The winner of the first Masters in 1934 received $1,500. Horton Smith earned that amount after winning the inaugural tournament, then officially known as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament.
The event was played from March 22 to 25, 1934, at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Smith finished at 284, four under par, and beat Craig Wood by one stroke. His winning birdie putt came at the 17th hole of the original layout, a hole that corresponds to the present-day 8th after Augusta’s nines were later reversed.
The total purse was $5,000, so Smith’s winner’s share represented 30 percent of the available prize money. Wood received $800 for second place. Those figures look modest beside modern Masters payouts, but they reflected professional golf’s finances during the 1930s and the tournament’s status as a new invitation event.
A frequent source of confusion is the tournament’s name: “Masters” was used informally from the beginning, but “Augusta National Invitation Tournament” was the official name for its first five editions. The inaugural champion was Horton Smith, not Gene Sarazen, who won the following year.