[Dunlop_White]

 Check out this vintage photo of hole 1 from the approach at ANGC.

[Brock Peyer]

What a great picture, I love it!!!

[RSLivingston_III]

Is there a bunker in the front right of the green?

[Dunlop_White]

Today, there is an opposing greenside bunker on the left. But notice the short fore-bunker to the left here. I guess the newly planted magnolias (that you see) eventually swallowed up that bunker. Today, those trees are huge!

[RSLivingston_III]

The shadowing in the front right looks to have the potential to be a bunker. The green seems sort of defenseless with just the one forward bunker on the left. Just wondering if anyone knew if there was more to the hole at the time of the photo.

[Chip Gaskins]

Check out this vintage photo of hole 1 from the approach at ANGC.

compared to today.  no left fairway bunker.  new left green side bunker.  less of a mound on the left of the green.

[John Kirk]

I'm not supposed to say this, but I like the modern configuration considerably better.  The new bunker is far more relevant.

[Andrew Bertram]

i agree with last comment, modern version far better. 1940 bunker not at all in play in modern game. Maybe for members but certainly not in the Masters.

[Bradley Anderson]

What's interesting to me about this photo is the cant of the original fairway appears to be toward the fore-bunker, but in the contemporary photo the fairway appears to be tilted the opposite way.

I get the impression that when a bunker is changed at Augusta, everything around it, in a very big circumference, is modified to make it fit in perfect harmony.

Can someone on here comment on how much the fairway contours have been manipulated over the years at Augusta?

[BCrosby]

Note that Dunlop's picture of the 1st at ANGC is after Perry Maxwell's changes to the hole. Those changes were made in '37/'38.

The original hole had a long waste bunker along the left side of the fw ending roughly where the Maxwell bunker was.

I suspect that the current look of the green and surrounds is from RTJ's changes in the late '40's. 

Bob

[Bruce Katona]

It appears in the old photo that if one chose to run their ball up to the green on the approach, the fore bunker might catch it from the cant of the fairway....the false front of the old green appears smaller than the newer version......hard to tell, but the old green appears to have really good internal movement

[TaylorA]

How would you like to have been the owner of that lovely positioned home behind the green?

By the way, the first green still has great contours and the position of the bunker when a pin is set on the left - particularly back left - is perfect. The first hole is among my favorites (1, 5, 9, 13, 14) at Augusta.

[Chuck Brown]

What was that building in the background of the old photo?  A structure on the west (?) side of Berckmanns Road?

[Edit. - I somehow missed Taylor's question right above my own.  As I think about it, was that old building located north of Washington and east of Berckmann's, where the parking area has been for many years... Site of new practice area?]

[Chip Gaskins]

at first clifford roberts thought about allowing houses to border the course.  that house was built early on by a prominent augusta family (according to the member i played with). 

the house was later purchased by the club and torn down.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ralph Livingston,

There wasn't a front right greenside bunker in the original general plan as layed out by Dr Alister MacKenzie.

A 1935 photo doesn't reveal one either.

Adam Clayman,

A photo of the original 16th green appears in "The Making of the Masters"
The green appears to be steeply sloped and would probably be unputtable in certain areas with today's stimp speeds.

[Chris_Clouser]

Bob,

I think the only changes Maxwell made to the hole was the elimination of the waste area to the left.  The bunker on the left was originally there or least that is the impression I get from Stan Byrdy's book on Augusta.

[Michael Whitaker]

What's interesting to me about this photo is the cant of the original fairway appears to be toward the fore-bunker, but in the contemporary photo the fairway appears to be tilted the opposite way.

It's the angle in the second photo that makes the fairway seems to slant to the right... it indeed has a slight lefthand tilt.

[Michael Whitaker]

Here's the current #1 from above...

[BCrosby]

Chris -

Agreed about the bunkers.

Somebody elevated the green above fw grade at some point post MacK. A couple of people have speculated that that PM did that. In the same spirit of the green elevation he did at the 7th. I'll dig out those references. No one seems to know for sure. It's possible it was RTJ. Do you have anything on PM doing that?

Bob

 

[RSLivingston_III]

Check out this vintage photo of hole 1 from the approach at ANGC.

If the forward left bunker was re-instated, would it potentially catch tee shots?

[Chip Gaskins]

Check out this vintage photo of hole 1 from the approach at ANGC.

If the forward left bunker was re-instated, would it potentially catch tee shots?

yes from the members tees....i had 75 yards to the back pin with my second shot.

no way from the masters tees (well after JB Holmes drove it over #17 at CP, who knows).  the masters tess had to be 75-85 yards back on #1.  matter of fact they moved the putting green over so they could stretch #1 back further.

[Chris_Clouser]

Bob,

The only change that I can trace back to Maxwell is the elimination of the waste bunker area.  I have nothing that indicates either way he did anything to the first green.  Perhaps, but it could be that the first is one of those holes that he touched that had very little done to it, unlike the 7th, 10th and a couple of others. 

[Dunlop_White]

Chris,

May have been Maxwell, considering that he had a propensity to perch greens above grade on plateaus -- as he did at Hole 7 and 10 at ANGC -- and most every greensite at Old Town.

[Dunlop_White]

This picture doesn't reveal the broad fairway width -- originally. The vantage point of this image is in front of the right fairway bunker. If golfers challenged the right fairway bunker, this is your view of the green. However, if golfers played safely to the far left of the fairway, the forebunker stood directly between them and the hole. That's how wide this fairway originally was.

[BCrosby]

I recently saw MacK's construction drawings for the 1st green. He wanted some wild contours around and in the green, including a little false front. Looking at Byrdy's picture of the green in 1934, most of that crazy contouring seems to have been built.

As Dunlop notes, given those contours, an approach from the left (the bail-out area) would have to deal with a green partially hidden by the fore bunker and a nasty mound left front of the green. Approaching from the right was clearly the way to come into the green.

An elegantly simple strategic hole. (Well, given the contouring, maybe not all that simple.)
 
By 1940, the green contours look like they have been toned down quite substantially. It also looks like the green has been elevated slightly.

These are just pictures and pictures can sometimes mislead, but something seems to have happened to the 1st green between '34 and '40.

Note that the fore bunker became a greenside bunker (moved about 30 yards) by '48, which must have been RTJ's doing.

Bob

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