Augusta National Cracking Down On Third Party Market, Invalidating Some Credentials

Adam Schupak with a Golf.com exclusive on Augusta National's effort to crack down on ticket holders who have sold to third parties. They are being notified by letter that their $150 is to be credited and they can expect to no longer be attending the Masters.

As Schupak notes, this scenario means there may be unsuspecting buyers who show up at the Masters after having paid top dollar, only to find their tickets invalidated.

How are they spotting the offenders?

The tournament has long prohibited the reselling of its coveted single-day tickets and multi-day badges, but last year it added a new defense to catch offenders: color-coded strips on the bottom of the tickets that the tournament's ticket police can use as secret decoder rings of sorts to determine the original purchasers. Each of the colors in the six-color design represents a letter and five numbers that match the corresponding ticket number.