Bringing Back The Buzz

Something is missing from today's Tigerproofed' Augusta National. Here's a four-point plan to change that

CALL TO ARMS: Woods' miracle chip on 16 in 2005 woke up the echoes, but it masked a recent shortcoming: quiet Sundays.

By John Hawkins

Photo by Darren Carroll

April 6, 2009

The greatest show in golf has been taking Sundays off. Not by design, mind you, although course design can be blamed for the recent absence of drama, which certainly qualifies as a dramatic departure. If the Masters hasn't been the game's lone source of final-round suspense during its 75 years, it has, for numerous reasons, left its fingerprints all over the patent.

It is the year's first major championship, the subject of the lengthiest and most passionate pregame buildup, and is the only major played at one site. None of that, however, explains why the second weekend in April has such premium edge-of-your-seat value on the sporting calendar. What makes the Masters so special—so popular among television viewers, such a difficult ticket to find on the open market, so consistent in its ability to produce everlasting memories—is the venue itself.

Augusta National GC is golf's finest competitive stage. It is the prettiest, the most recognizable, and in all likelihood, resides atop the bucket list of more recreational players than any other course. Tour pros routinely call it the most strategic layout they play, a 4½-hour excursion of risk and reward, guts and glory, power, precision and patience.

The conditions are usually impeccable, even in lousy weather, the greens always remarkably pure. To call Augusta National the perfect test would not be overdoing it, which is why the Masters has produced so many unforgettable moments. "They can't all be wonderful, but a lot of them were," says Geoff Ogilvy, who enters this year's tournament among the favorites.

Perhaps inadvertently, Ogilvy speaks in the past tense. Since 2005, when Tiger Woods beat Chris DiMarco in a playoff after holing an improbable chip from behind the 16th green, the final-round fireworks have vanished, the back-nine charges halted on a course that was surgically enhanced three times during the tenure of former Masters chairman Hootie Johnson.

After a 285-yard addition to the layout in 2002, Johnson's handiwork cemented an entry in pro golf's dictionary: "Tigerproofing." Many thought the added length would only improve Woods' chances at Augusta National, where he won three of his first six starts as a pro, but in the six Masters since, Tiger's only victory came in '05.

To a man, players say the yardage increases have altered the tournament's competitive disposition, especially in cool, breezy conditions. They also will tell you the extra length doesn't bother them as much as an undue—some would say egregious—emphasis on width. "I'm OK with it longer because everybody hits it farther now," says Stewart Cink. "They made it longer and tighter, and the areas around the greens have changed, too."

Ten years have passed since the club debuted the "second cut," better known as light rough, on a layout designed by two men (Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie) who clearly were influenced by the ultra-spacious, option-oriented, sandlot-like Old Course at St. Andrews. In terms of terrain, Augusta National, with its tumbling hills and tilted earth, bears little resemblance to the barren Scottish sheep yard, but the shotmaking philosophy is basically the same.

With a driver in your hand, there is no water in play at Augusta National. It's all about the second shot—the better the drive, the more aggressive one can get with the approach. A tee shot in the wrong fairway would force the player to assess whether firing at a pin was worth the potential headache, but rarely did he find himself without a shot.

"You can't play the angles anymore because there are none," says Justin Leonard. "We used to have these 40-yard corridors and a bunch of options. Now [the fairways are] 20 yards wide, and everybody's basically playing from the same spots." As a result of the second cut and numerous tree plantings in what used to be viable go-zones, the Jones-Mackenzie masterpiece, once an exquisite blend of links and parkland golf, has become a pure parkland venue with more similarities to Firestone than St. Andrews. "Basically a bunch of alleys now," is how Kenny Perry, one of the game's best drivers, describes it.