the current period of agronomy and aesthetics, including manicured bun- ker edges. During the early ’80s, some of the greens were almost unplayable because the slopes were too severe for the higher speeds of the bentgrass. “On No 9 in the final round when I won in 1981,” Watson remembers, “I hit the ball just over the back edge of the green. As soon as I putted it, I started walking and putting my glove back on because I knew it was going to go right off the front of the green.” As the bent greens matured, they became increasingly grippy as well, so much so that shots routinely began spinning off greens. “You used to play a long iron to 18 and have it bounce a couple of times and stop,” Tommy Aaron said during the 1986 Masters. “Now you hit a 2-iron and it can come right back down the hill at you.” The faster bentgrass greens re- quired players to modify their games and forced the club to adjust the greens, softening contours on holes like four, six, eight, nine, 14 and 18. “You couldn’t breathe on the ball or it would take off and roll off the green,” Hale Irwin said. “Now you can at least breathe on it.” The final piece of Augusta Na- tional’s maintenance matrix was put into place in the 1990s when Marsh Benson, the director of golf course and grounds, invented a subsurface air-circulation system, now known as SubAir, that aerified the rootzone and could vacuum water from the playing surfaces. The system greatly improved green-to-green consistency – help- ing fix perennial problem greens like the par-3 12th, located on the lowest, coolest part of the property – and gave Augusta National unparalleled control over the playing surfaces. 2000s and 2010s ‘TIGER-PROOFING’ BEGINS 6 985-7 475 yards Average winning score: 278 (-11) Lowest winning score: 270 ( Jordan Spieth, 2015) Until the early 2000s, the modifications the club had made over the previous 50 years were primarily about adapting to developing turf and maintenance breakthroughs. By 2002, the alterations became more
Because club and ball technology advanced slowly during this time, Augusta National’s hole lengths and shot demands were in balance with equipment. Driving distances did not change much, and there remained continuity between the types of shots Sam Snead and Ben Hogan hit and those of Jack Nicklaus and Tom Wat- son. Holes like five, 10, 11, 13, 15 and 18 required controlled long irons or woods into the greens, followed by spin control on shorter shots and put- ting touch on what were considered among golf’s fastest greens, even if they were honey-drip slow by today’s expectations (a USGA study in 1977 determined their Stimpmeter speed
was just seven feet, 11 inches com- pared to an estimated 13 feet or higher now). From 1950 to 1979, the average winning score was 280.6 (-7.4 in rela- tion to par), including record-breaking years of 271 by Nicklaus (1965) and Raymond Floyd (1976), only a stroke lower than 1934 to 1949 (281.7). Course conditions had improved since the 1930s and ’40s, but many of the same problems persisted. The turf was the best the players competed on each year, but the surfaces were still primitive compared to contemporary standards, and the quality of the fair- ways continued to be determined by the elements. Warm temperatures in February and March might foster early Bermuda growth that enhanced the ryegrass lies, but in normal or colder years the Bermuda remained stunted, and the rye could be sparse, patchy or muddy. “You didn’t know what they would be from year to year,” Nicklaus told The Augusta Chronicle in 2016. “In 1965, I shot a (then tournament- record) 17 under par. In 1966, I won a playoff after shooting 288. That’s 17 shots higher, and the difference was the fairways.” The Bermuda-based greens were also hard and difficult to hold with long second shots. Players rarely dominated the par 5s like they do now. “I was always long enough to reach the par 5s, but I couldn’t keep it on the greens,” Floyd told Golf Digest. “I was coming in with 2- and 3-irons, but the greens, because they were Bermuda grass, were too firm. I used a 5-wood in 1976 because I could hit it high and soft, and I ran away with the tournament.” SCARY GOOD 7 040-6 985 yards Average winning score: 279 (-9) Lowest winning score: 270 (Tiger Woods, 1997) Even if course conditions were ideal for the era, no version of Augusta National could reasonably con- tend for “best” before 1980, the year the greens were converted to bent- grass. This change, with the use of improved strains of rye overseed in the fairways, moved the course into 1980-’90s THE GREENS GET
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 67
MARCH/APRIL 2024
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting