Nick Metcalfe on the Masters Tournament at Augusta National

You can picture Augusta now, can't you? Go on, close your eyes. It won't take long. The pastel green fairways. The vibrant pink azaleas. The bridge over Rae's Creek. The perils of Amen Corner. It's like soothing balm for the eyes.

Then there are the noises. Augusta just doesn't sound like any other sporting event. Sometimes, when the drama is really ramped up on the Sunday - and one of the Masters Ten Commandments is that the tournament doesn't really start until the back nine on the final day - you can just hear the faint sound of bird song. It's almost eerie.

In fact, the Masters is pretty weird full stop if we're honest. It's like a fantasy world out there in Georgia, and only the chosen few are invited. It's the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory of sport.

Commentators and pundits talk about the place in hushed, reverential tones. We're given occasional glimpses of the treasures inside of course. Magnolia Lane. The clubhouse. The Butler Cabin. But the message is always there, even if only subliminal. This is not really for you. You're lucky to see this. You won't see it with your own eyes.

Then there's the fact we can only see the bits of the actual golf we're allowed to. Tiger Woods could be burning up the course on the first morning and there will be no network TV coverage. It only increases the mystique of the place, they tell us.

Despite the occasional blackouts, we are of course laden with decades of extraordinary memories. The Masters is one of those blessed sporting events - and there probably aren't more than a handful in truth - that delivers every time.

For many years, two American titans of the game were dominant. The most successful golfer of them all, Jack Nicklaus, claimed a record six Masters triumphs. The charismatic Arnold Palmer, who helped drag the sport kicking and screaming into the television age, won the event four times. Between 1958 and 1978, Nicklaus, Palmer and South African Gary Player - three times a winner - picked up the green jacket on 12 occasions. Much later, the trio joined forces to be honorary starters at Augusta, before Palmer sadly died in 2016.

It was in the Eighties that the powerful relationship between the tournament and British sporting public really took hold.

That was firstly down to European players beginning to make their mark. The mercurial Spaniard, Seve Ballesteros, was victorious in 1980 and 1983, with Germany's Bernhard Langer winning in 1985.

Then, crucially, the next stage of the love affair, the BBC picking up rights to the tournament from Channel 4. That spring Sunday night on BBC Two became appointment television for millions. Bye bye winter, we won't be seeing you for a while. Right, bed can wait. Put the kettle on, we're in this for the long haul.

With Auntie on board, we revelled in a run of tournaments that was simply breathtaking. There was Nicklaus becoming the oldest player, at 46, to win a major in 1986. He was helped considerably by Ballesteros, who was looking set fair to win another title, hitting into the water at the 15th - late collapses, often watery, is another Masters trademark.

While we had Peter Alliss and Tony Jacklin for company on this side of the pond, one of the most famous phrases from any sports commentator would be uttered by Verne Lundquist on CBS in America - a simple "yes, sir" to follow in a crucial birdie putt from Nicklaus on 17.

The following year had a quite outrageous finish. Australia's Greg Norman won two Open Championships in his career but will always be remembered for a string of near misses, and this was one of his cruellest moments. Larry Mize, a local man, had the week of his life and was involved in a play-off with Norman and Ballesteros.

The Spaniard had already been eliminated at the first play-off hole. At the second, the 11th, Mize was miles away from the hole in two, with Norman safely on the green with an outside chance for birdie. The rest is part of golfing folklore, Mize miraculously chipping in to break Norman's heart - an unlikely "and they say the meek shall inherit the earth" was how Alliss marked the moment on the BBC.

We couldn't keep asking for more drama of that ilk could we? You bet we could. The following year, Scotland's Sandy Lyle was right in the hunt to be the first British winner of the Masters and was level with Mark Calcavecchia going to the last. Lyle's bunker shot into the final green is another for the Augusta annals. You'll probably remember Alliss with his "that could spin... it could spin" monologue. That ball just kept dribbling towards the hole, slowly getting closer and closer. Lyle was left with a short putt to win, and nailed it. Magic moment.

