"AT AUGUSTA IT IS STRATEGY,
STRATEGY, STRATEGY."
ing distances of the top eight finishers from each of the past four Masters are 304.8, 308.5, 300.2 and 304.4 yards, respectively. Also, the last six winners have all been double digits under par, the longest streak in Masters history. The ‘Greatest’ Augusta National Where does that leave the discussion of which Augusta National belongs in the Hall of Fame? The club’s maintenance prowess and ability to control the playing surfaces would bolster an argument that the course has never been better. Conversely, the pure length has put the green jacket out of reach for perhaps half the field, making it improbable that crafty feel players like past champions Ben Crenshaw, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal or Gary Player could contend. The narrowing of numerous fairways has eliminated an important degree of decision-making that was always critical to scoring well. Crenshaw summed it best in 1986, comparing Augusta’s cerebral calculations to more penal courses like TPC Sawgrass. “At Augusta, it is strategy, strategy, strategy,” he said. “Augusta’s strength is around the greens and the ability to place tee shots according to the pin locations.” Now, on too many holes, the prevailing criteria is to just get the ball in the fairway, exactly Crenshaw’s critique of the TPC. If not the 2000s, 2010s or now, then when? Any decade like the 1950s that drew out the best from champions like Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Cary Middlecoff and Jackie Burke Jr deserves consideration. From 1960 to 1966, no player won the Mas- ters who wasn’t Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player. The Augusta National of this period demanded an array of shots through the bag, risk- taking and nerve, but inconsistent conditions and the hard Bermuda greens of the era would preclude se- lection of any iteration of the course before the 1981 tournament. The 1980s were a fascinating de-
cade, a Golden Age of European talent that saw a variety of skillsets capable of navigating Augusta and its sleeker greens, including Ballesteros, Bern- hard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo and, in 1991, Ian Woosnam, along with Watson, Crenshaw, Craig Stadler, Nicklaus and Larry Mize. Turf condi- tions, however, had not consistently reached the utopian levels they would in the next decade and beyond – there was still ample room for improvement. That places the debate in the mid- to-late 1990s, after the club had begun installing the SubAir systems (1994) and approaching maintenance nirvana, but before the addition of the “second cut” of rough that looked awkward and deviated from Augusta’s heritage. Our choice for Augusta National’s most ideal version is the course of 1995 to 1998. Before the severe lengthening, any type of player might still contend. Surrounding Tiger Woods’ record-setting 18-under-par victory in 1997 were wins by 43-year- old Crenshaw (1995), a 38-year-old Faldo (1996) and 41-year-old O’Meara (1998). Though driving distances were increasing, the architecture remained an apt foil for the spinny, wound golf balls and smaller metal-head drivers of the time, and players still needed to play long irons and woods into the par 5s (and even some par 4s), illustrated by Faldo’s minutes-long deliberation between his 5-wood and 2-iron for the second shot at 13 after he had tracked down Greg Norman in 1996. Some say that MacKenzie, who died in 1934, wouldn’t recognise Augusta National if he saw it today. He probably wouldn’t with the altered holes, razored bunker edges, imported groves of pine, Perry Maxwell’s greens and the immaculate turf. But if he were transported to 1998, it’s likely he would appreciate the course for rewarding a spectrum of physical and tactical skills, a course that required bravery, guile and experience as much as power. That, at least, was the Augusta National he believed he and Jones had designed.
HOLE 10 / 1990s It all came together from 1995-’98: wide fairways, controlled conditions and length proportional to equipment.
2020s POWER REIGNS SUPREME 7 475-7 545 yards Average winning score: 275 (-13) Lowest winning score: 268 (Dustin Johnson, 2020) We’ve just entered this era, so we’ll keep our assessment brief. Augusta National can direct round-to-round scoring to some degree through hole locations and green firmness, but the club has continued to add yardage. It’s now unlikely anyone but the longest hitters can compete over four rounds. In the 2023 Masters, 31 of 86 partici- pants averaged 300 yards or more off the tee (including those missing the cut), and more than half averaged 295 yards or more. The average driv-
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 71
MARCH/APRIL 2024
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