The Case for Banning Cell Phones

A week out from the Masters, Rich couldn't stop thinking about the photographs. Not the shots of Rory McIlroy lifting the trophy, or the green jacket ceremony, but the wide frames of the patrons at Augusta National watching the action.

Everybody's head was locked on the flight of the ball. Nobody was holding up a phone to take a selfie with the leaderboard in the background. Nobody was recording Rory's celebration through a six-inch screen. Put the photo in black and white and it could be 1955.

Rich contrasted that with the famous LeBron James frame from the night LeBron passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the all-time scoring list. The entire lower bowl held up phones to record the moment. The only person in the shot not watching through a screen was Phil Knight, and Rich's theory there was that the Nike founder might still be running a flip phone.

The Augusta policy is the cleanest version of a rule any sporting event has. There's no ringer-off warning. There's no three-strikes system. The rule is you don't bring the phone in. If you do, you check it. If they find it on you inside the grounds, you're gone. Augusta treats the venue the way schools treat classrooms.

Rich opened the question up: what other event could pull this off. The Super Bowl is out. 70,000 people in one building, too much logistics, too much action window where fans reach for their phones during the commercial breaks. Baseball has the same problem, the game has natural lulls where the phone becomes the filler.

Golf works because the rhythm of the round demands patience anyway. At 16, you're waiting five minutes for the next pairing to come through. Without a phone, you're still locked into the tournament around you instead of scrolling away the gap.

The co-host pitched tennis as the one other candidate. Wimbledon, Arthur Ashe at the US Open, the venues where the action is constant and a five-hour final rewards full attention. The heads move left to right, left to right, and the theater is right there in front of you.

Rich agreed tennis was the closest fit, then pitched the other three majors as candidates, the US Open, the Open Championship, the PGA Championship, the Players. The pushback was honest. Those courses rotate. Part of what makes Augusta's policy stick is that the tournament is at the same club every year. The venue is the star. Other majors don't have that continuity.

The experiment expanded for a minute into concerts, comedy, and Broadway. Chappelle takes phones at the door. Springsteen doesn't. Concerts are different, the moment is the lighting and the video is part of the memory. Theater still lets phones in even though they ring mid-act.

Rich kept landing in the same place. Augusta decided. Not a warning. Not a fine. Not a negotiation. The policy is keep it about the guys on the course. Keep it about you being present on the grounds.

That, Rich said, is serious old-school stuff. And a week later, you could still feel it in the photographs.