Here's the history of the changes to the 8th, followed by Dan Wexler's take on those changes:
1934 - 500 yards - The hole played 60 feet uphill to a punchbowl style green (similar to the 17th at Muirfield) with 9 to 12 foot high hillocks. At its narrowest point, the green was only 20 feet wide, with a 45-degree turn to the left.
1957 - 520 yards - Supposedly Roberts loved the green at the 8th (nicknamed Jane Russell due to the mounds), but deemed it appropriate to knock down the hillocks for better spectator viewing. The resulting figure-eight platform green had a vertical drop on all sides. Bob Jones got angry at Roberts, telling him he was wrecking the course. For the 1957 Masters, a sign near the green explained that the change was only temporary.
1958 - 530 yards - Cobb was called in after the '57 tournament to rebuild the green and recover the shape created by Mackenzie. The result was a green flatter and wider than the original. In place of the legendary mounds, Cobb built two ordinary bunkers because of Roberts' insistence on keeping clear sight lines for the patrons. Cobb also filled in the old fairway cross bunker and created a new one farther out and to the right.
1980 - 530 yards - After Roberts died in 1977, the club asked Cobb to restore the green again. When Cobb indicated he could not recall the original shape or contours, Byron Nelson stepped in with Joseph Finger to undertake the job. He reestablished the punch-bowl green from memory and a few old photos, and even hand-raked the final contours.
2011 - 570 yards - Fazio rebuilt the green once again in 1997, creating a new back-right shelf for a Sunday pin 111 feet from the front and 18 from the right collar. In 2001, he moved the tee back 20 yards and 10 yards to the right. The fairway bunker was moved farther down the fairway, doubled in size and deepened, requiring a drive of 315 yards to clear.
Dan's description of the odyssey at the 8th:
"The uphill par-5 eighth has traveled a lot of miles in its 75 years of existence, with its ruin-it-then-fix-it-again evolution representing the closest thing to a genuine architectural fiasco that Augusta National has ever had to endure. Originally built with a uniquely bunkerless, mound-flanked green similar to that in play today, the eighth was emasculated in 1956 when, concerned over spectator viewing and congestion, the club had George Cobb build a new, moundless putting surface which would eventually come to be guarded by bland, strategically insignificant bunkers. The failings of this concept were trumpeted far and wide (including, we are told, by Bobby Jones just as the project was getting started), ultimately resulting in the hiring of Byron Nelson and Joe Finger to rebuild the original green complex, complete with restored mounds and a back left quadrant nearly invisible from the front edge, in 1979.
Inasmuch as the present green can thus be considered “original,” the primary remaining alteration lies in the fairway bunker, which initially was a prominent, centerline hazard before being moved rightward in 1958, then enlarged and relocated once more by Tom Fazio in 2002. And the precise positioning of this hazard is key, for as Bobby Jones noted shortly after its initial move: “It is important that the ball be kept a bit to the right of center of the fairway…Should [the golfer] play left to avoid the bunker, the player must skirt the trees on the left with his second shot in order to get very near the green.”
During his 2002 work, Fazio also added a tee in close proximity to the 17th green, extending to 570 yards what began life as a semi-reachable 500-yarder upon which those trying to get home in two will, to quote Dr. MacKenzie, “be able to define the position of the green owing to the size of the surrounding hillock.”
Good thing they brought it back.
Better Then or Now?
Theoretically, save for the moving of the old centerline bunker, the present eighth plays very much like the original, with the additional 70 yards of length helping to retain the go-for-it-or-not balance of the 1933 version. Though the present, quite fascinating putting surface is not truly Jones and MacKenzie’s, it can still be said with reasonable fairness that this, the hole which has seen the most glaring desecration in Augusta’s design history, today plays as close to its original form as nearly any on the golf course."More here on the course changes (
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,51383.0.html) for anyone interested.