Will Zalatoris knew it would immediately be a collector’s item.

There’s so much exclusivity at the Masters from the invitations for new members to the Golf Shop itself which does not have an online store. The lines wrap for over an hour near the driving range as patrons search for merch. Tickets are a battle to come by. Even photos are only allowed on just three days this week.

But the free cardboard glasses every patron received today were maybe an even rarer commodity. Augusta National Golf Club gave out eclipse glasses Monday. An item given to those with passes for today and never again. The outside rims were green with the Masters logo, the inside featured the date.

Zalatoris played a Masters practice round with Tiger Woods at 8:35 this morning. He finished with more than enough time to watch the eclipse. It didn’t take him long to know this would be something to hold on to.

“I found a couple of Masters eclipse glasses, which I will be keeping those for absolutely the rest of my life,” Zalatoris said. “Those will be some collectibles that will be in my office forever.”

A solar eclipse cast a path of totality across parts of the central United States on Monday. It’s an extremely rare event, and there won’t be another coast-to-coast total solar eclipse until 2045. That future path of totality does cross through Alabama.

It meant this Masters Monday would be an incredibly uncommon show on the first day of golf’s biggest week. The last eclipse to impact the Masters was in 1940.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of major events. Augusta National Golf Club was not in the path of totality. At its peak, the eclipse had 76.1% coverage of the sun. That’s not enough to stop play, but certainly enough to notice.

The Masters tweeted that optimal viewing for the eclipse would be in Amen Corner. Standing behind the 12th tee, patrons face straight south as the sun rises to its afternoon peak overhead. It would begin at 1:50 p.m. and peak at 3:08 p.m.

So I listened. I camped out in Amen Corner — grabbing a plastic green seat about four rows up the grandstand behind the 12th tee — slipped my notebook out of my back pocket and uncapped my pen.

From some wind-rippled, blue-ink stained pages, on a most unique day during a week steeped in tradition.

1:50 p.m.: It began with the smallest sliver on the bottom half of the sun being covered. Eclipse glasses began to interchange with sunglasses. Some wore both at once, resting the bottom of their eclipse glasses on the top of their sunglasses with the ends of both tucked behind their ears.

Behind one of golf’s most famous tee shots, necks strained 90 degrees toward the sky. Pointed away from the fateful Rae’s Creek.

“It just started,” one patron called out, craning to the sky.

“Barely, barely,” responded another.

“A little bit at the bottom,” a patron said to a friend next to him.

“Oh yeah,” the friend said, putting on his glasses.

2:00 p.m.: Coverage is still filling in from the bottom of the sun. Still just a slightly bigger sliver.

The crowds are ebbing and flowing as groups come past the 12th hole and glasses only on for a brief moment at a time — the lenses so dark to protect against the sun, you couldn’t see the course at all with them on.

A security guard at the bottom of the grandstand briefly looked away from the crowd, flipped off his sunglasses and put on his eclipse glasses to look up. But only for a moment. He was still working.

Some patrons’ camera lenses pointed toward the tee while their eyes pointed toward the sky.

2:15 p.m.: The herd of golf bros at Amen Corner is growing and more glasses are coming on. There’s maybe about 25% coverage now, less than an hour before the maximum.

But maybe that time isn’t going by fast enough.

“It’s basically the same,” a patron called out to his group.

The Amen Corner grandstands has a full view of the 12th hole with the 11th green and end of the 11th fairway off to the right. The sound of a golf ball landing near the 11th green from a swing that no one could see occasionally swings heads away from the sky, away from the 12th hole, and over to the left.

The crowd around the tee box now has some course employees. Throughout the day, some employees had said they got off work at 2:00, and were going to quickly find a spot to watch the eclipse whether on the course or race back home.

2:25 p.m.: “It over yet,” a patron asks out to the stands.

No. Far from it.

Fans are starting to realize what Zalatoris did: these glasses are going to be a rare item. So some made sure to keep theirs in especially good condition.

Chris Kirk appeared to grab a pair of eclipse glasses and turn his head toward the sky after hitting his tee shot on 12. The golfers on the course knew was time it was.

2:30 p.m.: It hasn’t gotten darker but the temperature just dropped. Monday was my fifth day on a golf course after four days last week in Augusta covering the Augusta Women’s Amateur.

And I was quite sunburnt.

But the sun beating down throughout a warm Monday afternoon was much more covered now. The wind picked up. It was suddenly cool outside. It no longer felt like the burns continued to cook beneath a heavy layer of sunscreen. Then a patron confirmed what I’d felt.

