As expected, and despite the absence of patrons, the legendary duo of Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player was act as Honorary Starters for the 84th hosting of the Masters.

Fred Ridley, Chairman at Augusta National, confirmed the news today.

It was in 2012 when Player joined by Nicklaus and the late Arnold Palmer but with the passing of Palmer, and the Sunday prior the 2016 Ryder Cup, it has been Player and Nicklaus since 2017.

However, this year will be very strange without any patrons present.

Augusta revealed also, and given the shorter daylight hours, there will be a two-tee start from both the 1st and 10th tees for the opening two rounds.

A field of 96 players is set to tee-up on November 12th but at a time of year with some two-and-a-half hours less daylight a day that when normally staged in April when there’s around 13 hours of daylight.  Over the four days of this years pandemic-affected Masters, it will mean Augusta organisers officially staring at 17 minutes less than than 10 hours less daylight hours.

Who knows what will happen if there’s a play-off while US host broadcaster, CBS is also committed to an NFL game at 4pm local time Sunday.

And despite a worldwide pandemic, Augusta will stick with the annual Champions Dinner on the Tuesday night of the Masters as Tiger Woods confirmed last week at the ZoZo Championship.

However, it is not known if all living past Masters winners will be able to travel to Augusta for the dinner that was first hosted in 1952 by Ben Hogan.

Patrick Reed hosting the 2018 Masters Champions dinner

“We’re not going to have it upstairs [in the clubhouse],” Woods explained.

“I think we’re going to have it downstairs where there’s more room so we can all be socially distant.”

Woods also indicated the group sitting down to dinner will be much smaller in number: “I think we’re not going to get a lot of the past champions coming because obviously they’re at the at-risk age,” said Woods.

“This is unlike any times we’ve ever had in the past, so we’ve got to do what we can do to obviously have the traditions that we’d like to have but also maintain safety guidelines.”

The five-time green jacket winner said that his planned menu remains as it was prior to the postponement: steak and chicken fajitas, sushi and sashimi, along with milkshakes for dessert.