Ill engage, but I announce disdain for the word prestige (George Carlin rightfully identified it as one of the more bullshit words of marketing and puffery).
For me there is no question that the Masters has it, has always had it since near its beginning, before TV. Some of the reasons are unfair sui generis advantages (1st...can't win the Slam without it...eagerly anticipated major golf after 8 months... same beautiful, ultra-exclusive site year after year...the property and cultural ephemera (Green jackets, Ike's tree, Magnolia lane ...I've been there and it is one of the few things which exceeds expectations).
And I love the course, while not played, it seems like that great character where every hole is a memorable and distinct test, but the course is well-picked in other threads.
But the connection with Jones and great champions and their deeds is a massive factor...In my un-empirical connotation, Jones (perhaps accidentally) "made" this course for the great champions such as himself... and though it has been washed thru modern televised celebrity sport industry hokum and the financial planner's dulcet tones of Mr. Nantz, to a great extent I feel Bobby Jones bridge of the game from the original Scottish roots to the modern American hegemony in everything he launched at this place and at this tournament...
Jones was mindful and respectful of his games origins and kept that conscience in Augusta National...he never forgot the players of his youth and his salad days as a competitor...it was he who conceived it as a fun gathering of the greats of that time (though the club's fortunes and fiscal realities almost immediately advanced it as a money maker)...it was there he had the PGA stage its first two Senior Championships in 1937-38 (a great trivia question)...it was he who had Jock Hutchison and Freddie McLeod tee off to start the Masters and it was he who insisted that past champions get a life time exemption - sadly, but effectively curtailed when the course had grown too big more than a decade ago... he had that sense of history and his place in that history and its alive there.
But to return to just the champions aesthetic, since Ouimet's legendary victory (when the face of the game started to turn to an American profile) tell me what list of champions is more signatory of American championship golf mettle and reputation than Jones, Hogan, Palmer Nicklaus and Woods...and these names are forever associated with this championship, this gathering... Arnie's Army started here, and his days yielded to the unbelievable exploits of Nicklaus here, and Woods inaugurated the last great era of championship excellence here (while he may seek to reclaim that status, much of this last decade has been spent figuring which contender...Scott, McIlroy, DJ, Day, Spieth would take such a long-lived hold )
... and only a hair or two beneath those five legendary champions... Nelson, Snead...Watson and popular cool cats like DeMaret, Couples, Fuzzy, Bubba, Phil and of course Gentle Ben.
Yet the second large factor for my assessment is to observe how well represented (given a small field event, which is often held as a critique) the international great is represented here (once international play was really transacted regularly)...Player, Ballesteros, Faldo...Olazabal, Langer, Singh...and the international cool cats, Lyle, Cabrera...
Sure there are one-off-golf-history-could-be-fully-written-without-them champion factors in both camps.... Brewer, Goalby, Coody, Aaron, Stadler... Immelman, Weir, [seemingly] Willet, {maybe] Garcia, but victories here have a way of making one re-assess a multi-major winner guy like Zack Johnson and Schwatrzel....
And then consider you know the losing, the failing stories almost as well as the winning ones...Billie Joe Patton or Sarazen's double eagle?...Curtis Strange, Ken Venturi or Mize's chip? Weiskopf and Spieth's meltdowns on 12 or Couples staying on the bank? Bear Tracks or the Norman collapse...Seve in the drink or Nicklaus' near ace en route to Lazarus legend...Hoch's choke or Bubba's boomerang? And there's dozens, maybe scores more that only need a tickle to be recalled vividly...
So for me it's here...yes it doesn't have the empirically complete Open nature of the old belt and the US one, but in a great many ways, that's been a screen for the cream... this is the true Elysian fields for Golf immortality...heaven...perhaps The Old Course is where the Saints congregate, but Augusta National is the Pearly Gates.
cheers vk