By Steve Wolfard
This week I attended a practice round at the Masters! It was my first trip to Augusta and it was a real eye-opener for me as both a spectator and a golf course architect.
Everybody told me that I wouldn't believe how hilly it was and they were right! To take it a step further, I think everything was bigger than I ever imagined. The hills, tees, massive bunkers and greens were truly amazing to finally see up close.
The size of the trees, the size of the property and the immensity of it all, is really surprising when you see if for the first time in person. The property moves up and down so much more than you can see on TV, and as beautiful as it looks on TV, it is even more beautiful in person. Perhaps therein lies the genius of the golf course; it is a great piece of land and the designers simply let the greatness of the golf course flow from that natural beauty.
It might surprise you that unlike almost every other private or public golf course in the United States, Augusta National has apparently never been rated. During the 1990 Masters Tournament, a team of USGA raters organized by Golf Digest evaluated the course and gave it an unofficial rating of 76.2 and a slope of 148, but members of the vaunted club don't acknowledge such a rating. The club's chairman has said, "We don't need a handicap system. Our members already know each other's games."
The non-existent rating tells us that the toughest green to hit is the fourth. It's a 240-yard par 3 that has a wide, shallow green guarded in front by a large bunker. The hole resembles the 11th on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Golf historians will remember Bobby Jones' catastrophe on the 11th, when he tore up his card and walked off the course during his first experience at St. Andrews. I guess he wanted everyone to enjoy the same experience he did.
Augusta National is certainly one of the best golf courses in the world, and at one point, it was considered among the two or three most innovative designs in all of golf. The scarcity of bunkers and its width of play were in stark contrast to the severe features found on the most revered U.S. courses. However, the many changes from several different architects – including adding bunkers, reducing the green contours, and adding trees and rough – have taken the course away from its inspiration of St Andrews in Scotland. Don't get me wrong, it is still great, but it is certainly not the same golf course Bobby Jones designed.
In the middle of all of this beauty and history is the immensity of the infrastructure involved in putting on a major golf tournament. From the entry and the ticketing to the concessions and merchandise, everything is enormous to the point of being almost unbelievable. I felt like I was entering an amusement park like Disneyland, or something.
Then there was the unbelievable drainage system and communications network buried throughout the course. I could see it everywhere. I imagine that there are so many things buried under Augusta National, if you stuck a shovel in the ground you would hit a wire or a pipe.
August National is overwhelming and made even more so by the Masters Tournament. I hope I can return again when the course is not overrun by ropes, concessions and people. I don't even need to play it; I'd be happy just walking around.
