I’ve been playing in the Masters since the early 1990s and a lot has changed in
that time. Augusta National Golf Club used to be the most fun of the major
venues. Now I think it is fair to say it’s probably the toughest all-round test
of golf in the world.
In some ways it’s become more of a U.S. Open-type
challenge, mentally at least. You often need to play the percentages. That’s not
negative, just realistic. You have to play away from some of the pins and try to
give yourself the easiest first putt to make par. If you’re going to attack, you
have to choose your moments and you had better execute properly. The club may
have lengthened the course, but one thing hasn’t changed: Nowhere else is there
such a fine line between making birdie or bogey—or even worse. The challenge
just never lets up.
I really like the changes to the course over the past
several years. But then again, being one of the longer hitters, I guess in
theory it’s supposed to play into my hands. I remember talking to Tiger a couple
of years back and we agreed that there’s a real chance the long hitters could
separate themselves from the field if they get their games together.
One
thing that has intrigued me is how some purists have a kind of “don’t touch”
attitude to Augusta and many of the other great courses. These updates are not
an unsightly stain on a masterpiece, but rather a successful restoration that
brings back some of the original shot values that the designers intended for
players. I support that philosophy.
You will sometimes see rough added, but
that often goes against the initial design. If there are steep-faced bunkers,
the ball should be allowed to run into the hazard, rather than being caught in
long rough around the bunker and having a nearly impossible shot.I prefer it
when great courses play firmer, like one of my old favorites, Royal Melbourne in
Australia. It plays hard and fast, with run-off areas around a lot of the greens
and hazards. The tight lies around the greens give you shot options: pitch
and run, lob, 3-wood bunt. You can use pin locations to dictate shot
selections. You don’t always need that thick rough, which just forces you
into playing just one shot.
I had some personal experience with this during
the modernization and refinement of Wentworth Golf Club’s famous West course,
located in the suburbs of London. Harry S. Colt did a great job, but that was in
the 1920s. By the turn of the 21st century the course wasn’t playing the way
Colt intended. We aimed to restore a lot of the original shot values, while
at the same time staying true to Colt’s intentions. Holes like Nos. 6, 12
and 15 really now play like they did back in the 1950s.
That’s the key
message here. Great architects like Colt, Donald Ross and Alister MacKenzie were
designing courses for decades. Their designs evolved during that period and they
even amended their own courses. For example, Ross lived at Pinehurst, North
Carolina, for years, tweaking the famed No. 2 course endlessly. Jack Nicklaus
has done the same at Muirfield Village Golf Club near his hometown of Columbus,
Ohio, constantly updating the course to stay in step with the modern game.
I
think the R&A has also done a great job maintaining shot values at major
championships. They use natural hazards rather than penal rough to test the
players, and I think it works well with the winning scores always around a
similar mark.
They made some great changes to the Old Course at St. Andrews.
In the late 1990s, we started bombing it over the Beardies bunkers down the left
side of the 14th fairway. A few years ago they moved the tee back 40 yards and
the bunkers are in play again now. Simple but effective.
This is major
championship golf. Nobody ever said it was supposed to be easy!
