Masters Weekend
Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, GA
#12
The Making Of The Masters, David Owen
TennesseanTravel.com, 3/10
Golf Digest, 5/10 & 4/06
GolfChannel.com, 4/11
Augusta National, Fat Guy Review: Yeah, right.
I've certainly never played it and haven't been lucky enough to attend the tournament, but I have read a fair amount about Augusta and the Masters.
1933, Bobby Jones & Alister Mackenzie
Masters 6925 72
Member 6240 72
*Augusta doesn't use the USGA handicap system. A simple system based on a player's average number of pars, with adjustments for birdies, allows for daily modification. Index adjustments are determined solely by yardage. Apparently this so tweaked the numbers gurus at Golf Digest, that they've twice hired the guy who developed the rating and slope system for the USGA to do an estimate of both during the Masters, first in 1991 and again in 2010. The verdict: Rating 78.1, Slope 137
First, a little history. OK, a lot of history.
David Owen's outstanding book The Making Of The Masters ('03 USGA Book Of The Year) details a surprisingly shaky early history of a club that barely got started during the Depression despite being Bobby Jones' brainchild, then had WWII to deal with just as it got going (imagine war sheep grazing Augusta's unmowed hallowed fairways!). Details provided by previously-ungranted access to Augusta's archives give it a factual slant, and highlight co-founder Cliff Roberts' tireless perfectionism in shaping the club and the Masters tournament.
Owen reveals Mackenzie as the main designer of the masterful routing over the rolling hills of the former Fruitland Nurseries, with consults from Jones, Roberts, and an impressive young society woman amateur named Marion Hollins, who was also largely responsible for Mackenzie's "discovery" in America, by earmarking him to design Pasatiempo and then Cypress Point, two courses which led Jones to tap Mackenzie to design Augusta, after Jones played rounds on both following an early defeat in the 1929 US Open at Pebble Beach.
Eight horses and two tractors got stuck in Rae's Creek building the famed par-3 12th, but only after the course engineer double-checked with MacKenzie on the tiny dimensions of a green he thought too small to be anything but a mistake. MacKenzie's original routing had the nines in reverse order from today's configuration, and was the one used at the first Masters tournament. Then the nines were flip-flopped due to the low-lying areas near #12 being the last on the course to burn off the morning frost. "Amen Corner" was so monikered by golf writer Herbert Warren Wind in a 1958 Masters article in Sports Illustrated, taken from a jazz recording called Shouting at Amen Corner by Chicago clarinetist Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow.
Augusta takes course suggestions from members, pros, guests, and tournament patrons seriously. Roberts usually referred to it as a "work in progress." Jones always said it is "truly of national design." The club's worst golfer received a bill after his suggestion to have a stream filled in on the 1st was completed. First Masters Champ Horton Smith suggested moving the 7th green back and to the right to it's present-day location. Jones' father Col. Jones' blue-streak cursing got a pot bunker removed from the 11th fairway. Gene Sarazen suggested a new fairway bunker on the 2nd. Ben Hogan suggested the right greenside bunker on 15. Byron Nelson supervised replacement of the original mounds on the 8th which had been previously leveled. The 18th was slowly "amphitheatered" over the years by Roberts as one of many changes dictated by trying to improve sight lines for patrons at the Masters. However, President Dwight D. Eisenhower never got far with his suggestion to cut down the famed tree on 17.
Many famous designers have executed changes on the course, including Jack Nicklaus, Perry Maxwell (Southern Hills)--who redesigned the 7th & 10th holes and added his trademark "Maxwell rolls" to the 1st & 14th greens--and Robert Trent Jones carried out Bobby Jones' suggestions of adding a pond and moving the green to the right on 16. In 2001, Tom Fazio was brought in to lengthen #s 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 & 18 by moving the tee boxes back, and to deepen and reshape fairway bunkers on holes 1, 8 & 18 to bring them back into play for today's long hitters (read: Tiger). Here's a cool Golf Digest app that overlays pics of the various Augusta hole changes through the years.
The youngest major (1934) has long been the most hospitable, best-run sporting event in the world, a fact originally necessitated to draw patrons and pros in the tough times of the '30's & '40's to a small new club in an out-of-the-way city at a then-inconvenient time of year for the pro curcuit. The Masters pioneered modern tournament staples such as the invitational, on-course lavatories, bleachers, video monitors, scoreboards (later revised to 'ballpark-style' to increase visibility), over/under par scoring, the 4-day format, roped gallery areas, daily pairing sheets, and green vending cups and food wrappers (which don't show up as well on camera when they blow away). Also, Roberts' obsessive perfectionism and yearly broadcast critiques led CBS to write the book on how TV covers golf to this day.
