SEC football spring games either put the Masters on the Jumbotron or avoid it

Among the American South’s great spring sporting traditions: the Masters golf tournament, which takes place in early April, and college football spring games, which usually do, too. The calendar can create some serious weekend conflicts.

This year, Masters Saturday coincides with a whole bunch of spring games. That’s the case every year. A lot of these spring games are in golf-loving states with lots of people who might want to attend or otherwise be watching the Masters.

How does one choose what to do?

Auburn is trying to have it both ways:

Georgia did the same thing in 2015.

That’s a pretty convenient way to live, in my opinion. Sitting in Sanford Stadium while watching leisurely spring football in person and the Masters on a humongous video board seems awfully relaxing on an April Saturday. It represents one approach to seasonal conflict between spring ball and golf’s tradition unlike any other.

The tournament is always played in April’s first full week, and Augusta National Golf Club’s leadership is nothing if not set in its ways. So the other approach for college football teams is to simply avoid the Masters altogether.

Georgia’s taking that route this year. The Dawgs are holding their spring game on April 22, and they did that to purposefully avoid the Masters and Easter.

South Carolina did the same. The Gamecocks played their spring game up against the Masters last year and then decided to move it up a week this year.

“The Masters obviously did affect us a little bit as far as our crowd is concerned,” Gamecocks head coach Will Muschamp said of the decision. “We need to have a huge crowd for the recruits that’ll be at the game.”

So, South Carolina played its spring game the Saturday before the Masters. The team still wound up having to alter the start time to avoid a conflict with the men’s basketball Final Four, in which the Cocks were surprisingly playing.

Whatever decisions football programs make about the Masters are ostensibly about their fans. But the issue is a critical one for media members, too. Here’s an explanation from my colleague Richard Johnson, a former Florida Gators beat writer:

From my days on the Florida beat, I can attest that Masters navigation during spring games is very much a point of contention. College football media folks, especially ones in the South, tend to also dabble on the links. Look around in a spring game press box during the third round of the tournament, and you can see phones and iPads tuned into the golf while we’re tangentially watching football-like substance on the field. The “game” ends, and the press box TVs immediately turn to the golf. It’s important.

College football fans and writers trying to watch the Masters during spring games: the real tradition unlike any other.