AUGUSTA, Ga. — The 12th hole at Augusta National is arguably the most famous and beautiful hole in the world. It’s not long. It’s scenic. It’s strategic. But it’s missing something.
It’s missing a hole-in-one.
The last time a Masters competitor wrote a “1” next to Golden Bell on a scorecard was the second round in 1988, when Curtis Strange holed out with a 7-iron. The hole played 155 yards then and it still plays 155 now.
So where is that ball? The only ball, in nearly a half century, that has found the bottom of the cup in one shot. Surely, it’s on show in Augusta’s clubhouse? Right?
Wrong: It’s in Rae’s Creek.
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Strange, unhappy with both his performance on the greens as well as the condition of them, picked his ball out of the hole and tossed it into the water.
"What the hell, I've made six holes-in-one and I haven't kept any of them." he told media after his round. And thus, the “Strange” curse of the 12th hole was born.
Augusta National
Thirty-eight years have passed since that day and yet no one has been able to perfect one of golf’s most perfect holes. So what’s going on?
Some would argue, and many have in response to a post I sent on X, that it’s simple: pros don’t aim at the hole on that hole. Just think of Tiger Woods in 2019. Having watched four of his closest competitors find the water, he found the green but some 50 feet from the back-right, final-round pin position.
For the record, I won’t argue that take. On Sunday at Augusta, I would think there isn’t a single player in the field actively trying to hole their shot on the 12th tee. However, the pin is only in that section of the green one day. What about the other rounds?
Spain’s Andrea Revuelta (below), competing in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur this past weekend, came within an inch of a hole-in-one. Francesco Molinari, in the third round of that fateful 2019 Masters, hit his tee shot on the 12th to less than a foot. Players do, often, take dead aim.
Andrea Revuelta reacts to her near ace on the 12th hole during last week's Augusta National Women's Amateur.
Augusta National
Yet, the hole is just 155 yards. A 9-iron or pitching wedge for most in the field this year. I asked Lou Stagner, a performance coach and golf statistic expert, what the odds are of a PGA Tour pro holing a tee shot from 150 to 160 yards. The answer, over the last 20 seasons, is a probability of 0.053 percent, or 1-in-1,876.
That might not seem often, but there have been 10,738 tee shots hit in competition at the Masters on the 12th hole since Strange hit his 7-iron on Friday in 1988. Given that, with the “typical” rate at which aces are recorded on the PGA Tour, we would have expected to see six holes-in-one. Yet, at 12, we’ve seen none.
Maybe it’s an Augusta thing? The greens? The wind?
Nope, sadly that doesn’t seem to add up either. Since Strange’s ace, Augusta has witnessed 23 different holes-in-one, including at least one on each of the other par 3s: the fourth, sixth and 16th. In fact, there’s been 19 on the 16th hole alone since 1988. Albeit, the majority of those have come from a pin position that welcomes approaches off the whole ridge that divides the green.
Maybe holes-in-one just aren’t as common as we think?
Craig Jones
Again, wrong. The chances of a player making a hole-in-one on a par 3 on the PGA Tour is roughly 1-in-2,500. Take the stadium 16th hole at the WM Phoenix Open. Since the tournament moved to TPC Scottsdale in 1988, there have been 12 aces. An average of 1 out of every 1,250 shots played.
Even if we go further back in time at Augusta, the last ace before Strange's on the 12th hole came another 29 years in the past, courtesy of amateur William Hyndman, in 1959. The only other one in Masters history was by Claude Harmon in 1947, the year before he won the green jacket.
So, in 67 years, the entire lifetime of Bernhard Langer, the patrons who line the 12th tee with foldable chairs each year have only seen a single ace.
David Cannon
Therefore, I declare that this is the year. I firmly believe we will see a hole-in-one on the 12th hole. The curse will be broken.
Just likely not on Sunday.