Volunteers tell suffering at Masters 2023
Patterson recounted his rough days at the Masters on Golfweek recently, more than a week after the tournament.
He and his wife are retired, about an hour's drive from the field. Before the age of comfort, Patterson was a communications specialist for many major golf tournaments on the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour, while his partner served as the executive director of an international non-profit organization.
The Pattersons, partly out of curiosity, signed up when they saw Augusta National recruiting volunteers for this year's Masters. When receiving the application, the staff in charge also commented "very suitable for the job".
When selecting people, Augusta National organizes an online exam, then checks their background, experience and training skills at the tournament. That process made Patterson think he and his wife were about to work for the government.
Then they also passed the tests. Patterson thought he would work in the media section, with his wife helping to run the tournament. But as it turns out, both are located in the same food court.
After a moment of surprise, Patterson also comforted himself that even though it was unfamiliar, he was still able to watch the award as an official staff member. Rather as a Masters audience, he and his wife have been in the field many times. Moreover, the wife's family - father and uncle - have "participated" as a ticket distributor since the opening year of the tournament, in 1934. Later, the uncle held the scoring position.
And the Pattersons were assigned to food court No. 1 with the task of taking care of three rows of snacks, sandwiches and soft drinks, including beer and wine. Initially, the number of staff at the counter was about 100 people, but after a few days, it was less than 30% of the force.
Every day serving the Masters, Patterson and his wife have to stay up from 2am to get from home to the volunteer gathering place - the parking lot in Augusta University and from there the Organizing Committee takes it to the field at 4:30 or 5am. The fleet of vehicles in charge of this stage has more than 100 Mercedes shuttles to carry thousands of people.
When they arrive, they transfer food, drinks, cups, ice... from the kitchen to the counter. All must be full and ready by 7 o'clock. The food court closes at 17:30 for the volunteer team to start cleaning and sanitizing. They also have to move unsold goods to the warehouse.
And like that, the Pattersons left the field at 6 pm, sometimes at 19 pm. Patterson also heard that a group of volunteers at another counter had to work until 1am on the last day of the tournament to return.
He said, the position of serving counter must be standing or walking all the time, not sitting. The place where he works has a small room for employees to take turns relaxing. Each working day, all have two sessions of 15 minutes each and have a 30-minute lunch break. With such time and workload, Patterson earns $12.5 in food and can't watch the stars play.
In addition to the situation of "black head off", he also resented the behavior of some representatives of the Organizing Committee. On opening day, Patterson was shown a parking spot at Augusta University by a staff member. Then this person parked another car behind his car. When he returned, Patterson discovered that his car had been hit by a car after, with damage ranging from $1,000 to $2,000. When Patterson reported the incident, Augusta National managers blamed the incident on the litigant, and the yard was innocent.
Dissatisfied, he complained to a higher level and was warned by the boss in charge of human resources about the possibility of dismissal if he disclosed the incident to a more powerful person.
Masters 2023 closed the curtain on April 10 with the championship belonging to Jon Rahm. And Patterson, after the tournament, concluded: "Working at the Masters broke many things. For me, it was a one-time experience."