From www.masters.org:
Upon his retirement from championship golf in 1930, Bobby Jones had hoped to realize his dream of building a golf course. Following a brief conversation with Clifford Roberts, with whom Jones had met several times during the mid-1920’s, it was decided the club would be built near Augusta, Georgia, provided a suitable piece of ground was available. According to Jones’ plans, the course would utilize the natural advantages of the property and use mounds rather than too many bunkers. It was hoped the property would have a natural creek to use as a water hazard. Jones wanted this concept of golf course architecture to make a contribution to the game as well as give expression to his ideas about golf course design. This club would be open during the winter season only.
A mutual friend of Jones and Roberts, Thomas Barrett, Jr., was consulted and recommended a 365-acre property called Fruitland Nurseries. Once an indigo plantation, it was purchased in 1857 by Belgian Baron Louis Mathieu Edouard Berckmans who was a horticulturist by hobby. Berckmans’ son, Prosper Julius Alphonse, was an agronomist and horticulturist by profession and the two formed a partnership in 1858. Operating under the name Fruitland Nurseries, the company imported many trees and plants from various countries. The Baron died in 1883. Prosper’s death followed in 1910 and the nursery ceased operations by the time its charter expired in 1918. A great variety of flowering plants and trees, including a long row of magnolias which were planted before the Civil War and a plant Prosper popularized called the azalea, remained on the property.
Upon seeing the property from what is now the practice putting green, Jones said, "Perfect! And to think this ground has been lying here all these years waiting for someone to come along and lay a golf course on it."
An option was taken on the property for $70,000. It was decided to establish a national membership for the club, and Jones proposed Augusta National would be an appropriate name. Jones also decided in the planning stage that he wanted Dr. Alister Mackenzie of Scotland to serve as the course architect since the pair held similar views. Before coming to Augusta, Mackenzie had designed two courses in California, Pasatiempo and Cypress Point. Mackenzie died in January 1934, after the construction work had been finished but before the first Tournament.
Construction on the new course began in the first half of 1931 and the course opened in December 1932 with a limited amount of member play. Formal opening took place in January 1933.
Looking to provide a service to golf by hosting a tournament, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts decided to hold an annual event beginning in 1934. The final decision was made at a meeting in New York at the office of member W. Alton Jones. Roberts proposed the event be called the Masters Tournament, but Bobby Jones objected thinking it too presumptuous. The name Augusta National Invitation Tournament was adopted and the title was used for five years until 1939 when Jones relented and the name was officially changed. An early decision was whether Jones would play or serve as an official. Jones preferred not to compete but was persuaded by the Club's members to join the field. In the 12 Tournaments that Jones played, his best finish was 13th in 1934.
Many decisions made in the early days of the Tournament remain today. Among these are the four-day stroke playing of 18 holes each day instead of the then customary 36 holes on the third day, eliminating qualifying rounds, and denying permission for anyone except the player and caddie to be in the playing area. A complimentary pairing sheet and a spectator booklet were provided, and commercialization in any form of the Tournament was limited.
The first Tournament was held March 22, 1934, and beginning in 1940, the Masters was scheduled each year during the first full week in April. That first Tournament was won by Horton Smith, and in the Fall of 1934 the nines were reversed. In 1935 Gene Sarazen hit "the shot heard 'round the world" scoring a double eagle on the par 5 15th hole, tying Craig Wood and forcing a playoff. Sarazen won the 36-hole playoff the following day by five strokes. In 1942 Byron Nelson defeated Ben Hogan 69-70 in an 18-hole playoff and the Tournament was not played the following three years, 1943, 1944 and 1945, during the war. To assist the war effort, cattle and turkeys were raised on the Augusta National grounds.
The 1950's included two victories by Ben Hogan, and the first of four for Arnold Palmer. Palmer's 1958 win began the tradition of Amen Corner. In 1960 the Par 3 Contest was begun, and in 1965-1966 Jack Nicklaus became the first Masters champion to defend his title successfully. During the decade of the 1970's the two founders of the Masters Tournament passed away. Both Jones and Roberts left indelible impressions on the Masters and on the world of golf. The following decade Spaniard Seve Ballesteros won twice and Tom Watson captured his second title. In 1986 at age 46, Nicklaus donned his sixth Green Jacket. And in 1997, Tiger Woods broke the Tournament four-day scoring record that had stood for 32 years. At the 2001 Masters, Woods won his fourth consecutive professional major, and in 2002 became only the third player to win consecutive Masters titles. In 2005 he became the third person to win at least four tournaments.
