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There are very few things in life that live up to expectations and build up. Especially in today’s world where everything from the absurd to the real McCoy is built up to unbelievable levels to get some attention in our 24 hour, short term memory, news cycle.

When something lives up to expectations, though, it’s a wonderfully pleasant surprise. Such an occurrence befell me on Monday when I had the chance to visit Augusta National Golf Course for a Monday practice round for this week’s upcoming Masters Tournament, for which I’m very grateful for the ticket from my Aunt and Uncle.

It’s a place that I am intimately familiar with, yet until Monday, I had never been there. Or at least been there in person – in my mind’s eye, I’ve played that course a hundred times. Many times over a regular golf shot, I will picture myself on the 12th tee at Augusta National striking a perfect 7-iron and landing just a few feet from the hole. The mental picture would help me focus on the shot at hand and give me a positive swing thought.

As a kid, I would dream of walking up the 18th green – hat in hand, enjoying a two shot lead and certain victory. The green jacket would soon slip over my shoulders. I imagine nearly every golfer imagines themselves in that position – even to this day – even if they’d never admit it in public.

Augusta National Golf Course is a fairy tale – a golfer’s Disney World. We know that what we’re seeing isn’t “real”, that the real world doesn’t have this kind of perfection.

But Augusta lives up to every expectation you have of the place. The silliness of it all suddenly becomes not so silly when you walk through the gates. In fact, they do have Pimento Cheese sandwiches and they do cost just $1.50 and they are wrapped in a green bag. Amen corner is stunningly beautiful and being able to take in all three holes with the turn of the head is a bit surreal – you just can’t possibly believe that this place you’ve seen a hundred times on TV really does exist. And yet there I was, taking in the wonderful sights, sounds and smells – yes smells – of Augusta National.

My favorite hole is the 13th – a short (by pro standards) par five of 510 yards. The name of the hole is Azalea and for good reason because nearly 1,500 Azaleas call this hole home. It’s a great, strategic par five. Many of my fellow students of golf course architecture would disagree with me. They will say that the 13th is a penal hole because there is a forced carry over water on the hole. Again, we’re talking about a course designed and created for the best golfers in the world. The decision to lay up or go for the green can make or break a round. There’s a legitimate shot at an eagle 3 is real, but so is a bogey 6.

While many critique the changes to the course – and the criticism is at least deserved for the absurd number of trees added to the place – once you’re there, you realize just how special this place really is. Many people who are passionate students of golf course architecture could go there and get caught up analyzing how changes have “ruined” the golf course. Not me – I could only appreciate the beauty and the ambiance. Augusta National isn’t a real golf course anyway. The perfect fairways, the unrealistic green speeds, the landscaping and a major golf tournament every year is all out of the league of every other golf course in America, so to try and critique the course for its changes is pointless.

Some of the things that really caught me by surprise were how open the course is. The openness actually leads to more intimacy, which may seem the exact opposite of what you would expect. Being able to see across the golf course is really neat, which is why I don’t particularly care for the addition of the trees on 11, 15 and several other holes. Getting to see the famous greens of Augusta up close really gives you a new appreciation for how undulating, difficult and fast they are. There’s a lot of bamboo on the course – used as a screening in many areas. I know it’s an effective screening plant, but I don’t really care for the look of it in this setting.

The golf course is set up so that a player really knows his options off the tee. The simplicity of the course makes it a rather straight forward challenge. There is no rough on the course, there are few bunkers and the greens are anything but subtle. You either execute a perfect golf shot or pay the price. The luck of the draw with a good or bad lie in the rough is eliminated. For this reason, that is why I think the Masters is a real national championship rather than the gimmicky US Open. You could make the case that the greens are a bit “gimmicky” – and certain pin positions certainly are. However, if you’re smart (and good) enough to put the ball in the correct position, a par is a very attainable score on every hole for the world’s best golfers. If you attack a pin position that’s in a tight spot, you’re gambling. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose. Just remember, the odds are always in the house’s favor.

Thursday the Masters will begin for the 70th time. I’ve always looked forward to the golf tournament, but this year, I’m fortunate enough to have a wonderful new perspective on the golf course.

“My sense is that they’ve widened the fairways a little bit this year,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “But that sight” — he motioned toward the first and ninth fairways below us, both lined by the darker-green second cut — “is still a little unpalatable to my eyes.”

To Mr. Crenshaw, the second cut is unnecessary given the other many strategic challenges that Augusta poses, and given that the founding designers, Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie, chose not to grow deeper grass near the fairways. They took their design philosophy in part from the strategic but roughless St. Andrews links in Scotland.

