With the Womens Am round and an entire compelling Masters week lingering, I wanted to make some MASH notes about points of observation, critique, and praise of what is, let's face it, the best known, most talked about course after the founding ones of the game.
The 16th - I have heard a good deal of critique about 16 as a gimmicked hole, an unnatural hole, that has a ridiculous non-original green that turns into nothing more than a putting contest... especially the kind of "forced" made for TV Sunday pin that produces hole in ones and roaring crowds... yet see what happened to Fassi; to Kopeka; to Schauffle; to Cantlay when they couldn't gauge that distance and funnel spot with position. Both that and the more difficult right pins earlier in the week reveal (imo) just how razors edge the design provokes performance to be...there is a not-too-subtle, obvious pressure that you either make a 2 or find disappointment...somehow you know in a weekend field that one of these 50-60 sticks are goign to use that hole to their advantage and you had better be one of them if you want to factor. And as a matter of poor leadership with such fast speeds on such severe slopes...we see that it is not impossible, just very very scary a matter...who among us would not like to test ourselves on such a putt under such conditions...
That reminds me of Woods' lag putt on the 9th... have you ever seen somethign provocative and revealing of a players golfing greatness than that putt from 50 or more feet above the pin? I mean that's about a 8 foot break played over a tier and a half that nearly stopped (disastrously so) twice... and take that putt back to the hole dynamics themselves...that reverse camber slicing fairway across a shallow angle requiring an uphill draw...the fact of where Woods ended up requiring that surgical lag putt is itself proof of the holes essential worth and character...yes it's not the old-timey period piece of the first boomerang green, but it is one hell of a hole and yes, again, one that if I found on a course anywhere I would be remembering and reporting as soo nas I got unpacked from the trip...
The new tee and realigned features on #5... as a matter of Masters play, I loved watchign them tackle this newer longer version...we constantly complain that the pros never have to play long clubs to tackle two shot holes, well...here it is folks... 4 and 5 irons...Kuchar hitting hybrids and all sorts of bailouts and up and down strategies abound on this hole... For everyday/emmebr play and architectural leadership...c'mon, from either 440 or 490 this is a brilliant half-par hole for us mortals...a hole I'd hit in two about 1 in 8x and scramble for my 4 each and everytime, but feel just fine about making a tap-in 5, trying not to three jack for a 6...and yes, maybe once or twice a year I make a three...what's so bad about that? Just because ANGC hosts a major tournament, I'm not thinking they are leading GCA down some inflated pied pipers path by buying up new land and droppign a tee back there...for the pros it was a true obstacle hole, and one that they could only solve with excellent play and had to deal with (like Woods bogeying all four rounds) theiur own emotions about its envelope pushing realities....
The second cut... I knwo its not original and combined with the imposed tre plantings on 7, 11, 13, 15 and 17 it seems to destroy an original sense of width that is supposed to be in the bones of Mackenzie/Jones' intentions, but as a matter of elite tournament play, it seems a measured and apt variable for both the acuuracy off the tee to avoid it, and the judgement necessary to play precise shots out of it... and as a physical factor, it is much more gentle an imposition or compromise of Mackenzie's values than the truly artifical penal cabbage that destroys USGA courses most every year... again I'm not dismissing the compromise of the original intent, but we also must face the fact this course now more exists for the pros to exhibiut their skills, not for us average players to have 80 yard wide places to make our miss... even so, you could play shots out of it without a sideways wedge, would not be looking for errant shots in it and breakign our wrists to advance it towards the target... as compromises go, it's acceptable to me...
The trees on 7, 11, 13, 15 and 17... I'm on record as thinking the 7th hole is the only one which has been disfigured well beyond any original sense and so the last decades of plantings left and right, turning the hole into a bowling alley as simply one more element of the poor biographical treatment of the hole...when it comes to 11, I am starting to think (given all the visits from Tiger and others down to the end of the new tree line, leavign a mostly clear shot) that the trees are not even doing what the committee hopes and are instead punishing a slight/right miss much more ferociously and capriouscly than the big misses I saw down there thsi week (and goign back to 2010 in Phil's winnign round)... it seems to me they shoudl thin out the ones nearest the fairway and re-plant them deep and further down the current woodline to shut off that bombers relief...if that's the whole diea of planting them. Specificvally on this 11th hole, I have always fel that the since the first teeing grounds were abandoned by the tournament, the Masters committee has been trying to restore the original dogleg character of 1930s-40s play of the hole (which also had a center-line Principals nose at the original dogleg turn), and the only way to do is to pinch those trees in that formation as the tee moved back and back...440...455...485...495...505 in the last 25 years.
Trees on 13: While I confess missing the old 485 yard character of the 13th tee shot (if you have old Masters on video/YouTube, look at how much that tee shot has been visually altered from 15+ years ago), I have to acknowledge that today's pros tee balls can leave only a 7 or 8 iron for many of them (Woods had 161 to that rare -for Sunday - front left hole) and as a matter of viewing the tournament or bringing the brilliant risks of Mackenzies design into Masters focus, SOMETHING is required to put a premium on putting acccuracy to bear on that tee ball, especially when many of them can still have a go of it from around the pine straw and second cut...so while I miss the old look and the old realities, I have to concede that the translation to contemporary Masters play must have some features that are imposed artifically...perhaps someday they'' conisder another type of strategic hazard in lieu of the pinched trees...a large center bunker or a a duo at the top of the dogleg...but 13 wouldn't be 13 anymore if there wasn't somethign to restrain the modern elite tee shot.
Trees on 15/17... I've talked plenty...why don;t soem of you tell me what's so good, bad or otherwise on these.
cheers vk