For decades, one of the biggest allures of golf has been that it was a similar sport for all, regardless of skill level. Now, as the pros fly iron shots past average players’ best drivers and play 7,000-yard courses as if they were pitch and putts, that premise doesn’t seem quite so certain. “The average golfer can’t do to the golf ball what the pros can do,” says Jack Nicklaus. “It’s just not the same game.”

To determine just to what extent the game is diverging for the pros and amateurs, we asked players, architects and teachers how they thought the average amateur would play Augusta National and what he would shoot from the back tees in tournament conditions.

Their analysis shows there truly is a chasm between the pros and amateurs. The consensus is that the average player would shoot about 120, nearly 30 strokes higher than normal—not unexpected. The real surprise is that those extra strokes have less to do with Augusta’s added length than with the challenges instituted from the start by course designers Bobby Jones and Dr. Alister Mackenzie. In short, despite all the alterations, the core of what makes good golf hasn’t changed all that much since Augusta National opened in 1932.

The Long and Short of Augusta
According to the USGA, the average handicap index is 15.2. A player with that index can expect to shoot 90 at most layouts. At Augusta, now designed to test the best players in the world, the strokes will start to pile up quickly on top of that baseline.

Length is part of it. While the tour’s bombers can hit short irons into most of these holes, amateurs should not expect to reach par 4s like the 455-yard first, 455-yard fifth, 450-yard seventh, 495-yard 10th, 505-yard 11th, 440-yard 17th and the 465-yard 18th in regulation. The same goes for the par-3 fourth, which now plays 240 yards.

But length isn’t the only factor. Plenty of courses are more intimidating from tee to green, and most have holes the average player can’t reach from the back tee. “The holes [at Augusta] are plenty wide, the rough isn’t deep, there are no big carries to make off the tees, and you can give most of the severe hazards a wide berth,” says architect Tom Doak.

“Amateurs can negotiate the course reasonably well,” adds Tom Watson. “From a penalty-stroke perspective, Augusta is pretty reasonable.”

The potential for penalty strokes is concentrated on the four shots over water, all on the back nine—the par 3s, the 155-yard 12th and the 170-yard 16th; and the par 5s, the 510-yard 13th and the 530-yard 15th. Distance is not a factor on those shots, since most will be played with mid or short irons.

But they can be tricky, especially the tee shot on 12, where Tom Weiskopf put five shots into the water and made 13 in 1980. “How the amateur plays 12 is going to be the key to the round,” says Rich Beem. “If he keeps dumping balls into Rae’s Creek, we’ve got a problem: He may not finish.”

Which means the average player needs to start quickly on the front nine, where there is little danger of accruing penalty strokes, and let his confidence carry him toward the turn and into Amen Corner, where plenty of trouble awaits.

But a good start isn’t a given, both for physical and psychological reasons. Greg Norman believes the terrain will give players trouble. “I think the golf course is a lot harder than people realize, in large part because of elevation changes and uneven lies,” he says. “The only true level lies you get are on the tees. You can’t really appreciate these nuances on television, and they make club selection very difficult. And it’s a whole different ballgame now that they’ve added so much length.”

If you start poorly, watch out. “As soon as they realize just how hard it is, they’d fall apart,” says noted instructor T.J. Tomasi. “That sort of thing gets in the head of an average player. I call it cumulative disreward. You play a few holes and it hits you: ‘I can’t play this golf course.’ I’ve seen guys play a course too difficult for them and more often than not they collapse. A 16 becomes a 26.”