The Surprising Neighborhood: Golf Digest, Joe Queenan, 4/06
"Augusta National is poised cheek by jowl with Washington Road, a belligerently unappealing strip of macadam that bears a suspicious resemblance to the Highway to Hell. Here is the Venus & Adonis Hair Stylists. Here is Body So Bronze. Here are an assortment of preposterously hideous neoclassical statues that give preposterous hideousness a bad name. And yes, administering the coup de grease, here are Jeff's Lube and Tire Kingdom. Clean-plate types on the prowl for Red Lobster, the Olive Garden, Arby's or any of the other feed troughs that blight our national landscape certainly won't be disappointed here. For as far as the eye can see, fast-feederies, stuff-your-faceries, and pork-out-eries festoon the thoroughfare, flanked by muffler joints, mattress outlets, bomb-basted cineplexes, deep-discounters and all the other macabre detritus of suburban America. The net effect is to make the neighborhood look not so much like a place where the local zoning board was bought off as where the local zoning board was assassinated and replaced by an architectural-review committee handpicked by Taco Bell."
It's time to play in Augusta
Famous fairways, eclectic food and Venice-like canal make city a destination
By Mary Ann Anderson • MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE • March 21, 2010
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Georgia will be on everyone's mind come April when it's time for the 2010 Masters Tournament in Augusta. The big question for visitors is where to eat, sleep, and play once they get to this gracious Old South city on the Georgia-South Carolina border.
Even if you aren't headed down for the Masters, a little about Augusta's history is in order. Established in 1736 by General James Edward Oglethorpe, it is the second-oldest city in Georgia after Savannah. In the late 1800s the city was the winter playground of Northerners because the rail line ended in this land of sunshiny days and moonlit nights, Augusta was important enough in its early days to twice be named capital of Georgia.
Known as the "Garden City of the South", because of the number of gardens, Augusta is home to the world-renowned Medical College of Georgia, the oldest medical school in Georgia. And no surprise here in the Bible Belt — the Southern Baptist Convention was started in Augusta. The population, including that of North Augusta, S.C., runs about 200,000.
Golf marvel Bobby Jones — he remains the only golfer in history to win the "Grand Slam of Golf" in one year — and his friend, investment banker Clifford Roberts, founded Augusta National, home of the Masters in 1931, with the first games held in 1934 as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament. The name changed to the Masters in 1939.
If you want to play golf at Augusta National, you must be a member or a friend of a member. If you don't have the big bucks or the pedigree to get through those storied gates but still want the bragging rights to say, "Oh, I've played Augusta," then try one of dozens of public and semi-private courses scattered around the area, including Augusta Golf Course, Forest Hills Golf Club, First Tee Augusta, Goshen Plantation Country Club and Augusta Municipal Golf Course.
Where to sleep
Just about every major lodging chain for every budget is represented in Augusta and plenty of locals skip town and rent out their homes during the tournament. But for the quintessential Augusta experience, no place is quite like the historic Partridge Inn. Wrapped with long verandahs, quiet porches and venerable magnolias, the elegantly appointed inn is also home to the P.I. Bar & Grill, named Augusta's "Best Sunday Brunch," and featuring contemporary Southern cuisine with outside dining overlooking shady, quiet streets. A beloved landmark for more than 100 years, the Partridge Inn's past guest list includes celebrities and golf elites like Bob Dylan, Crystal Gayle, Reba McIntyre, Curtis Strange, Paul Azinger, Gary Player, Dennis Quaid and even Augusta's favorite son, the man himself, James Brown.
Where to eat
Augusta has really come into its own from a culinary standpoint with a host of chef/owner-operated independent restaurants — as opposed to the many chains and franchises — that are referred to the "Culinary Masters of Augusta." Among them are:
• Bee's Knees Tapas Restaurant and Lounge. The name is taken from 1920s jazz-influenced slang referring the hip and cool. International dining including Thai, Spanish, Cajun, Mediterranean, Japanese and French.
• Blue Sky Kitchen. From fried catfish to Jamaican jerk chicken, Blue Sky offers an eclectic mix of Southern and international menu items.
• La Maison on Telfair. Offers superb fine dining in a Victorian home.
• The Boll Weevil Cafe. Famous for its desserts and five-layer cakes, the restaurant is located in an old cotton warehouse.
• Bistro 491. It's all about the freshness and quality of ingredients here, plus they offer weekly food and wine pairings.
• Sconyers Bar-B-Que. Former President Jimmy Carter once had some of Sconyers' famous pork flown to Washington, D.C. Yeah, it's that good.
Where to play
If you don't do another thing while you're in Augusta, you have to see the Riverwalk and Augusta Canal, Georgia's homespun version of Venice. The canal, a National Heritage Area, is a blend of history, recreation, and unique experiences situated along almost nine miles of towpaths and waterways on the Savannah River. Built in 1845, it is the nation's only intact industrial canal that is still in use for its original purpose of harnessing water and power from the river.
