"There's not as much excitement," said Davis Love III. "There's a bunch of people putting for par. It's a little like the U.S. Open--you're playing defense a lot."
Three-time winner Nick Faldo best explained how the course was negating its best self. "If you don't have an opportunity to reward yourself, it switches off the best players," said Faldo, who says he stopped playing the tournament in 2006 because the re-design was too difficult. "They've got the flair and the skills to go for it, but going for it is suicide. Augusta was always the one where you can shoot your 65. Bottom line is, you've got to reward the guys... You've got to be given the opportunity to hit career shots."
Moving the Masters tee ahead at No. 13, nearer the member tee, would entice more players to go for the green on the second shot. Click here to view larger picture.
SMALL CHANGES WITH BIG IMPLICATIONS
As always, the green jackets have stayed quiet, but clearly they listened. And, in their mandarin way, in the third year of the chairmanship of Billy Payne, they have acted. For the first time in 28 years, the course will play shorter than it did the year before. OK, so it's officially only 10 yards off the max, with the possibility of two other holes each playing about 10 yards shorter. But it's the right direction.
The shortening is being handled delicately, to avoid looking like a renunciation of Hootie's legacy. Probably more is in store. The changes are small, but on the thin edge of major-championship golf-course setups, a little can be a lot.
The first hole's gold marker--the approximate middle point of the teeing area--has been moved up 10 yards, ostensibly to allow more spectator flow. But at 455 yards uphill, there's little doubt that the first had become too difficult, especially into the wind. The fairway bunker that was enlarged for 2002 to keep long hitters from flying it, became--with the 20 yards that the hole gained in 2006--barely reachable for most players. Drives that died in the hill required a near-blind second shot with a medium to long iron to a very exacting target.
The 10 yards that have been added to the front of the tee on the par-4 seventh were sorely needed. The hole was the redesign's worst effort in terms of strategy and aesthetics. Lengthened by 85 yards since 2001, to 450 yards, it was also counter-intuitively tightened with more trees. Even after a good drive, the super-shallow green--which was built in the '30s to receive an exacting short iron or wedge--is unreasonably small for a middle-iron approach. As Woods has said, "I don't have that shot." What used to be a tricky and tantalizing risk-reward has become a hard par where the mandated conservative play is a competitive buzz kill.
The elimination of two trees on the right side of the 15th hole won't open up enough room to hit sweeping power draws off the tee.
"The whole thought process of playing the golf course used to be, get through the first six holes around par, and you can birdie 7, 8 and 9 ... and you have a great round," Phil Mickelson said last year. "It changes when you can be aggressive--and the whole complexion and the mind-set of how to play the first six or seven holes."
Mickelson's comment reflects the close attention paid by the players to issues like the course's ebb and flow, as well as their collective wish that, henceforth, less is more. No contemporary player is saying the club should go back to the course the way it was before the redesign--as tough as the par 4s are, Immelman played them in a record 10 under par last year--but the desire is to err on the side of tradition.
This should be especially true on the most important holes at Augusta, the iconic back-nine par 5s, the 13th and the 15th. A lot of the redesign's downsides--chiefly the askew risk-reward equation--would be alleviated by making them as accessible in two shots as they used to be. Both holes bring game-changing eagles into play. But the vacuum-like quality of the water hazards gives double bogey an equal chance. These two holes have made for the biggest Sunday stroke swings in major-championship golf.
The tournament's early history forged a go-for-it mentality. Until fairly recently, fairway-wood shots to the two par 5s were common. But of the many failures, perhaps only Billy Joe Patton in 1954 was ever considered foolhardy for pulling out the lumber. In 1985, Curtis Strange was criticized more for his execution than his decision when he dunked a 4-wood from 208 yards into the creek on 13, losing his lead to Bernhard Langer before rinsing a 4-iron on the 15th. Chip Beck, not a long hitter, got second-guessed in 1993 for keeping his 3-wood in the bag from 236 yards, laying up when he trailed Langer by three. But today--from the same yardage, which modern equipment would cover with less club--Beck would escape the hot seat. Players much longer than Beck now commonly lay up on 13 and 15 from inside 220 yards. Things have changed.
For starters, the 13th and 15th were lengthened in the redesign--the 13th by 25 yards in 2002, to 510, and the 15th by 30 yards in 2006, to 530. Simple arithmetic dictates that just as Hootie Johnson stopped Tiger Woods from ever again hitting a wedge for his second to the 15th, he also put a lot of medium hitters just short of their "go" point.
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