Augusta kicks of Maters Tournament week

The 2015 Masters Tournament, the first of golf's four major championships, kicked off its tournament week on Monday here as Augusta National Golf Club warms up for the annual event on April 9.

It's held in the first full week of April and unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held each year at the same location in Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in the city of Augusta, Georgia.

Last year, Bubba Watson won his second Masters in three years as he became the 17th player to win the Tournament multiple times and the first winner out of the final pairing since 2010.

This year 14-time professional major golf champion Tiger Woods returns after a two-month layoff. Rory McIlroy, the current World No.1, will go for the career Grand Slam and Watson looks to defend his title and win a third green jacket.

The field of players is smaller than those of the other major championships because it is an invitational event. By tradition, the champion from the previous year presents the Green Jacket to the new winner and helps him into it.

In 1966, Jack Nicklaus became the first player to win in consecutive years and he donned the jacket himself. When Nick Faldo (in 1990) and Tiger Woods (in 2002) repeated as champions, the chairman of Augusta National put the jacket on them.

The first "Augusta National Invitational" Tournament, as the Masters was originally known, began on March 22, 1934, and was won by Horton Smith. The total prize money for this year's tournament was about $9,000,000 and 98 elite golfers from all over the world will compete in the upcoming week. Endite