The canal was the site of the Confederate Powder Works and 19th century textile mills. During Reconstruction, it was deepened and widened to meet the ever-changing needs of industry, especially textile manufacturing. The canal's interpretive center takes you from the canal's inception to today through a series of interactive exhibits.
While the canal is essentially man-made, efforts were made to return many areas along its banks to a more natural state that is now part of a beautiful and unique aquatic ecosystem that includes egrets, herons, otters and other wildlife. Explore the canal and the city's history by hiking, bicycling, canoeing or kayaking its myriad trails or even enjoying a guided tour aboard a Petersburg replica canal cargo boat on a Moonlight Madness, Saturday Sunset or Canal Heritage cruise.
Next, visit The James Brown exhibit at the Augusta Museum of History. It's a whole lot of "I feel good" fun with music, memorabilia, family photos and interactive components. Kids can even take a dance lesson from the Godfather of Soul.
Augusta serves up quite a menu of other museums with the Morris Museum of Art, Boyhood Home of President Woodrow Wilson, Lucy Croft Laney Museum of Black History, Augusta Cotton Exchange and the Laurel & Hardy Museum in Harlem, on the outskirts of the city. If your tastes run more to outdoors and science, there are the National Science Center's Fort Discovery and Phinizy Swamp Nature Park of the Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy.
When Augusta really began revitalization of its historic district and Broad Street in the 1990s, Artists' Row became a pet project. Now a favorite destination of visitors with its myriad art galleries, working studios, specialty shops, restaurants and coffeehouses, it's the place to find locally and internationally inspired pottery, sculpture, paintings and specialty gifts. There's a monthly arts event held on the first Friday of every month called, appropriately, First Friday.
A high-flying way to see Augusta is by soaring into the wild blue yonder in light aircraft with Augusta Aviation's sunset tours. You'll get a "birdie's-eye" of the city, including Augusta National with its long legendary fairways. The half-hour flights come complete with a picnic basket filled with wine, cheese and fruit, and as the sun drops into the horizon in a blaze of Georgia gold, it's the perfect way to end a visit to Augusta.
Getting On At Augusta
Okay, maybe not that Augusta, but very close to it.
From March 1999 By Mark Sullivan, Travel & Leisure
Augusta during Masters week brings you into contact with everything that is wonderful and awful about golf's best major. Every place is overcrowded, every item and service is overpriced, every time you want to do something there are two fat guys in loud golf shirts ahead of you in line--and there is no better place to be in all the world. Especially so if you can figure out how to get in some great golf at the same time. And, despite what you may have heard, you can. With a little luck and a few phone calls, you can be treated like family by the members of one of the oldest clubs in the country, one of Ben Hogan's favorites. Or you can play golf at the course favored by Augusta's caddies and staff. With a little time and gasoline, you can find world-class courses that, even during Masters week, will give you a tee time and memories for a lifetime. They may not be Augusta, but for satiating the golf lust that watching a Masters invariably induces, they will do very nicely.
Palmetto Golf Club
Founded in 1892, Palmetto is one of America's oldest clubs. Many of its members were among the founders of Augusta National, which is one of the reasons why that club was built in Augusta rather than in Atlanta, where Bobby Jones wanted it. The course was originally designed by Herbert Leeds and then redesigned by Alister Mackenzie in 1933, after some of the members saw what he did down the road. Palmetto is only about eighteen miles from Augusta, in Aiken, South Carolina, a quaint former resort town once home to Fred Astaire, who played Palmetto frequently but never became a member. He didn't need to. This is that all-too-rare American private club that treats nonmembers kindly, even during Masters week. To get a tee time, all you usually have to do is call the pro shop. Palmetto's 6,380-yard par-seventy-one layout features many of the design elements Mackenzie used at Augusta. Most of the greens are surrounded by mounds that can make a short approach shot bounce wildly left or right. The greens have the same false fronts as Augusta's, which play on your perception of distance. The courses' similarities have not been lost on tour pros. Hogan used Palmetto to tune up for the Masters and said that three, four and five were the three toughest consecutive par fours he ever played. These are just the sort of holes you'd expect Hogan to admire: no water, no gimmicks, just good, solid holes that require sound thinking and well-executed shots. Ben Crenshaw practiced at Palmetto before his 1995 Masters win, and word is that Tom Watson had his tee times blocked out for this year's pre-Masters rounds some time ago. Like many other wonderful courses, Palmetto is not impeccably groomed. But the golf is great, and so is the company. If you're a good guest, you may be invited to one of the pre-Masters parties held by the members, some of whom have been known to throw ten dollars into a pot and pick the player they believe will win the tournament. (Last year, Mark O'Meara was picked fortieth out of a field of ninety-eight and paid $520.)
