The green jacket and why it makes a boy out of the champion

At Augusta National Golf Club, there's a dark, disinfected cloakroom where resplendence and prestige hangs row on row.

Inside, three-button style, single-breasted, center-vented sport coats threaded by tropical-weight wool and adjoined with brass buttoning remain suspended throughout the year, until the vault is opened during the first weekend in April.

Each represents a chapter on golf's grandest stage. Together, they form a collection of the most distinguishable, celebrated prizes in sport, protected to a point where recipients aren't trusted to possess them for 51 weeks out of the year.

They are the illustrious green jackets synonymous with the Masters and the epitome of class, greatness in golf, discipline as an athlete and a symbol of the long-standing exclusiveness in the sport.

It's fussy, pretentious and entirely excessive, but it's Augusta National. And it wouldn't nearly be as fun if it wasn't this way. 

There's nothing like upper-class tradition and elitism to bring out boyish charm. 

An Ultra-Exclusive Club

The green jacket was first worn in 1937, when club members donned green for fans to identify those working at the course. Twelve years later, and after many complaints about heavy jackets in the Georgia heat, the nuisance became a mark of nobility.

In 1949, Sam Snead shot a 6-under and was the first to be formally awarded a green jacket. Since then, the club has estimated chest width and cuff length on the second Sunday in April every year, and 38 more winners have required hangers. 

That's right. Multiple winners don't collect these jackets. This is an exclusive club and only what's needed is produced. 

It's such serious business that the club's greatest champion, six-time winner Jack Nicklaus, tip-toed around the subject for decades. 

For some strange circumstance, which saw him never actually receive his own jacket, Nicklaus took it upon himself to have another made rather than broach the topic to the club when the jacket he wore began to fray at the sleeve. Thirty-five years later, Nicklaus finally summoned the courage to tell Augusta he never received his own jacket, and soon after that, a note was left for him at the club with an appointment to be fitted.

When you win at Augusta, the jacket you receive is not really yours. It's yours to wear when you come back. 

But there's one jacket permitted to leave the grounds. Like a pageantry, the champion can wear his trophy out of the Butler Cabin and to "significant social and golfing events" throughout his reign. 

This sounds innocent enough, but really, it's like having a lease on a luxury sports car. You're going to drive it fast. You're going to do things a senior member at Augusta wouldn't.

After his first Masters win in 1997, Tiger Woods is said to have clutched his like a blanket after maybe having a little too much champagne. Adam Scott, the 2013 winner, admitted to wearing his around the house daily - just because.

And then there's reigning champion Bubba Watson, who celebrated his second win with a "championship dinner" at Waffle House before touring the late-night circuit and taking a pie in the face from January Jones on "The Tonight Show." Though he did take the jacket off first. 

But the greatest juxtaposition between humility and high-brow came in 2010, when the green jacket sat through the Krispy Kreme drive-thru on the Monday following the tournament.

Phil Mickelson promised his kids a sugar high before the family left Georgia, which resulted in the famous image of him wearing the prize from the drive-thru window making the rounds on social media. 

It was a little chilly, so I threw on a jacket.

Though the doughnut run won't be considered a significant social event, the Masters committee didn't hold it against Lefty. He returned the jacket first won in 2004 and it was placed back on its hanger once he placed a new jacket on the shoulders of Charl Schwartzel. 

A Tournament Like No Other

Winning the Masters is an incredibly rewarding feat. It's an absolute life-changer. It offers five years of tour card protection, five years of major championship exemption and a lifetime invite to Augusta. 

Oh, and a $1.5 million winner's share, too.

But it's an article of clothing, one not particularly attractive and completely inaccessible, revered by most.

Because the Masters isn't about the money or fame - these guys have plenty. It's about the release.

It's about realizing a boyhood fantasy and having an excuse to act like the kid who dreamed it up on the range in the first place.