It was British glory all the way in the following years as well. England's Nick Faldo produced an awe-inspiring charge from behind in 1989 to force a play-off with Scott Hoch. Faldo's American rival - who later admitted he was already thinking about his celebratory appearances on breakfast television - looked like he would prevail when left with a two-foot putt to win on the first play-off hole. But somehow, it slid agonisingly past. At the next hole, the 11th, Faldo rammed home a 25-foot birdie putt and threw his arms into the air in the gloom.

Faldo won again in 1990, this time in a play-off with Ray Floyd, while in 1991 it was the turn of Welshman, Ian Woosnam. His fist-clenched roar of triumph after nailing his winning birdie putt on the 18th is one of those classic Masters images.

This was the stuff of dreams. Every year we'd switch on for a few hours of golfing heaven, and each time we'd go to bed delighted with a home victory.

By this stage, the ritual of the champion being handed the green jacket had become all too familiar. Odd, stilted, uncomfortable. Yes, all those things. And all presided over by CBS man Jim Nantz, who has a habit of behaving like he's in the company of the Pope, not the chairman of a golf club.

The 1996 Masters was one of its most dramatic ever editions. Norman, he of the hard luck stories, kept coming back for more. Surely this time, he'd finally cracked the code. Six shots clear of Faldo going into the final day. What size jacket would you like, Greg?

But the golfing Gods had other ideas. Despite Norman's big lead, it didn't actually take that long to work out where it was heading on that amazing Sunday. It was like a very slow, very painful car crash, even if you were a Faldo fan. Norman visibly wilted and then fell apart, while Faldo saw the opportunity and grabbed it in that merciless way of his. The Englishman eventually won by five. An 11-shot swing on the final day. The sight of Faldo and a broken Norman on the 18th is another vintage one from Augusta.

Twelve months later, we enjoyed one of golf's most symbolic ever moments, when a 21-year-old Woods stunned the watching world and won the tournament by a remarkable 12 shots.

A former long-serving chairman of the Augusta National, Clifford Roberts, had once reportedly remarked: "As long as I'm alive, all the golfers will be white and all the caddies will be black." It wasn't until 1990 that the club accepted its first black member. Now Woods was the champion, in the heart of the deep south.

It soon became the Woods era too. He won the tournament three more times, in 2001, 2002 and 2005. His remarkable chip into the hole at the 16th in 2005 gave Lundquist another moment for the golf commentary hall of fame - "Oh wow. In your life have you seen anything like that?"

The closest rival to Woods in those heady days was Phil Mickelson, and he shone in the year's opening major too, winning three Masters titles, in 2004, 2006 and 2010.

But the biggest star in so many ways has always remained Augusta. The place just knows how to put on a show. And over the last decade, the infamous collapses and nerve-shredding finishes have kept on coming.

Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy seemed set fair for glory in 2011. But he fell apart just after the turn - remember him playing a shot out by those cabins on the 10th? - and South African Charl Schwartzel nipped in to claim the title with birdies on each of the final four holes.

Jordan Spieth looked almost certain to win a second successive tournament in 2016 when he inexplicably found the water twice on the 12th - "buddy, it seems like we're collapsing" he said to caddie Michael Greller - and Englishman Danny Willett gleefully took advantage to land a fairytale victory.

Sergio Garcia against Justin Rose in 2017 was totally compelling, the Spaniard eventually prevailing in the battle of two European heavyweights in a play-off to finally win his first major at the age of 37.

And then came perhaps the most spectacular Masters of them all in 2019. He couldn't, could he? No, it's silly to think it, he won't. Wait a minute, he might. Hold on, I think he's going to do it. Bloody hell, he has done it.

Superstar Woods, who feared a number of injuries would prematurely end his career, produced a redemption story for the ages last year, that had sports writers around the world thumbing through the thesaurus. It was startling, it was incredible, it was beautiful.

Actually you could use those three words for the tournament as a whole. It's given us so much. We drink that event in and we're always thirsty for more. There really is nothing like the Masters. Let's hope an unlikely encore in November really can go ahead.

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• Originally posted in April to reflect intended Masters dates