What GOOD has ANGC® wrought?

[redanman]

"The Augusta syndrome with bunkering" with its negative connotations made me think of this thread title.

I'll  post again when I think of something.

[Aaron Katz]

For all of the recent changes -- some of which might only apply during the Masters (for example, the "second cut") -- Augusta still remains a model for an appreciation of angles of play and brilliantly contoured greens.  In addition, the 13th -- and to a lesser extent the 15th -- is probably responsible for appreciation of half-par holes.  

Also, I still think the design is brilliant.  Until you go there, you can't appreciate the genius behind a hole such as the 3rd (incidentally, one of the least changed holes).

[cary lichtenstein]

Courses have to be good, first for their members, I always thought.

What do the members think of the course, for member play form member tees?

I have never heard one single comment about this.

If I were to play ANGG, I can't see what fun it would be to hit driver, 3 wood wedge into all the par 4's, and driver, 8iron, wedge into the par 5's.

I'd like to hit high irons into the greens to see if I could get close, but is that even an option?

[Dan Herrmann]

All I know is what I saw during my first visit during the practice rounds last year.

A course of such outstanding beauty that you just had to stop and gawk.  The mounding, especially around 8 green, was wonderful.  The green countouring was first rate.

When I first saw the green complex at 7, I wondered how anybody would be able to stick it in there....  Of course, the competitors do it easily, but it's still one of the best green complexes I've ever seen.


It's an amazing place, regardless of what you think of the changes.  If you've never been there, you must make a pilgrimage.  You will not regret it.

It brought us joy.

[Mike_Sweeney]

My wife and I have spent the last two nights at dinner with an Augusta employee who is spending the summer in Martha's Vineyard at a private club. He is a wonderful guy and has actually left Augusta to advance his career. With respect he said that Hootie just wanted "everything right".

My wife grew up with horses, and Tommy and I argued that Augusta and The Masters had the greatest traditions in American sports. She argued for the Kentucky Derby.

Who is right and what are the greatest traditions overseas?

PS. The overseas guys really get into the Champions Diner menu, while the Americans go with the flow.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Courses have to be good, first for their members, I always thought.

What do the members think of the course, for member play form member tees?

I have never heard one single comment about this.

If I were to play ANGG, I can't see what fun it would be to hit driver, 3 wood wedge into all the par 4's,

Since you SHOULD be playing the Member's tees, you won't be hitting those clubs.[/color]

and driver, 8iron, wedge into the par 5's.

Since you're not a zero handicap, you won't be doing that either.[/color]

I'd like to hit high irons into the greens to see if I could get close, but is that even an option?

It is if you play from the members tees, OR from shorter tees, depending upon YOUR game.[/color]

[Bill Gayne]

Of all the major championships it's the one that made the viewers/golfing public aware of the par four and a half concept and strategic options of going for it in two at #13 and 15.

Until recently it showed that a golf course didn't need rough or extreme length to challenge the world's best golfers. Rather it could be done by requiring creativity around the greens.

Mike,

The Masters is fairly new and in a narrow niche of sports. Horseracing has a great and long history but has largely lost it's relevance. Army-Navy has great tradition but relevance has also been lost for the general public. It's fairly new, forty years, but has huge relevance is the SuperBowl. It is pure Americana.

 

[Gib_Papazian]

I've a question - and perhaps it is a stupid one coming from one who has never walked the hallowed grounds:

It is my understanding that the putting surface contours were designed in such a way that with every move of the pin, the tee shot (or 2nd shot on a par-5) had to be placed in a specific spot on the fairway or the next shot was mind-bendingly difficult.

What is to stop the Augusta National puppet-masters from cutting back all the rough, drying the fairways AND ESPECIALLY THE GREENS to the point where players would have to depend more on the ground game to get the ball close?

Perhaps that sounds ridiculous and naive, but it was my understanding that MacKenzie (remember him?) designed ANGC to have "links-eque" playing qualities.

If that does not work, then dammit, make the contours of the putting surfaces even more insane, diabolical and trauma-inducing.

If I were King, there would be no rough in golf, period. There would be no need with "gathering bunkers" and putting surfaces that shoulder away shots from incorrect angles - which, of course, would change with every move of the pin.

Hmmmmm, sounds a bit like NGLA . . . . . . .

Tom Paul's "Big Tent" theory aside, the closer ANGC gets to "or else golf" (i.e. hit it here and hit it straight, *or else*), the more rank and file Green Committees will blindly follow.

Our club magazine - usually a vapid rag at best - actually had a thoughtful article this month about the influence Augusta has on conditioning expectations.

At this point, it is not the "conditioning aspect" that worries me, it is more the idea that we need to grow deep cabbage two feet off the fairway and stretch the golf course to 7500 yards.

Nobody except a machisimo-infested, testosterone crazed masochist wants to play a U.S. Open set-up more than once or twice. The example Augusta set (before) of having no rough to speak of probably did more good to encourage width - even if Superintendents were charged with the impossible.

Now, ANGC is getting incrementally closer to the set-up we see at the Open or PGA . . . . .

So, in answer to Redanman's question: The "good" it once wrought is slowly drifting away. Now, idiot Green Chairmen are going to want perfect conditions, obscene length and nasty rough besides.

"The very soul of golf shrieks."

-C.B. Macdonald
 Scotland's Gift

[Aaron Katz]

If you look at really old pictures from Augusta, there did appear to have been rough.  It certainly wasn't non-stop manicured fairway.  And the banks of the par 5s and par 3s over water were scraggly.  So, in some ways the "second cut" concept isn't that huge departure from what Augusta started as.  I hope, however, that in time they move back to the 100% fairway concept.  With the added length, the concept of correct placement on the fairway has been reborn.  For a professional, a wedge from the "wrong side" of the fairway isn't a problem if he's got a tight, fairway lie.  But if he's got a 5 iron, then coming in at the right angle is imperative, even if he's not in the rough.  

[Gib_Papazian]

For a professional, a wedge from the "wrong side" of the fairway isn't a problem if he's got a tight, fairway lie.    

It will be if the green is like a rock and the pin is perched at the edge of a severe slope.

[John Kavanaugh]

Gib,

Don't you think that if the boys had control of the rain it would be easier to listen and impliment your ideas.  Length and rough and trees may just be contingency plans.  Seems to me that year after year the course gets wet and it ain't from the hoses..

[Aaron Katz]

For a professional, a wedge from the "wrong side" of the fairway isn't a problem if he's got a tight, fairway lie.    

It will be if the green is like a rock and the pin is perched at the edge of a severe slope.

If the pin is perched at the edge of a severe slope, then more likely than not an approach shot from any angle is going to be almost equally difficult.  Where angles arguably make a bigger difference is when the slope is a general one (i.e. the entire green pitched right to left) or where the proper angle allows you to a clear view to the pin rather than having to fly over a hazard.  Simply having a pin perched on a severe slope with a rock hard green won't do it if the pros have a wedge in their hands -- at least not when the greens are bent grass.  A good example is number 9.  Before it was lengthened, for several years pros were driving to the bottom of the hill and had 9, W, or SW in.  Even with the pin perched at the edge of the front slope, pros were just flying it five feet past and having it stop dead, regardless of whether they were coming in from the right, center, or left of the fairway.