After 65 Masters, a Beloved Patron Has Hung Up Her Badge

Joan Chittenden, 90, has seen a lot in her decades at the Masters, where she spent most of her time in the heart of Amen Corner. But this year she decided to end her run at Augusta.

Joan Chittenden, right, with a friend in Amen Corner at the 1998 Masters. | Joan Chittenden

AUGUSTA — The 90th Masters kicked off right on schedule Thursday morning, but it carries on without one of its most popular patrons, who stationed herself in the heart of Amen Corner for 65 Masters.

Joan Chittenden, 90, has decided to sit out this year’s tournament. She lives on her own in Seneca, S.C., about two hours from Augusta National. She still drives a car and remains in overall good health, but she decided it’s time to hang up her Masters badge.

“I’m 90 and it’s the 90th Masters, so it would’ve been a good story,” Chittenden said in a phone call. “I hate that I’m not going, but I’m just not going to do it. I’d always get up at 5 in the morning—I don’t know how to arrive in the afternoon—and be in that line at 6.

“I decided 2025 was a good year to end.”

Chittenden has attended 65 Masters in the past 67 years, missing only 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her first was 1959, when Art Wall Jr. prevailed after Arnold Palmer, a 54-hole co-leader, tripled the 12th as Chittenden sat in a chair with a prime view behind the tee box. Back then the event wasn’t even a sellout.

Part of Joan Chittenden’s collection of Masters badges. | Joan Chittenden

As the crowd sizes increased Chittenden would arrive early on Thursday through Sunday, dropping her chair a few rows behind the 12th tee. Masters week was the culmination of many golf-related messages, phone calls and Facebook posts she would often send to the friends she’d made around the course, keeping everyone informed.

On site she’d sit with many of those same friends, talking golf and also adopting the role of a deputized marshal (Augusta calls these volunteers “gallery guards”), where she would shush careless patrons who might clatter around when a player was about to tee off. The marshals always got a kick out of it—and it never hurts to have fans that can police other fans—and Joan became more than just another face in the crowd.

“She’s the matriarch of Amen Corner,” says Paul Roeser, a longtime gallery guard on 12. “She fostered a sense of family on 12, and I’ll miss overhearing the stories and the annual reunion of the early-morning patrons that after placing their chairs would go and pay their respects to Joan, reconnect and enjoy the serenity.”

As the Masters grew and evolved to become The Masters, Chittenden witnessed many of the tournament’s indelible moments with her own eyes. She followed Ben Hogan from the 12th to the clubhouse when he shot a back-nine 30 to win in 1967. She watched Tom Weiskopf splash five balls into Rae’s Creek while making a 13 in 1980. She sat stunned as Fred Couples’s shot hung on the bank along the creek in 1992. She stood in awe as Phil Mickelson hit his famed shot off the pine straw on 13 in 2011.  She recoiled as Jordan Spieth melted down on No. 12 in 2016, an event that left her so upset that for the first time in her life she cut out of Augusta National early that Sunday.

Her favorite Masters? That one is easy.

“1986, has to be,” she says. “I’ve always liked Arnie, but back then you had to pick a side, and I picked Jack.”

She’s accumulated a dazzling collection of Masters badges, plus other mementos from the event. She particularly treasures a signed Phil Mickelson photo, which Lefty addressed to her while he was at the Champions dinner in 2014, writing, “Joan, thank you for supporting this great game for so many years!”

Mickelson wrote Joan a personal message in 2014. | Joan Chittenden

But this year she’ll be watching on TV. She’ll miss the scene in Amen Corner, but what she really feels bad about giving up is all the camaraderie. Her friends miss her right back.

“Even though she’s alive and well, it’s like no longer seeing Arnold Palmer or other past champions that are no longer able to compete,” says Jarrod Morton, who’s been a gallery guard on the 12th for 20 years. “To me the spirit and what makes the Masters so special comes in many different forms—her form being a loyal and committed patron.”

“Joan is an integral part of the tradition of hole 12. Patrons consistently ask about her when she’s away, and her stories of days gone by always attract a crowd,” adds Marty Head, another 12th hole guard. “She treats Paul, Jarrod and me as if we are her own, and refers to us as her ‘Hole 12 Family.’ Personally, I could not be more proud to be part of that family.”

More from Joan Chittenden’s collection of Masters badges. | Joan Chittenden

That’s one of those special things about the Masters. Fans around the world gather to watch, usually on TV or online, but a fortunate few get to see it in person. Special memories come from watching the greatest golfers play some of world’s most famous golf holes. But there are also great people just on the other side of the rope line.

“I like Scottie Scheffler and a few others, and I’ll miss the golf,” Joan says. “But I’ll mostly miss my friends on the 12th hole.

“They’re like family, they really are.”

More badges from Joan’s collection. | Joan Chittenden

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