Going to The Masters is an incredible experience that you will share with friends for years to come, too bad you won’t be sharing in real time. Social Media is one thing that major golf tournaments aren’t up to par on.

When you go to a major golf tournament they take your phones, cameras, Ipads, and anything else you might be tempted to take a picture with away from you. How much free media buzz are these tournaments like The Master’s missing out on? There are some positives and negatives to this element of The Masters.

What is a negative for regular civilian Master’s attendees is a huge positive for media members attending the Masters. These tournaments are the few times out of the year now where a professional photographer at a sporting event isn’t competing with thousands of other camera wielding spectators for the best shot. The few lucky media members who are authorized to tweet get a huge amount of coverage. There was a Masters maintained twitter account that racked up over two hundred thousand followers this weekend. People were frantic to keep up with the action away from the TV.

Those are small numbers when compared to events like the Super Bowl that have embraced social media whole-heartedly. During halftime alone Beyonce racked up 5.5 million tweets. Granted the super bowl is the most watched event of the year, but it still goes to show that embracing social media can create a kind of buzz about an event that occurs no where else.

I think another reason that the Master’s doesn’t get the social media buzz that a lot of other sporting events do is because of the demographic of the viewers. Most people watching the Masters are men above the age of 40, which is not a strong demographic for social media users.  Some attendees would say that the lack of phones and cameras at The Master’s is one of the reasons it is such a great experience.

It is so rare for many people to spend a day away from their phones, and what better place to do that when watching the quiet, slow, and beautiful game of golf at the highest level.