First Impressions

Augusta National's par-4 opening hole has evolved into a starter that daunts even the longest of hitters

By Nick Seitz

Photo by Donald Miralle

April 6, 2009

Conventional wisdom (just across the road from unconventional wisdom) holds that the ideal opening hole should be of moderate difficulty with no serious trouble. As the legendary course designer Donald Ross put it, "A good handshake."

At Augusta National GC, the first hole is more like a good punch in the mouth.

It is a 445-yard, uphill dogleg right with a dangerous bunker menacing the right side of a narrowing fairway that ends at a raised, wildly rippling green guarded front left by another take-no-prisoners bunker, beyond which the hole will be cut two or three days. Fred Couples, the 1992 champion, calls it the hardest hole on the course because of its length and the most difficult green to putt.

No. 1 ranked fourth in difficulty in 2008 (4.244) and has been first and second in recent years. Never has it played under par for the week.

"Imagine if No. 2 wasn't an easy par 5!" says architect Tom Fazio, who has been involved in revisions of the course. "But grinding is so typical of that tournament."

The hole has been shortened 10 yards on the scorecard this year, with the back of the tee and the brass markers—used for card measurement to the middle of the green—moved up. The understated tournament tees, fashioned from the hardwood of a tree on the course, move up or back depending largely on weather conditions. The hole can play as long as 463 yards or as short as 426, according to club officials.

The change could bring the bunker more into play, enabling big hitters to carry it once again as they could until 2002 alterations if the wind wasn't hurting … and as Bobby Jones intended. In Golf is My Game he wrote: "Ordinarily the fairway bunker presents no problem for the tournament player. With a heavy wind against, however, as often happens, a half-hit tee shot may catch this bunker."

tough opening act: Paul Casey and the rest of the field got a break and could challenge the fairway bunker when the tees at No. 1 were moved up for the final round in 2008. After adjustments to the teeing ground, the par 4—which ranked fourth in difficulty last year—could play between 426 and 463 yards. hole diagram by best approach.com

As it is now, players need a clout of 316 yards to carry the bunker from the brass markers—a mere 283 to reach the hazard that is eight feet deep at its most cavernous point. A cleanly struck shot from some parts of the bunker can reach some parts of the green, a huge target at nearly 7,000 square feet. But the putting surface has mostly rampant contouring (it was rebuilt after the '08 tournament "for agronomic reasons"), and the greenside bunker is a potential disaster, especially when the hole is cut left.

"Used to be, with no wind in your face, you could take it over the bunker and play a wedge to the green," says six-time Masters winner Jack Nicklaus. "But once they lengthened the tee, extended the bunker, brought trees in on the left—the face of the hill became an issue, especially with the wind coming into you. You were hitting a 3- or 4-iron when the green wanted a 7 or 8 max."

Game plans and attitudes were adjusted. "I just wanted to get to the second hole even par," Nicklaus says. "You stood on the first tee and saw danger everywhere. You looked at it as a hole where you never wanted to get behind the golf course. It set the tone for the round."

Phil Mickelson agrees. "It's gone from an easy par 4 to one of the hardest holes," he says. "It changes the way I look at the start of my round, from trying to get off to a quick start with birdie to just trying to make par on the first hole and make birdie on the second. You cannot drive it up on top, so you're left hitting a second shot with a mid-iron to one of the most difficult greens."