The Club at Jones Creek
The main advantage to playing Jones Creek during Masters week is that you can play a full eighteen and still spend half the day at the tournament. The layout is just a ten-minute drive from Augusta National. A semiprivate course that runs through an upscale housing development, it's a decent public track (par seventy-two, 7,000 yards) that you'd be happy to pay $50 to play anytime. But during Masters week, the greens fee is $150. The design runs through hills; you often find yourself hitting down into a fairway from an elevated tee and playing up to an elevated green, so the course plays longer than the yardage on the card would suggest. Its namesake creek comes into play on ten holes. At 546 yards, the second is a good, short par five. You hit your tee shot into a large landing area and then must play your second shot over a skinny creek into a narrow green with water along the right side. On number seventeen, a strong par five of 557 yards, the creek runs along the length of the hole on the right, then sneaks back in front of the green to form a blind hazard for the approach shot. In other words Jones Creek has its moments, but the price to play it is justified by its proximity to the Masters, not by the course itself.
Forest Hills Golf Club
A Donald Ross course that was built in 1926 and went public about twenty years ago, Forest Hills (par seventy-two, 6,875 yards) is the preferred track of the caddies and staffers of Augusta National. Located right in Augusta, only about five miles from Augusta National, it's a straightforward layout with tree-lined, rolling fairways, on which keeping the ball in play is fairly easy. The signature hole is the 420-yard twelfth, which requires a long iron or fairway wood off the tee to avoid a pond that bisects the fairway about 230 yards out. The green is slightly elevated and rather long, allowing for a variety of pin positions that can greatly affect club selection. Perhaps the best thing about Forest Hills is that it's the one course in town where you can walk on during Masters week, particularly as a single in the afternoon. The greens fee is $100 ($70 for golf, $30 for a cart).
Reynolds Plantation
If you're seeking a traditional high-end resort experience during Masters week, that can be found by driving south from Augusta about seventy-five miles to Lake Oconee (pronounced uh-KO-nee). This area has become a hot spot for golf real estate development over the past ten years, and there are four major communities here with some very good golf courses. Three are private clubs, but during Masters week they open their doors to the general public.
With separate Jack Nicklaus, Bob Cupp and Tom Fazio courses, Reynolds Plantation is the largest of these lakeside communities, and Fazio's National, which opened in 1997, is alone worth the trip. The National was cut through land that was once used as a timber farm, so it looks and feels like a much more mature course than it is. It's not long-- 7,015 from the tips, 6,536 from the blues and only 6,050 from the members' tees. But Fazio makes up for that with tough greens, eighty-three bunkers and water on ten of the eighteen holes. The back nine is the most scenic and the toughest part of the course, with two standout par threes, including number sixteen, which plays two hundred yards downhill from the blue tees. The green sits at the base of a hillside, which means if you're long you'll have to play downhill again into a green that slopes from back left to front right. This long par three begins a great string of finishing holes. Seventeen is a par-four four-hundred-yard hole that has a creek down the left side. Just in front of the green, the creek feeds into a pool that extends up to the edge of the putting surface. Shots into the green must carry the water and several large boulders molded into the banks. The eighteenth plays long and straight off the tee, then bends to the right into a green with water right and a bail-out area short left (which is not a bad place to be when the pin is short right).
The Harbor Club & Cuscowilla
These two courses, within a few miles of each other and close by Reynolds Plantation, are both worth playing. The Harbor Club (par seventy-two, 7,014 yards) is a Tom Weiskopf-Jay Morrish design that has hosted the state's four-ball championship. The club's eighth hole, a 180-yard par three, is the architects' version of Augusta's number twelve. The green is almost identical, and if you ever want to imagine yourself charging into Amen Corner on Sunday afternoon, this is the place. The Harbor Club also has great greens and cuts them down this week to show them off. (Most other courses here let their greens grow in to accommodate this week's heavy traffic.) Cuscowilla, a par-seventy 6,847-yard layout, is a Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design that opened in the fall of 1997 but has not received the attention it deserves. It has a very natural appearance, with shaggy rough, sod-faced bunkers and crowned greens. Coore and Crenshaw designed the course with the notion that players would walk rather than ride. All the Lake Oconee courses offer a very civilized golf experience, which during or after a few crazy days in Augusta is probably just what you'll need.
For a tee time, call . . .
