Masters week means re-acquainting oneself with the tournament's gloriously accessible archive. Full final-round broadcasts stretching all the way back to the 70s are sitting there on YouTube.
The modern era of the Masters perhaps begins with Tiger Woods' show-stopping destruction of the field in 1997, a week which brought an end to the decade-long European dominance in the event and ushered in a new epoch in golf.
There's been some thrilling Masters' finishes since then. Here are accounts from five of the most memorable.
1998 - Mark O'Meara's Indian summer
An underrated dinger of a tournament which followed hot on the heels of Greg Norman's implosion in '96 and Tiger's blitz in '97.
The front-runner for the first three days was the perennially competitive Freddie Couples, he of the magnificent liquid swing and the dodgy putting stroke. The stylish Italian-American - the family name was originally 'Coppola' - was almost always in contention around Augusta and at the Open Championship but managed only one Major victory, the 1992 Masters.
Seeking what appeared an overdue second Major, Couples sat on six-under on Saturday evening ahead of a leaderboard stacked with the usuals: Mickelson, Olazabal, Furyk, Els.
Before we could get down to the final stretch, Sunday witnessed the heartwarming rally of the Golden Bear. Nicklaus, by then closing in on his 60th birthday, carded a final round of 68 to finish in a tie for sixth. He was joined in that position by future PGA champ David Toms, who struck a remarkable 29 on the back nine.
David Duval, then close to the beginning of his relatively short stint at the summit of the game, rattled off five birdies in eight holes between the seventh and 15th to briefly shoot into a three-stroke lead.
Very briefly. The gap vanished in an instant as Duval bogeyed 16 and then Couples, struggling to launch for much of Sunday, lashed a gorgeous approach to within a couple of feet for eagle on 15.
Plodding along quietly alongside Couples in the final pairing was Mark O'Meara. In his early 40s, having made a comfortable living from the game, winning the odd tournament here or there, O'Meara was noted as being a kind of surrogate older brother to Tiger Woods.
To European viewers, he was probably the least high profile of those in the hunt and swimming under the radar until the closing holes. A birdie on the 15th carried him to -7. A superb nine-iron set up a birdie on the 17th to take him level with Couples and Duval.
Coming up the 72nd, a three-way playoff seemed the likeliest result but O'Meara drained a 25-foot putt, completing a late surge to take the title. His Indian summer of 1998 continued as he, almost nonchalantly, added the Open Championship to his collection at Royal Birkdale that July.
2005 - Tiger gets over the line
Best remembered for the, "In your life, have you ever seen anything like that" shot, 2005 played host to a drama-choked playoff between an unusually buoyant Tiger Woods and Chris DiMarco.
Woods had come off the back of a relatively lean spell, a remodelling of his swing under the tutelage of Hank Haney precipitating some Major-less years, in which a host of relative anonymities - Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheal, Todd Hamilton - enjoyed success in the big ones.
Woods was now re-invigorated in time for the 2005 Major campaign and a tilt at a fourth Masters title. The tournament ended in heartbreak for DiMarco, a highly consistent player at the time who would fade from view not long afterwards.
At the close of play on Saturday, with the third round still unfinished due to the weather interrupted schedule, DiMarco held a commanding four stroke lead thru 45 holes. However, the balance of power shifted violently by the completion of the penultimate round on Sunday morning.
Woods, having birdied the final three holes on Saturday night, rattled off a further four in row first-thing on Sunday. As if spooked, DiMarco was heading the opposite direction, bogeying three of the final five holes to tumble three strokes off the lead.
History would have decreed the tournament was over at this point, with Woods not often prone to letting leads slip. While the most vivid images from that Sunday are Woods' spectacular chip-in on 16 and he ultimately prevailed in the playoff, the world No 1 actually had a faltering final round, allowing DiMarco back into the tournament around Amen Corner and bogeying both the 71st and 72nd holes to tumble into a playoff.
Eschewing tradition, for the playoff they came down the 18th rather than returning to the 10th. Woods shrugged off his stumbles in regulation to sink a lengthy putt and claim a fourth title.
2011 - Rory's pain, Schwartzel's gain
After the 2007-14 bonanza, the Masters remains the only major not to fall into Irish hands, though glory seemed to be at hand for Rory McIlroy in 2011.
(On an emotional level, this is somewhat jarring given that the Masters always seemed the most accessible of the American Majors to European golfers, given the burst of success in the late 80s and early 90s.)
The then 21-year-old was in scintillating form from the get-go, hitting 65 on Thursday to take a two-stroke lead. By the end of Saturday, this lead had been extended to four strokes.
A coronation lay in wait on Sunday, one almost akin to Woods' ascension to greatness 14 years earlier. Alas, it wasn't to be.