“Do you feel how much cooler it got,” I heard behind me.

There’s enough coverage now for fans trying to take a picture on a disposable camera through the shades of their eclipse glasses. Wait a few weeks to develop the film and see if that one actually worked.

Next to me, a little boy took off his eclipse glasses and began to fall asleep on his mother’s leg. They’d gotten to the course around 6 a.m. It had been a long day. Maybe too long for eclipse viewing.

2:45 p.m.: Someone behind the tee box pointed to the sky with his glasses on and asked his friend to take his photo. It was time to capture the moment, to prove you were there when it happened.

It’s certainly darker now. But maybe more of a glow around a hole with so much aura.

The little boy tiredly complains to his parents.

“Let’s goooooooo,” he sleepily exclaimed. “We can literally see it anywhere.”

His parents didn’t get up yet.

2:50 p.m.: A man who maybe had a few drinks wanted to take a picture of the couple sitting next him to as they looked up at the sky. It would be cute, he told them. And it probably was. The photo was taken on a film camera.

There’s hardly a line at the concession stand behind the grandstand now. So a few patrons hustled for a last-minute snack.

“Don’t miss the eclipse now,” those seated said to the ones racing down the stairs.

Three young boys are coming back up the stairs now the security guard asks them where their eclipse glasses are. The boys nervously said nothing and smiled, the guard smiled back, gesturing to put them on.

It’s almost all the way to max coverage now. The temperature is cooler still. The light of the sun looks more like the sliver of a crescent moon.

2:57 p.m.: That little boy on his mom’s leg really wants to go home.

“I don’t really care that much,” he said before a moment he may be too young to remember on a course he may never forget. “I know, I know it’s cool, Dad.”

He begged to leave at 3.

Rickie Fowler hits his tee shot at 12 and a little girl races to the bottom of the grandstand to follow him to his next hole. At the bottom of the stairs, she looked up, too.

“That’s so cute,” a patron following down the stairs said to her group.

Glasses on. Glasses off. Glasses on. Glasses off.

It’s almost there.

But it’s 3:00 now. The boy wanted to leave. He got his wish.

3:08 p.m.: It’s the maximum coverage at Amen Corner and maybe not dark, but as if the lights were left on but the dimming switch slowly slid down. Augusta not being in totality, the most coverage left a small sliver of sun in the circle’s top left.

Selfies in glasses line the patron area behind the tee box.

It’s maybe a touch dull in the cooler air amid the glorious Amen Corner color.

“Dude, that’s incredible,” said a man in the front row.

“Oh my god,” said another. “I don’t even know how to describe it.

Sahith Theegala was on the 18th tee at 3:08. He stopped to watch.

“Ever since I was a kid I was a big science guy, and I’ve gotten away from it a little bit because I feel like I haven’t had time to read up on stuff,” Theegala said. “But yeah, every 10 minutes I would borrow someone’s glasses and I made sure at 3:08 to look up. It was pretty wild.”

For whatever reason, Theegala almost forgot he’d be at the Masters this week. He was kind of hoping to be in Houston, his home now, which had much more coverage.

Still, after his press conference, Theegala said he thought it would be darker.

“He was so distraught that we didn’t have our eclipse glasses,” Peter Malnati said of his four-year old son. “So of course with Amazon, you can have anything you want in a day or two. So we got our eclipse glasses, and his excitement for this — I’m kind of a nerd about stuff like this, too. I don’t understand science but I love it. I don’t even remember what year the last solar eclipse was. I know it was probably ‘15, ‘16, ‘17, something like that. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the ‘24 eclipse happened on Monday at the Masters, my first Masters, so the two memories will be connected.”

3:30 p.m.: The max passed, I picked up my yet-to-be-touched pimento cheese sandwich and long-finished ice cream sandwich wrapper and walked back to the first tee.

The heat slowly returned as I walked. The sun’s glare back.

“It’s getting bigger,” a patron said near the 18th tee box. “The sun, it’s bigger again.”

“Thank goodness it cooled off,” said another.

“Yeah, well the sun was like 70% covered,” a patron in her group responded.

Maybe this was all a little disappointing to an Augusta crowd that wanted more. Word around the course were those surprised by how cool it got, but not impressed without much darkness.

Maybe it was a sideshow. For many, this was a cool coincidence on their day to be at the Masters. That they were thrilled to be at Augusta National, and the eclipse happened to be today.

Amen Corner was a most special backdrop on a day unlike any for decades here.

But at the Masters, tradition beats unique.

Matt Cohen covers sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]