I've never been to ANGC for a firsthand look but I thought those Sunday pins were really good ones. I also really tried to study those internal green contours and what they meant to the overall greens and particularly the Sunday pin positions. When I filter through my mind the overall strategic meaning of them all it was really good, I think.
I'd also never seen some of the front nine before. #3, excellent pin far right over a single ("semi-meaningless" bunker). #4 far right, I think, and excellent. 5-6 can't remember at the moment, but were one or both of these holes the ones that Goosen (self admittedly pulling his approaches all day) got on the wrong side of and 3 putted? #7, great pin on a center front to back ridge! Tiger seemed to be the only one to put the ball on the proper side of that green but still the putt was very slick for him. #8, wonderful pin and wonderful par 5 green--unusual!!
#9, wonderful and traditional Sunday pin, just all about both accuracy and even more fineline distance control and degrees of spin. #10, excellent front pin! #11, great pin bringing the entire left pond into play and also the water behind the green into play for those that played it safe and short as Tiger did and had to chip up the green with the water behind. #12, one of the best Sunday pins in the world and also one of the truly high intensity and STRATEGIC short par 3s in the world! #13, don't know that green very well but the much shorter left side carry and the cant to the right seemed to make that a great pin for a lot of strategic options on the approach shot. #14, didn't look too good to me! Seemed virtually impossible to get it close to make birdie on that hole and the hole seems to have been stretched almost to the point of strategically disconnecting--or am I thinking of #17? #15, I think I would have liked to have seen that pin closer to the front but of course there is the water behind that green for the very aggressive. Front would have been better though, but would have taken out the eagle possiblities more--not a good idea, I guess. #16, a great pin with all that green and surrounds is--a great green and pin for an aggressive or conservative option. #17?! I think I get this hole mixed up with #14--this might have been the one with the pin I didn't like for a Sunday #17!
What's going on with the back pin on #18? I thought the traditional Sunday pin was front left--but it seems they mix it up or rotated it year to year between back right and that front left pin. Either is really good!
But I sure do agree with Ran and Jeff Mingay and some of the others that the Masters should just cut the whole place down to those traditional super-wide fairways. The light semi-rough definition of the last few years was dumb when they did it and it's still dumb with the increased length. It just looks dumb! It really doesn't do a thing to the players either psychologically or actually. This from Nick Faldo; He said he perfers it because it makes the approaches a bit easier to play for him. He said it produces a slight flyer and he liked that because he knew what the ball would do and he could play a bit less club! He said it played easier as far as he was concerned and consequently they shouldn't have done it!