Palmetto Golf Club, 803-649-2951
The Club At Jones Creek, 706-860-4228
Forest Hills Golf Club, 706-733-0001
Reynolds Plantation, 706-467-3151
The Harbor Club, 706-453-4414
The Golf Club At Cuscowilla, 706-484-0050
Fat Guy Note: For those of you who, like me, aren't afraid of committing the occasional misdemeanor in the name of working down your golf bucket list, and have had semi-serious thoughts about making a pilgrammage to Augusta to scale the fence in the dark of night to play Amen Corner, think again. Augusta actually employs armed Pinkerton guards who patrol the course every night. Hey, they paid upwards of $45 million to buy up the houses around the club for free parking for the tournament. You didn't think they could afford to pay some trigger happy cop-wanna-be minimum wage to carry a gun around the grounds every night?
'Old' Soul
From wide fairways to run-up shots, Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie had St. Andrews very much on their minds when they designed the home of the Masters
Overseas Influence: The Old Course's (right, by Iain Lowe) strategic genius inspired Jones and Mackenzie when they built Augusta National.
By Geoff Shackelford
Photos by Stephen Szurlej
Golf Digest, April 5, 2010
The offspring? A hilly, tree-lined, florally abundant agronomic wonderland. The parent? A rumpled, treeless slice of links long abandoned by the sea. Other than playing to pars of 72 and hosting major championships in 2010, it seems unfathomable that Augusta National GC and the Old Course at St. Andrews could be related. Embedded deep within Augusta National's soil, however, rest architectural nucleotides that, upon DNA testing, reveal a golf course almost entirely sired by its Scottish forebear.
Given Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie's deep ties to St. Andrews, it comes as little surprise that the Old Course was on their minds during Augusta National's 1931 design phase and 1932 construction. But the extent to which St. Andrews influenced the genetic code of several key holes has been understood by a select few.
"They created so many shots that remind one of how you think and play your way around St. Andrews," says two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw. "They really were 'extravagant admirers' of the Old Course."
Jones and Mackenzie are believed to have met during the 1927 British Open at St. Andrews when Jones, then 25, was in his playing prime while Mackenzie was a 56-year-old doctor-turned-golf architect who had surveyed the Old Course just three years prior. Mackenzie supplemented his now legendary Old Course map -- which still adorns many pro shop and locker-room walls -- with an R&A championship hole-location plan that likely influenced the '27 Open. (Jones won that event by six strokes.)
Though Jones was six years removed from his infamous tantrum and withdrawal at the 1921 Open and had been part of a winning U.S. Walker Cup team there in 1926, his relationship with St. Andrews blossomed at that 1927 Open. His lone British Amateur came three years later on the Old Course during the Grand Slam year and 28 years later he received the Freedom of the City, only the second American to be so honored after Benjamin Franklin.
When Jones' post-retirement plans to build a golf course began in earnest after he was ousted in the first round of the 1929 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach, it allowed for time to savor Mackenzie's Cypress Point design and to inaugurate the doctor's new Pasatiempo course in Santa Cruz. When Jones returned to California in early 1931 to film the "How I Play Golf" series, much of his recreational golf was played at North Hollywood's Lakeside GC, a Max Behr design enthusiastically inspired by links golf and in particular, the Old Course.
Both Mackenzie and Jones were great admirers of Lakeside and in particular Behr, a complicated figure who gained prominence as an elite amateur golfer, reaching the 1908 U.S. Amateur final. Later he worked as Golf Illustrated's editor until 1918, before moving to California where he became known for his design work and profound written pleas for the spread of St. Andrews-inspired golf emphasizing the use of natural or "seemingly natural" ground features.
"To Bobby Jones golf is a diversion, a pleasant way of spending his time," Behr once wrote. "Thus, with an open mind, he brought and applied to St. Andrews the greatest golfing skill in the world today. And the reaction of his skill against the character of the Old Course precipitated an opinion that might well revolutionize the prevailing ideas as to what a golf course should be."
Because as Behr noted, "Golf at St. Andrews is all strategy. The taint of penalty is absent. The steamroller of logical thought has not been allowed to destroy it. St. Andrews violates every conception of what we think a golf course should be."
Behr was speaking to an American audience that had little concept of strategic design and the ground game. Jones and Mackenzie appeared determined to change that with Augusta National.
"An underlying thread for [Jones and Mackenzie] was the use of ground features and how to incorporate them into play," Crenshaw says. "Even though it's hard to pull those off on heavy clay soil like you find [at Augusta], they did it."
With little doubt about their purpose, Jones and Mackenzie met on site for three days in July 1931 to route and plan Augusta National over the Berckmans' nursery site. Jones later described their simple goal: reward "the good shot by making the second shot simpler in proportion to the excellence of the first."
The reward could be one of four possibilities: a better view of the green; an easier angle of attack around a slope; an open approach past guarding hazards; or "a better run" to the tee shot itself.