“There’s no question that Augusta National and the other courses in the world need to do something because the equipment has got away from us,” he said, referring to the increased distance that the top players in the world are hitting the ball these days. But the second cut takes away some of the angles into the greens that strategically inclined players like to play. “There are many ways around this course. It was designed to make you think,” he said.

Ben’s being very kind and sticking to just the topic at hand with regards to what has taken away some of the angles into the greens. The club claims that the rough imposes a one-half stroke penalty. Apparently, they think that the rough is imposing that penalty and that were the rough not there, the penalty would be less.

Could they be more wrong? First, the penalty is not because of the rough – it’s because of an improper angle to the green. Second, the rough actually prevents a number of balls from finding a far more imposing penalty – having to hit from pine straw between trees.

Ah – but the club has realized this to a point and has added MORE trees because the rough isn’t, apparently, penalty enough. So the corridors are getting tighter and the rough is coming in further (from zero). And that means that founder Bobby Jones’ and architect Alister MacKenzie’s philosophy of having the course be in “the spirit of St. Andrews” gets more and more bastardized each year.

Each year we hear more and more about how dull and boring the Masters is – how the roars are gone. How the course has gone from anticipation of a charge to anticipation of a train wreck. That more trees were added or bunkers widened. That the rough is a little tighter or a little longer. With each tweak, Augusta loses a little more of itself and, by their symbiotic relationship, golf loses a little more of itself.

Perhaps it’s just coincidence that Dye’s wife, Alice, last week sent a congratulatory note to Billy Payne, the freshman chair of Augusta National GC. In the letter, Alice included a quotation from Gene Sarazen that she had found in an old issue of Golf World. Wrote the Squire: “When the greens are soft, anyone can play. If they’re hard, the cream rises to the top.”

“I don’t know where she finds these things,” Pete said, laughing. “It sure sounds about right, though. I built [Sawgrass] to be firm and fast, which is how it played at the start.”

I’ll be attending a practice round again this year at Augusta National Golf Club for the 2007 edition of the Masters. Below is a piece meal blog that I’ve been working on for the better part of two weeks.

March 15, 2007

The Masters to me, like many folks who love golf, is by far the most entertaining and exciting sporting event of the year. However, I fear that may change sooner rather than later. And it’s all about the course changes. While the great courses are removing trees, Augusta is adding more and making holes that used to be interesting, boring.

Brad Klein talks about Augusta’s fall from grace – down to the 10th best course in the country.

It’s sad, because after walking the course, I just can’t believe how good the routing of the course is. I’ve walked or played a lot of courses that are considered “great”, but nothing I’ve been on tops Augusta’s routing.

The sad part is that it is being ruined by tree planting and course changes. I can’t tell you how ugly and out of character the trees to the right of 11 are.

I’ll be making a return to trip to Augusta this year – and I know I’ll still be in awe of the place. But I fear for the future of the course. As courses like Oakmont become better with the removal of trees that restore the original sight lines and options, Augusta is going to opposite way. Why? Hootie said because he wants to restore the “shot values” that Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie originally designed. I’ve read enough about both men to know they’d be spinning in their graves at what’s happened to their course.

So what is the solution – how do we go about getting the emphasis away from being concerned over the winning score’s relation to par? Let’s be honest – the changes at Augusta aren’t being done to restore shot values – it’s the fear of the course becoming embarrassingly easy for the pros.

In my opinion, there are two solutions:

1. Play a tournament ball. Force all players to use the same ball that is rolled back to pre-1995 technology.
2. Get rid of the score relative to par and simply make scoring by total strokes.

Then get rid of the trees. Of all the changes at Augusta, the addition of trees to 7, 11, 15 and 17 are really the only ones that bother me. (Well, that and the “second cut”.) Remove the trees and second cut and Augusta can not only regain it’s top 3 ranking, it can become the exciting and interesting course that Jones and MacKenzie intended to be.

March 23, 2007

When I say “save Augusta”, I’m talking about saving it from itself. Keeping Fazio from totally destroying what was once a highly unique inland course. Now, as Geoff Shackelford put it so well, it looks like any other golf course you’d see when you’re flying into O’Hare.

March 24, 2007

Well, right on cue, from Tim Rosaforte in this week’s (3/23/07) Golf World:

If Billy Payne wants to “Tigerproof” Augusta National GC, he shouldn’t lengthen the course as Hootie Johnson did, he should shorten it and change the 13th and 15th holes from par 5s to par 4s.

First, let’s define “Tigerproof”: There is not such thing.

