The Best Way To Watch Sport? Without A Phone, Says The Masters

Rock 'n' roll is loud, wild, its beat heavy, and its philosophy suggests rules are meant to be broken. Golf's Masters is its polite antithesis, a place formal, quiet, rule-bound, where the instruments at best speak a precise, clicking music. But both have something intriguing in common.

- Rohit Brijnath Assistant Sports Editor

AUGUSTA - Rock 'n' roll is loud, wild, its beat heavy, and its philosophy suggests rules are meant to be broken. Golf's Masters is its polite antithesis, a place formal, quiet, rule-bound, where the instruments at best speak a precise, clicking music. But both have something intriguing in common.

They don't always care for phones.

In Manila in 2024, Coldplay's Chris Martin, a gentle rocker if ever there was one, beseeches the crowd. For a single song, he says, put your raised phones away. "Use your body," he says, mimicking a dance. We're all never going to be here together again, he says, so let's for one moment be "one human family".

No filming for a brief while, the rocker was asking. No filming at all, declares the blazered tribe of the Masters. In possibly the most civilised rule known to sporting humankind, fans can't bring their phones onto the Augusta National course. Journalists can but their use is restricted to the press building. Here, only the brain is allowed to film and remember.

When football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo came to prance on Singapore's lawns in 2019, I remember a photo of the crowd. Almost every single arm was raised in a digital salute, as if filming their hero on their phones was the new worship. Ronaldo stood before them, yet they were looking at him through a screen.