"A course which is constructed with these principles in view must be interesting, because it will offer problems which a man may attempt, according to his ability," Jones wrote. "It will never become hopeless for the duffer, nor fail to concern and interest the expert. And it will be found, like old St. Andrews, to become more delightful the more it is studied and played."
This meant a design with wide playing corridors, subtle ground features and a limited number of well-placed bunkers (less than 30), which also had the intended effect of setting a positive example for a sport facing economic uncertainty. But more than the desire to cut down on bunker maintenance, Jones and Mackenzie sought to import the intricacies that made St. Andrews such a delightful day-to-day adventure.
"They wanted to show that there are different hazards in golf other than bunkers and water to extract penalties," Crenshaw says. "The concept is so very simple. You play over here to get there. But it's got to be accommodated for and presented that way with width."
Six holes of Jones and Mackenzie's original design featured unmistakable Old Course bloodlines -- the third, fourth, fifth, seventh, 14th and 17th, as currently numbered -- while several others included St. Andrews-inspired strategic touches. Initially, the duo wasn't shy in letting it be known where the seeds for their Augusta design were sewn. Starting in December 1931, when final preliminary design details were wrapping up, Jones' pal O.B. Keeler penned an American Golfer column under the subtitle, "There'll be a notable trace of Old St. Andrews in the new club at Augusta."
However, both Jones and Mackenzie made clear they were not building replica holes, even though they repeatedly invoked specific Old Course landmarks in describing their Georgian creation. Mackenzie clarified their thinking by suggesting they had a "mental picture" of the world's great holes to reproduce their finest features.
"At Augusta we tried to produce eighteen ideal holes, not copies of classical holes, by embodying their best features suggested by the nature of the terrain."
In his 1960 Golf Is My Game, Jones explained that tribute holes were not their intent. .
"This was, at best, a bit naïve, because to do such a thing, we would have had literally to alter the face of the earth. It was to be expected, of course, that the new layout would be strongly influenced by holes which either Mackenzie or I had admired, but it was only possible that we should have certain features of these holes in mind and attempt to adapt them to the terrain with which we were working."
Yet for all of the attempts to defend the originality of their design, Augusta National's initial incarnation featured extensive use of mounding to obstruct views of poorly placed tee shots, while several undulating greens featured wave-like fronts novel to American design and only traceable to one other course on the planet. The first less-than-subtle Old Course tribute hole came on the 350-yard third. Keeler noted that it would be one of Augusta's two short par 4s and called it "a rather glorified replica" of St. Andrews' much-loved 12th hole.
"It will not be too easy a par 4," Jones told Keeler. "You remember that perilous little plateau green on the twelfth at St. Andrews? Well, this green will be quite similar; and you know it's not so simple, even after a big drive on the twelfth at St. Andrews to get the ball anywhere near the flag."
Immediately after that came two more not-so-distant Old Course relatives. Augusta's par-3 fourth paid direct homage to St. Andrews' 11th, the Eden, a.k.a. home to the Hill bunker where young Bobby threw his now legendary 1921 Open Championship tantrum.
"Our [fourth] will be much like the eleventh at St. Andrews," he told Keeler of the then 190-yard hole. "Remember the ample green with two big bunkers at the front and a tiny opening between, sloping up to a back with nothing but trouble beyond? Something like that."
Close Cousins: Featuring a small opening into its plateau green, the fourth at Augusta was a tribute to the Old Course's 11th (Iain Lowe).
Mackenzie was more forthright about the fourth hole's link to St. Andrews in his description for the inaugural Augusta National Invitation Tournament program.
"There have been scores of attempted copies of this famous hole but there is none that has the charm and thrills of the original. Most copies are failures because of the absence of the subtle and severe slopes which create the excitement of the original hole, and also because the turf is usually so soft that any kind of sloppy pitch will stop."
Jones told Keeler that none of his par 3s would require the use of a wood.
"My idea of the proper place for the display of talent with the brassie or the spoon primarily is on the second shot -- not from the tee."
The next St. Andrews homage came at the fifth, rounding out the front nine's three-hole stretch -- Auld Grey Toon Corner? -- where they sought to mimic key dynamics of the Road Hole, as Mackenzie wrote of their 440-yard two-shotter.
"A group of trees forms a corner of the dogleg instead of the Station Master's Garden and the green itself is situated on a similar plateau to its prototype."
Today's fifth features a rear greenside bunker Jones later added to stop balls from running down a hill, creating an impossible recovery, something that only happens at St. Andrews when a ball finishes directly against the boundary wall.
