1947-1974 As the club resumed normal opera- tions after the war, it hired Robert Trent Jones to modernise the course. Jones was known for building rugged, clover- leaf-shaped bunkers, but those he con- structed or renovated at holes like No 1, 16 and 18 bore a more open-faced, utili- tarian look common in the post-war era for their relative ease of maintenance. Architect George Cobb became the club’s consulting architect in the 1950s and continued the pattern of enlarg- ing, simplifying and shifting bunkers. Those behind the 13th green, for in- stance, became rounded and moved higher up the back hillside. He also filled in MacKenzie’s large, intricately shaped fairway bunker on the 14th hole and shifted another centreline cross- hazard on the par-5 eighth to the right side of the fairway. Later, in the 1960s, Cobb relocated the central bunker on the par-5 second hole to a position further down the fairway towards the outside corner of the dogleg. During this era the bunker shapes settled into the formats we recognise today, though they retained a rough- around-the-edges appearance due to the use of riding mowers that stopped short of clipping the bunker perim- eters. They were still, however, quite shallow due to drainage concerns and the type of coarse sand in use. By the late 1960s, mechanical hand-edgers became popular throughout the indus- try, and Augusta National was able to create defined lips around the bunkers. The side effect of using spinning metal blades to edge the bunkers was that slivers of earth were sometimes scalped away with each pass, and slowly the size of the bunkers grew as the lips in- crementally widened. 1975-1981 One of the most impactful changes to the bunkers occurred before the 1975 Masters. For decades the sand had been off-white with coarse, rounded particles (probably locally sourced), and players frequently had to play explosion shots when balls cratered. Roberts noticed the sand at his home
work was required to push the sand back up the slopes when rain washed it out, the high, white oval faces nudging into the greens became entrenched as a defining aesthetic. 1982-1993 When Augusta National hired Billy Fuller to be the superintendent fol- lowing the 1981 Masters, the club was not the turf and conditioning super- power it has become. The maintenance facilities and commitment to agro- nomic science was not much different than other clubs, but the ’80s marked a renaissance period of turf and conditioning, starting with Augusta National’s conversion of its greens from Bermuda grass overseeded with rye to firmer, faster bentgrass. After a misstart in 1981 Fuller was hired for the 1982 Masters, and several years later installed the first prototype hydron- ics system that could help control soil temperatures under the troublesome 12th green. Drainage continued to be the bane
LOW-RES The bunkers were maintained like most other golf courses during the ‘50s and ‘60s.
club in western North Carolina was dif- ferent and discovered they were sourc- ing it from a nearby quarry. Roberts had the new, pearl-white sand trucked into Augusta National and installed in its bunkers prior to the 1975 tournament. Called North Carolina Spruce Pine sand, it was made of quartz (igneous rather than from sedimentary rock) and had a finer, more angular structure. Not only was it a firmer and more con- sistent surface to play from (meaning better shot control), but the shape of the particles made it able to stand up verti- cally against the faces of the bunkers that had been getting gradually steeper and more upswept. Though significant
DRAINAGE, DRAINAGE Notice the standing water in the bunker on the 16th, even in the 1960s.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 67
MARCH/APRIL 2025
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