Well, were the changes at Augusta good or bad?

[tlavin]

When viewed simply as a venue for a major championship, I think one has to say that the changes were a success.  The top five players were all in contention going into the final round and one of them won the tournament because he was able to control his game around the greens when others faulted.  This, to me, means that the primary defense of the golf course (the greens) still was the most important element in distinguishing the winner and that the golf course, on an overall basis, identified the best players.

Maybe a purist can make a convincing argument that the changes have done offense to Mackenzie's vision.  I'll leave that to more learned minds, but as a regular viewer of major championships it seemed like the golf course was harder and only the best were able to remain in contention.

Finally, who was it that said in another thread that Mickelson wouldn't win another major, even with four drivers (or something to that effect) in his bag?  Mickelson, unlike posers like Chris DeMarco, is the real deal.

[Jon Wiggett]

John, are you saying all holed putts where 10 feet plus? No but seriously, I am not disagreeing with you on the inability of the players to convert birdie putts at a critical moment but what I am saying is that nobody was able to make a charge on the back nine. I can't recall any Masters where the best back nine score on Sunday was 33. Maybe this was a one off and next year will return to the usual exciting Sunday finish but if not why would that be and what would be the consequencies for the Masters?

[RJ_Daley]

Maybe if they stop calling it MacKenzie and Jones' masterpiece, the sting of converting it over and over again into an ever more treacherous toon-a-mint venue would be more tolerable.  

Let it just be the spring major, first of the year, and forget the golden era cachet.  10 years from now, maybe they will be errecting stone walls along the FW mowing lines, who knows.

[Jim Thompson]

RJ,

Would this fall under the Kelly Blake Moran school of mythmaking.  Kelly, Tom what do you think?  Does this apply?

[John Kirk]

John Kirk,

# 1 and # 8 are both slightly uphill making the carries effectively longer.

I also believe that the wind was out of the west, effectively in their face, thus making the carries even longer.

If there's a benefit to doing something, the pros will do it, if they can.

In this case, I don't believe they could carry it 330, uphill, into the wind, wouldn't you agree ?

I agree, Pat.  I also think the first carry yardage I read was more accurate: 319 yards.  At 319 uphill, I still don't think anybody tries to carry these bunkers, even if it yields a better angle and a shorter approach.

What I'm saying is they overestimated what the carry distance should be.  It was so far, it didn't tempt anybody to try.  I think 300 uphill would have been a better guess, though I believe Tiger carried the bunker on #1 last year, when the carry was 300-305.

This year, if you hit it 280-285, no problem.  The bunker isn't in play.  If you're going to hit it 295-319, the fairway is 25% smaller.  So it forced the big hitters to be more accurate.  On #1, it may have caused players top overcompensate, as quite a few hit it left into the new row of trees.

[texsport]

As long as the course isn't soaked, the changes are great.

Look at the final leaderboard with all the top-ranked players in the world in contention.

It could have been a very exciting finish.

The only negative is that fans expect to see a birdie barrage and a charge by someone to win. Now it looks like just plain solid play tee thru the hole will win.

[redanman]

stupid wasn't one of the choices, was it?

With all the changes an almost 47 year old with a bad back and shitty putting "should have won it" if anyone "should have".

The changes didn't mean squat in the end, they never do because all that ever plays at ANGC is "The Cream", so who else will you have on the leader board?

All they did was set back any architectural/agronomical progress of the past 10 years with narrow fairways and contrived trees set up to dis-allow any recovery shots.  Crap, crap and more crap.

The winning score was 7 instead of  22

so what?

All the changes did was screw everyone and stifle creativity; it was still a putting contest.

Other than that, I have no opinion whatsoever.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Redanman,

Before you start putting you have to get to the green.

Augusta and The Masters is about far more then just putting.

It's about tee shots, approaches, and recoveries, then you can putt.

Just ask Rocco Mediate, Vijay and all of those players who made doubles, triples and more, and it wasn't about putting.

[texsport]

When you miss the fairway in a major tournament, are you supposed to be able to recover with a par or birdie?

[redanman]

Redanman,

Before you start putting you have to get to the green.

Augusta and The Masters is about far more then just putting.

Everyone hit it in the rough and punched out at nearly a full shot's penalty at least a  few times.  Some more than others and the ones at the few end had a putting contest.  