Long gone from the original design was their homage to the Old Course's Home hole, complete with Jones and Mackenzie's version of the Valley of Sin. It appeared on the original seventh at Augusta National, where a vast bunkerless putting surface sat slightly below today's Perry Maxwell green, one that Jones agreed to replace in 1938 at the suggestion of several players, including Horton Smith, who had already won the Masters twice.
Mackenzie pointed out that just as at St. Andrews, players had to attack the original 340-yard seventh hole from the proper angle "for par figures to be attained." Run-up approaches were almost required "as it will be exceedingly difficult to retain a pitch in the usual position of the flag."
Just like St. Andrews' finishing hole, the old seventh was drivable in certain conditions, most famously by Byron Nelson in his 1937 Masters opening-round 66. At the time the lowest score in tournament history, Nelson's round is believed to have featured 32 shots and 34 putts. He went on to a two-shot victory over Ralph Guldahl.
Shifting to the back nine, two more holes with strong Old Course bloodlines stand out. One remains similar to the original, while the other has been severely altered.
Mackenzie likened Augusta's 425-yard 14th to the Old Course's sixth hole, and more than any hole on the course today it carries a visible strand of St. Andrews chromosomes.
Originally, the uphill 14th featured a massive fairway bunker since filled in, but the tee shot placement requirements remain. The right side affords a clean view of the green, while the left side view is semiblind. Jones and Mackenzie highly recommended a run-up approach to best deal with the wave-like front ridge.
"There's no question that the 14th green reminds me of No. 6 at St. Andrews," Tom Watson says. "You have the up and over and it falls away from you quickly."
Perhaps the more surprising Old Course tribute came at Augusta's par-4 17th, where the original played 400 yards to a green complex inspired by one of St. Andrews' two par 5s.
"Remember the 14th at St. Andrews?" Jones asked Keeler. "The mound on the right, which you always have to figure on and play carefully to get in position for your approach? Not a great, big mound, but amazingly well placed by nature or whoever placed it. This hole on our course will have a similar mound similarly placed; it must be avoided on the second shot. And the green will be somewhat similar."
Mackenzie expected the combination of the massive mound and a severe drop-off to the rear of the green would make the old 17th "undoubtedly" one of "the most fiercely criticized holes," particularly since he said the goal was to "make the turf of such a character that an indifferent pitch will not stop on the green."
Jones despised the wet conditions of American golf and vowed to Keeler more than a year before Augusta's January 1933 opening that they intended to keep the course firm and fast.
"Hazards are set about a green to cause the player to produce a proper shot, depending on the various circumstances. The prettiest design may be nullified by keeping the green saturated. For the player who can get the ball into the air decently, the hazards might as well not be there."
Watson laments the absence of second shots played short of greens, citing Crenshaw's memorable 8-iron run up to the 14th green en route to his 1995 win and José Maria Olazábal's epic 5-iron into the 17th (1999) as favorite moments in Masters history.
"The run-up golf just hasn't been a part of Augusta in recent years," says Watson. "The players who win there now are always flying the ball to the green. They're not running the balls onto the greens anymore. Bobby Jones wanted players to run the ball onto the greens."
While the combination of course changes, equipment advances and softer approaches blurs the intended ties to St. Andrews, Watson has little doubt that the ability to play Old Course-style approach shots once existed as the architects intended.
"Byron Nelson told me that when he played he had to run the ball onto many of the greens," the two-time Masters winner said. "The fifth hole was long enough that you had to play a 3- or a 4-iron, and you ran the ball up the slope to try and keep the ball on the green there."
But it was at the 14th where Watson saw firsthand how it was done.
"Andy North and I were playing a practice round at Augusta one year, and I invited Byron to play the back nine. On 14 we hit our drives, and we get up there for the second shot, and Byron says, 'This is the way you used to have to do it.' And he took out a 3-iron, ran it up and hit it six inches from the pin. He landed it a good 20 to 30 yards short of the green, where it rolled, then took the break and ran right up to the hole. Andy and I looked at each other and said, 'He's the man.' "
Few recall that Nelson played an Open at the Old Course in 1955 (T-32). The idea to make the voyage came from his friend and legendary Francis Ouimet caddie Eddie Lowery. Upon arriving in St. Andrews, Lowery arranged for Nelson to receive a guided course tour from four-time Walker Cupper Leonard Crawley, who became the longtime golf correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and was considered one of the Old Course's great students.
On his first Georgia visit in 1947, Crawley immediately noticed the primary ancestral ties between Augusta National and St. Andrews old.
"They have not copied one single hole," he said. "They built 18 great holes, every one of which is perfectly fair and provides a problem. It seems to me that each one demands that a player shall firstly and foremostly use his brains."
See Also: Fat Guy's Augusta Wanna-Be Golf Trail