three top-10 Masters finishes and a British Open, told AAP.

"We all know it so well because we've been watching it for however old we are.

"We know the course, the place, what to expect. It's been broadcast around the world for seven decades.

"It's a pretty amazing heritage and there's no other major where we go back to the same place every year."

The strict on-course mobile phone ban, green jacket, cheap food and clubhouse traditions are famous quirks of a tournament that tips its cap to a bygone era.

There is no advertising signage, replay screens or electronic scoreboards - only manual ones where numbers are changed by hand. 

Cameras are banned during tournament rounds, the tee markers are two pieces of timber, the 18th green is guarded by one simple green rope and the rules are seriously respected by patrons.

Yet every ball hit by players on the practice range is digitally tracked for analysis and the facility - described as more like a university campus than a golf club by Baker-Finch - is discretely loaded with technology.

It's a meeting of worlds for new-age golfers like Lee, who have earned huge online followings through social media but count phones-free Augusta as their favourite place.

YouTube channels and Instagram accounts of amateur golfing influencers and trick-shot merchants have brought in a new audience.

Baker-Finch, now PGA of Australia's chair, thinks that crossover of younger sports fans and golfing traditionalists has never been stronger.

"More athletes are playing ... it's cool now, not the way it used to be when golf had the wealthy country club feel," he said.

"It's a lot younger and there's more avenues for young people to be involved.

"TGL, Top Golf, all that sort of stuff.

"In Australia 3.8 million play golf and only 15 per cent are golf club members. You don't need to be."

Baker-Finch will call the Masters, and the five Australian in the field, for a 29th time this year and the commentator admits this week's busier than most.

"Only three minutes of ads per hour in America, about five times less than every other event ... it's the most watched sporting event on the calendar," he said.

There is one stark difference this year, huge pine trees uprooted after Hurricane Helene hit the Florida coast and continued inland last September.

Enough have fallen to open up vistas for spectators, and potentially new routes to fairways or greens for players.

"The course is a lot different ... it looks a lot more airy," Cameron Smith said.

"It's just such a cool spot. It's hard to describe. It just feels different here. Like, you just get out of the car and it just feels like a different world."

World No.2 Rory McIlroy, who's found himself stuck in the azaleas before now, said "it's like you're playing golf in the prettiest park in the world".

"Those Spring evenings where I would sit down with my dad and watch this tournament. 

"All that sort of comes back to me, as well. Remembering why I fell in love with the game."