Couples ball-striking was by far the best, even dumb-dumb Lanny recognized that part.

addendum:  The new and improved Masters® 2006 changes were ill-conceived and whether or not they were good for "Major Tone-A-Mint Golf", (and whether or not "Major Tone-A-Mint Golf"  is good for golf in general)  they are an example of ANGC® changes that clubs should NOT emulate. Planting rows of trees, closing punch out routes and little circles of pine droppings around said trees are against good agronomical principles.  Narrow, mis-guided frankensteinian fairways such as #11 aren't strategic, they are hideous. Narrowing to 200 yard long chutes fairways such as #15, 17 and 18 might make the 10 best golfers in the world soil their pants one Sunday a year but let the scores go red or bring out the Masters® ball sooner rather than later.

Look at all the hoop-la that they go through to maintain #12 green, suck-blow sub air systems, heating coils under the green - all that because of the dense foilage and tree cover nearby, who wants to pay for that at their club?

[Alex_Wyatt]

When I traveled in Asia and spoke to people about their golf courses, what was astonishing was how much they wanted to emulate Augusta. What is important about Augusta is not the winning score in the golf tournament, but the fact that it is the only major venue we see every year and that it serves as an example to people about the conditions to which they will aspire on their own golf courses.

That is the problem. So what if the Masters is boring. That's really no concern of ours. But if Augusta's changes discourage best practices from taking root around the world, that should definitely be a concern of ours.

[Kelly Blake Moran]

RJ,

Would this fall under the Kelly Blake Moran school of mythmaking.  Kelly, Tom what do you think?  Does this apply?

Jim I think it definately is a myth that the course represents the vision of Jones and MacKenzie but I would defer to someone like Bob Crosby who seems more intimate with the hole by hole details.   I think this type of analysis is critical and should be the subject of a book.  i know Byrd did it somewhat but I think there needs to be more in depth analysis, particularly from the perspective of Jones and McKenzie, their vision for how to interpret St Andrews on inland property in America would be a monumental work of the highest importance for me.  It would like finding the gnostic bible, you get back to an earlier period before more conventional standards took over.  

[Tom_Doak]

Kelly:

Have you read Jones' GOLF IS MY GAME, c. 1960?  He does a yardage-book type description of every hole at Augusta and what their intent was.

Jones' big influence on the design was to limit fairway bunkering and to let other effects come into play on the tee shot.  A small quote:

"There are two ways of widening the gap between a good tee shot and a bad one.  One is to inflict a severe and immediate punishment on a bad shot, to place its perpetrator in a bunker or in some other trouble which will demand the sacrifice of a stroke in recovering.  The other is to reward the good shot by making the second shot simpler in proportion to the excellence of the first.  The reward may be of any nature, but it is more commonly one of four -- a better view of the green, an easier angle from which to attack a slope, an open approach past guarding hazards, or even a better run to the tee shot itself.  But the elimination of punitive hazards provides an opportunity for the player to retrieve his situation by an exceptional second shot."

(Mr. Jones could also write pretty well.)

There is also an entire chapter titled "Then and Now" which addresses changes in equipment and maintenance, not at Augusta but in regard to tournament golf in general.

[Gary Daughters]

Tom:  If your cellphone rang and it was Hootie on the other end, would you accept his offer to come have a look at his course?  Sorry if you've been asked this before, but what might you do with it, and would your goal be to reclaim (some of) the Jones-Mackenzie vision?  How?  Is it beyond recovery, even if say, Hootie was on board?

For anyone:  did Nicklaus in '86 skew our expectations as to what the back nine at Augusta is supposed to be on Sunday?  Sure, Tiger has gone low there and Faldo did some nice Sunday work against Norman, but that was not particularly exciting, nor was it defined by Faldo's brilliance.  Are our expectations too high in this regard?  (OK, '74 was pretty cool.)

An observation:  something that doesn't show up on tv is the half-assed landscaping concocted behind the 11th tee, which is disturbingly of a piece with the sheer ugliness of the battalions of pines along the 11th, 15th and 17th fairways.  How angc could do something so sub-mediocre is truly perplexing.

One other question: Can the lush rye at Augusta truly play "fast and firm?"  Not as fast as the munis I play, I would hazard.