McIlroy held relatively steady on the front nine but his lead gradually whittled away as a bunched field gathered behind him. Still just about leading as he arrived at the 10th tee, McIlroy endured a calamitous burst of holes around the turn, which ended his interest in the tournament.
On the 10th, McIlroy hacked his drive so far left, it almost smacked into a couple of cabins deep in the woods. Firing his recovery to the opposite side of the fairway, he made a hames of his third, lashing it leftwards again into the rough. His fourth thwacked off a tree and bounced backwards a few yards from his feet. From there, he was unable to get up and down and the triple bogey resulted.
There followed a dismal three-putt from no length at 11. He was in meltdown mode and a scarcely believable four-putt followed on 12.
After whacking his drive left into Rae's Creek on 13, a distraught McIlroy buried his head in his driver handle. In an act of charity, the cameras averted their gaze for the rest of the evening.
Up ahead, Woods, after a traumatic 2010, was in the box-seat again, following a front nine charge which lifted him to -10. However, a frustrating back nine saw him unable to set a serious target for those arriving behind.
Now, the southern hemisphere took centre-stage for the rest of the evening, a trio of Australians - Adam Scott, Jason Day and Geoff Ogilvy - jockeyed for supremacy. There were too many possible winners to keep track of.
"All credit to our production staff. This is not easy to show every relevant shot because there are so many of them," observed David Feherty on commentary.
Amid a bewilderingly congested field, South Africa's Charl Schwartzel - not a name with which European audiences would have had a huge emotional connection - rattled in four closing birdies to triumph by two strokes after an anarchic final round.
2017 - Sergio finally has his moment
Many had concluded that the 37-year-old Sergio Garcia had missed the boat, that his quest for a Major championship was doomed.
The better part of his career had seemingly passed after a slump at the turn of the previous decade. He seemed especially scarred at his failure to seal the deal in the 2007 Open Championship and the 2008 PGA Championship, both of which were lost to Padraig Harrington. Relations were palpably frosty with the Dubliner ever since those close shaves, a fact that Harrington was surprisingly blunt in admitting.
Garcia's form had gradually recovered from the mid-2010s onwards and he arrived at the 2017 Masters in fine fettle. By Saturday evening, he tied the lead with Justin Rose, already a major champion in the US Open at Merion three years earlier.
While 2011 champion Schwartzel mounted an impressive charge around the turn, the 2017 showdown was a two-way battle reminiscent of 1996 and 2005.
The Englishman held the lead for most of the final round but the famous par-5s would again prove crucial. On 15, Garcia jammed a sublime approach to within 10ft, draining the eagle putt to tie the lead. Rose responded to re-take the lead with a birdie at 16 but immediately gave it back after finding the greenside bunker on 17.
Enormous drama followed on 18 as both had great birdie chances, Garcia's the greater. After Rose missed, the Spaniard stood over a highly makeable putt and Jim Nantz recalled 2007.
"He had a putt once upon at Carnoustie to win a major championship and it lipped out. These are different times, he's a different man." Not that different. Garcia struck a horribly nervy putt and the curse apparently remained.
The gods relented on the 73rd. Rose made matters easier with a wretched drive into the pine needles, leaving him impeded for the second. He could only punch out and couldn't save par. All went more serenely for Garcia, who had two putts to win it this point. With this cushion there, he only needed one, birdieing the hole to win a long-awaited Major.
2019 - The great redemption
A Hollywood ending worthy of a schmaltzy Kevin Costner movie as Tiger Woods, after a decade of upheaval and trauma, won a 15th Major title.
A few years before, Woods appeared a sad beaten docket, regularly the subject of mournful feature pieces concerned with his psychological frailty.
For a while, his world ranking shot continually upwards like the numbers on the Irish National Debt Clock website.
However, a glorious Indian summer was in store. He returned to professional golf at the Hero World Challenge in late 2017 and, to the surprise of many, his form was relatively decent.
In 2018, he was back competing like it was old times. He registered a top-10 at the Open Championship at Carnoustie, finished second behind Brooks Koepka in the PGA Championship and then won a first tournament for five years at the season-ending Tour Championship.
Thus, he was primed for the Masters in 2019. For the first time ever, he would win a Major title from behind on Sunday. Reigning Open champion Francesco Molinari was in charge for most of the final round, until he dunked his drive in the water at 12.
From there on, Woods vied with the new generation for supremacy. The streaky Xander Schauffele and the default World No. 1 Dustin Johnson were in the hunt. So too was Floridian beefcake, Mr Koepka, who seemed to win every major going at the time. Regular challenger Patrick Cantlay found a birdie streak to join the fray, before being hobbled by bogeys on 16 and 17.
But Woods wasn't to be denied. Successive birdies on 15 and 16 proved crucial, the Big Cat even allowing himself space for a closing bogey to claim a fifth Masters title, a first for 14 years and sparking some of the most emotional scenes ever witnessed behind the 18th.