But consider for one second the 13th and 15th holes at Augusta as par 4s – and even worse still – shortening them. How disastrous would this be? This is EXACTLY why I’m advocating either doing away with scoring relative to par (If you don’t think it’s a big deal – you’re wrong. Check out “Making the conversion” in the March 23rd edition of Golf World, also by Rosaforte.) or, better still, going to a tournament ball.

The 13th at Augusta is arguably the best golf hole in the world – and, without a doubt, in professional tournament play. The 15th is a very good par 5 coming at an important time in the tournament – it provides for miracle comebacks (1998, final round, Fred Couples) and signs death warrants with eerie regularity. Converting either of these holes into par 4s would suck the life out of the Masters. It would have ZERO impact on Tiger Woods. It is drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa – only worse.

I certainly hope that Rosaforte was being flippant with his comment, but I know he wasn’t. To suggest the ultimate disgracing of Augusta National, after all it has been nearly pockmarked to death already, shows a total lack of understanding of why Augusta National and the Masters is golf’s best tournament at best and zero knowledge of the game of golf at worst.

March 27, 2007

Geoff Ogilvy, the winner of the 2006 US Open, is probably the most interesting golfer to come along in some time. He continues to provide interesting and frank commentary on a number of subjects related to golf – he’s a guy who “gets it”.

You don’t need an array of shots any more, and that’s not good for spectators. Who wants to watch us drive into the rough, chip out to 80 yards, and try to get up and down? There is no excitement in that, no imagination or strategy. One day, somebody will realise that the score relative to par does not reflect the quality of a golf tournament.

March 28, 2007

The April 2007 edition of “Links” magazine’s (which isn’t online yet) cover story is “What’s Next: A new leader, future champions, architects’ ideas for course changes”. The focus is on what changes architects would make to Augusta National to restore MacKenzie and Jones’ original design philosophy to ANGC. The magazine features an article written by Geoff Shackelford – which means it’s excellent – titled “Masters Plan” and has many excellent tidbits.

A few highlights:

Great golf courses may be considered works of art, but their owners hardly treat them as such. While adding even a single bruch stroke to the Mona Lisa or building another Taj Mahal would be considered unthinkable, their counterparts in golf are constantly undergoing revisions, redesigns and restorations.

…most of the architects polled recommenced that instead of changing the course, the Masters should develop a tournament ball to prevent future obsolescence.

Augusta National’s recent installation of the “second cut” along with liberal pine-tree planting led all of the architects we questioned to unanimously recommend that the club restore the design to the wider, less cluttered look that could be found during Tiger Woods’ 1997 victory.

Mike Clayton, a former Tom Doak associate, berated the addition of trees to 11 and 15. The money quote:

The holes are harder, but are they better?

The magazine also features drawings from four architects on changes to the course in the article titled, “Drawing Interest”. Below are my thoughts and grades on what the architects suggested:

Michael Benkusky: Benkusky suggests restoring the bunkers to the original MacKenzie style (ala the not in play bunker at the 10th), widening the fairways and pine straw areas, additional mounding and larger, lobed greens. All excellent suggestions.

Mike DeVries: DeVries suggests only changes to the 11th and it doesn’t include removal of the newly planted trees. Rather, he suggests adding more trees, bringing Rae’s Creek more into play behind the green, reconfiguring the green and greenside bunker to a larger, more irregular shape. The addition of still more trees to the 11th is absurd. His suggestion to move the creek into play is a good one – but the way he lays it out in his drawing actually shows little change to where Rae’s Creek currently is located. The irregular shaped green and bunker are nice, but are purely aesthetic changes that really don’t add anything to the strategic interest of the hole.

Kelly Blake Moran: Moran suggests changes to the 11th and 15th. On the 11th, he removes all of the trees that have been added and then some. He also adds a bunker to the middle of the fairway, reconfigures the creek to bring it into play (in the correct fashion), and expands the green adding more pin placements. Here’s the really cool part (I don’t know if he knew this or not), the 11th actually had a bunker in the middle of the fairway as late as WWII, so he’s actually restoring a bunker that Bobby Jones put in the original design. The 15th sees similar changes to the 11th, except he returns the strategic value of the trees that existed at the 15th prior to the tree nursery being added. He also connects the pond in front of the 15th to the pond in front of the 16th. Moran’s suggestions are excellent and exactly what the good Doctor would have ordered.

David Esler: Esler’s only suggestion was restoration of the bunkers to rugged edges and darker sand. Both good ideas, but relatively unimaginative.

Hopefully these articles will be online soon.

(Image Credit: EarthGolf)