At 90 years old, Gary Player still makes the trip to the Masters. This spring, he flew from San Antonio to Augusta aboard an eight-seat Bombardier Challenger 350 with Vista, the private aviation group that has flown the nine-time major champion around the world for the past year.
Player, who has teed it up at Augusta National a record number of times, is one of golf’s most recognizable figures and a VistaJet Brand Ambassador. He is also one small part of a much larger ritual. For one week each April, the business of flying the wealthy into a single Georgia city becomes one of the most concentrated displays of private aviation aircraft anywhere on earth.
Augusta Regional Airport spends most of the year as a quiet regional field. During the Masters’ week, it turns into something else entirely.
Golf Monthly reported that roughly 1,500 aircraft were parked on site during last year’s tournament, with more than 2,000 expected in 2026. One of the airport’s runways is closed and given over to parking jets, and overflow spills into neighboring airfields, including Aiken Regional in South Carolina.
Individual operators tell the same story. NetJets, which sponsors several PGA Tour players, ran 580 flights in and out of Augusta in 2025 and expected about 775 in 2026. Front Office Sports, cited in the same report, put total Masters demand near 4,000 flights. Vista counted more than 2,100 private flights in and out of the Augusta area during last year’s tournament week.
For a company built around moving Members to the moments that matter to them, that week is the entire opportunity.
Vista, the global private aviation group founded by Thomas Flohr, returned to Augusta in 2026 with Vista House, its invitation-only residence for what the company calls “the most private week of golf.” It’s built as an intimate clubhouse rather than a branded tent. Each evening it opens to VistaJet and XO Members and their guests, with programming that changes as the tournament unfolds: dining, live entertainment, candid commentary, and appearances by some of the sport’s most respected figures.
The week opened with a Grammy Award-winning country band. As play got underway, guests were invited to an insider conversation on tournament strategy led by Chad Mumm, the executive producer behind Netflix’s Full Swing, alongside broadcaster Emma Carpenter of PGA Tour Live, the Golf Channel, and Big Ten.
Golf anchored the week, but the programming reached well past it. Vista presented a lineup of newly unveiled high-performance sports cars for Members to test drive. There was Champagne from Billecart-Salmon, cigars from Arturo Fuente, and access to the invitation-only Double Eagle Club, where the hospitality continued beyond the house itself.
“Vista House brings together our Members to share their passions, whether golf, travel or luxury lifestyle, in a way that is uniquely Vista,” said Matteo Atti, chief marketing officer at Vista. “It is both a social hub and an extension of the premium service we deliver in the air, on the ground and around the world.”
Part of what gives the room its weight is who is in it. Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, and Gary Player are all VistaJet Members and Brand Ambassadors, and the relationship runs deeper than a logo on a hangar. Player’s flight to Augusta was arranged through Vista as the company already handles his travel, and the Masters was one leg of a schedule that, even at 90, still runs through Texas, Florida, Long Island, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.
Endorsement deals are common in golf. This goes further. Players at that level can fly however they choose, and several of the sport’s most accomplished names have built their travel around VistaJet. That says something about what the company sells: reliability, discretion, and a community of people operating at a similar altitude, on and off the course.
To understand why Vista House exists, it helps to go back to the company’s founding logic.
When Thomas Flohr started VistaJet in 2004, he built it around a subscription model rather than ownership. Members buy guaranteed access to a global fleet by the hour instead of a fraction of a single aircraft. The promise was consistency anywhere in the world, without the cost or hassle of owning the plane.
Vista House is that idea on the ground. The same Members who rely on a VistaJet private jet to move between continents are the ones gathering in Augusta, and Vista is betting the relationship doesn’t end when the wheels touch down.
“Our Members rely on Vista not only to transport them safely and efficiently around the world, but also to support the pursuits that really matter to them, whether business, personal passions or connecting with a global community,” said Leona Qi, Vista’s president for the U.S. The United States remains Vista’s strongest region and its largest Member base, part of why Augusta has become such a natural fit.
Behind the Champagne and the sports cars sits a serious operation. Vista’s Special Events Unit manages the logistics of moving Members through one of the busiest private-aviation weeks of the year, and clients are met by a Vista Quality Ambassador to keep the ground experience as smooth as the flight.
The company has signaled that Augusta is a model it intends to repeat. Vista plans to keep expanding its luxury lifestyle partnerships and destination-led experiences across both VistaJet and XO, from Formula 1 races to tennis grand slams. For Flohr, the throughline is the one he started with two decades ago: sell people a way of moving through the world, and the places that membership can open up, rather than a seat on a plane.
