Who dares to win on Wednesday at Augusta Par-3?

Ben Crenshaw remembers the time he led the Par-3 Contest at Augusta National Golf Club in 1987.

“What are you doing, son?” his father, Charlie, asked him before the final hole. “Don’t you know no one has ever won the par-3 tournament and then gone on to win the big tournament?”

Just east of the golf course is a 25-acre glen that in a previous lifetime entertained only fishermen. In 1958, architect George W. Cobb, at the urging of Augusta National Golf Club chairman Clifford Roberts, crafted a 1,060-yard, nine-hole course that encircles two ponds in this picturesque corner of the property. The majority of holes are 130 yards or less in length. Masters participants and non-competing past champions are invited to compete for prizes of crystal instead of money, and fans can get close to their favourites. It’s an easy-going time, tinged by that one oddity that no winner has pulled off the double of going on to win the tournament proper.