Now guests are back at Augusta National Golf Club at full capacity, regardless. (The folks at Augusta National Golf Club don’t publish those numbers.)

“It feels like a normal Masters again,” said Rory McIlroy, still chasing his first Masters title after five top-10 finishes. “We’re in the light at the end of the tunnel, that’s how I would say. 2020 has been a very strange Masters. ’21 with a few limited fans was much better, and this year the crowds for a Monday were amazing.

How amazing? Augusta’s roars were back.

Tiger Woods, a five-time Masters winner who beat huge odds just to be included in the 91-man squad, played a rare afternoon practice round on Monday. The sounds that were audible throughout the court sounded like what you heard during the back nine on Sunday.

“It’s great to be back and to be able to feel the energy and excitement of the customers again,” Woods said. “I hadn’t seen them since I won (in 2019), and obviously we had a COVID year, and I missed last year.”

Thunderstorms in the area limited practice sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday – there was even a tornado reported nearby – but officials managed to get through most of the Par 3 contest Wednesday afternoon before rain don’t stop it. It hadn’t been played since 2019 due to the pandemic.

However, all is not back to normal.

Phil Mickelson, who has won this championship three times, does not participate, ending a streak of 29 consecutive appearances. It has nothing to do with his golf skill. He became the oldest to win a major championship last August when he won the PGA Championship at 50, but his actions off the course have created controversy.

Mickelson has expressed support for a Saudi-backed golf league to rival the PGA Tour. Later, he went back on his remarks, but the damage was done. There are rumors that he will be suspended from the PGA Tour, but these penalties are not made public. Masters will often honor such penalties when appropriate.

“We didn’t disinvite Phil,” Masters tournament chairman Fred Ridley said in his annual address to the media on Wednesday. “He is a three-time Masters champion (lifetime exemption) and is invited in this category and in many other categories (including the top 50 of the world rankings last year). He is the defending PGA Champion (a five-year Masters Invitational).

“Phil contacted me – I think late February, early March – and let me know he had no intention of playing. It was in text form. I thanked him for his courtesy to let me know.”

Mickelson also skipped Tuesday night’s Champions Dinner, which 31 former Masters winners attended.

Something that has become evident over the years is that no player is bigger than the tournament. Even if Woods, who made remarkable progress after debilitating injuries sustained in a car accident in February 2020, did not play, the grunts along Washington Road, Berckmans Road and Riverwatch Parkway would have been the same as in 2019.

“Walking up Berckmans Road it took us – what is usually a 10 minute drive – 45 minutes to get to the club,” McIlroy said.

It’s always worth the wait.