With the Masters coming up, here is a great link on the changes to the course over the years, mostly in response to the changing gear…
http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-courses/georgia/augusta-changes
Anyone heading there this year? any stories from ABS members?
I am going to go down Tuesday & Wednesday with my camera to get some footage and meet up with Doug Sanders
For those that haven’t seen it I have a video from my practice rounds there when I played the tournament in 1998.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcGddjGevk[/youtube]
Just finished dinner and sitting down with a cupcake and coffee and seeing this. AWESOME! 
For you, what is the most intimidating shot out there to pull the trigger on Sunday.
RR
Every shot out there is a battle based on pin positions.
The course is really not that difficult on the tee shots…sticking approaches close can be a tougher task.
Some holes you really have to suck it up and fire away from the flags and use the slopes or have a 20 footer uphill or from the safe area of the green.
The difficulty of the greens really make the course. minimizing mistakes by being over aggressive is a good tactic
The par 5’s 13 & 15 are a bit less dramatic now (depending on the weather) as many just lay up because they were both lengthened
and take their chance at getting up and down.
I guess if you haven’t been there the huge thing I noticed is just how hilly the entire course really is…TV doesn’t do it justice as to
the huge elevation changes.
Some greens are quite small also in depth such as 7 and 15…over the back of 15 is an uphill chip from a tight lie
with the green running away towards the water…lots of little finesse things that are hard to really fathom from TV or even from the gallery.
I would look at hole 17 this year as the pivotal hole…someone will bogey that to lose…It is much tougher tee shot with the extra trees planted
The course really takes a great distance control with your iron approaches…to be in the right spot for a good birdie attempt or a certain bogey
The only other tough shot is HISTORY…
Everyone knows what happened on what hole and when and where at past Masters that spelled success or defeat…forgetting all that whilst out there takes a certain special mettle to succeed and come through at the end.
A friend of mine played there years ago and said also that the course was really not as difficult as he imagined beforehand…except for the greens. He said they were the most difficult things he had ever played on.
Years ago in some golf magazine there was an article that centered on the elevation changes at Augusta. The article used pictures of the course and, as I recall, diagrams alongside the pictures showing ground level compared to the actual height of the hole.
For example, I don’t recall which hole it was, but I think the green had a back to front slope of maybe 10-12 feet. I remember being wide eyed when I read the article.
Thanks Two…great video. Can’t imagine what it would be like to play with Floyd…always liked the swashbuckler a lot. 
Fantastic video. TM if you could would you describe what it was like on the first tee Thursday your first Masters and a few shots if you’ve ever had them during the tournament? Thanks in advance.
Going for it on #2 with the pin left or front right
Anything left of #8 green
Back bunker or anywhere long left to a right pin on #12
THAT chip shot from the downslope left on #13
Lastly what the 2nd shot really looks like on 17 and how to play into the different pins
Some of these shots look so hard and so treacherous I can’t even imagine trying to play them in a nassau let alone a major.
I’ve been there twice.
For anybody who has never gone, if you ever get the opportunity…even if it’s a bit of a task and a little more money than you want to spend (the actual tix don’t cost much, it’s the travel and expenses)…it is well worth it. You will not be disappointed.
It’s one of those few things in life that is extremely hyped and manages to still exceed expectations. Like the first time you ever go to Vegas or Tokyo or probably what I imagine it would have been like to see Ben Hogan or Ted Williams to play in person or to hang around with Muhammad Ali or Babe Ruth.
What’s crazy about Augusta is that immediately when you get there, it doesn’t feel like a golf course. It just feels bigger and ‘different.’ Size wise, it feels more like a gigantic state park and not a golf course. Then when you step onto the course, it’s so incredibly manicured that it doesn’t quite feel like a state park either. Probably the closest thing I can relate it to is the Vanderbilt Estates…although much better manicured.
The second time I went was on the Monday practice round. I couldn’t believe how green it was. I would go off into some nook in the woods and anywhere were there was supposed to be grass…there was grass. Not a single patch of dirt.
The thing about Augusta is it’s well worth making it there even if you don’t like golf. You’ll never see an environment like this in your entire life. One more neat thing is that everything there is relatively cheap. $2 sandwhiches, $12 visors, $25 jackets, etc. While I don’t like how the course has become more of a bomb-n-gouge course, it’s still a magnificent experience that every serious golfer should get to behold once in their life.
3JACK
Nice link, OP!
It looks to me like the flat swinging “grand masters” of the good old days played to fairways 3 times wider than today and without any trees on the sides. Lenght aside, when I compare the 50’s and today’s layout, I must think that maybe time, memories and stories have been a bit too kind to the LEGENDARY ballstrikers of the past, who never miss a fairway.
Just a thought…
Don’t know if I posted this before. I might have but I have so many posts I can’t remember one from the other…maybe that’s a bad sign of something.
Anyway, I have a running fantasy of sorts. While you read this think of the song Mission Impossible in your heads. The Rat will one day go on a mission.
My plan is to go to the city of Augusta about two weeks prior to my caper. I will thoroughly scout the city and terrain, learn the timing of the city police patrols, absorb anything that could be to my advantage, including planning my get-a-away route with rat-like precision…if there is such a thing!
And when everything is just right…sneak onto the course with a couple golf balls and one telescoping iron and play some real golf in the moonlight. Gotta travel light! 
Told Mall Rat that since I’ve never been arrested before, and know how courts work, maybe I can get lucky and get community service. “Your honor…can I work the next tournament making cheese sandwiches?..it will be a win-win.”
The 1st tee shot is a bit nerve racking obviously, but I had waited for that moment forever and felt pretty good. Ripped a drive up the left side of fairway. Hit a 7 iron in to about 8 feet and holed it…nice birdie start.
The 2nd hole wasn’t as long when I played it. I hit a 3 wood from the tee (that is my drawing club) and got it way down and only had a 6 iron to the green.
That is the sort of hole that while you want to play a perfect shot it is better to err on the better side of judgment and hit it left if pin is rightish… and right if pin is left side. It’s a huge green with plenty to work with if you do that percentage play. Shortsiding yourself is a tough par then let alone a birdie
Thankfully I never went over there but it is not good. Those mounds are huge on that side. I think that’s the type of green where if you definitely can’t get there then a lay up to the throat of the fairway for a good look straight up the green is ideal.
Didn’t go there either!! I actually hit a 7 iron all rounds into the heart of the green. It is a shallow green, middle of green is perfect. i didn’t really get tricked by the winds any day I played it so I myself feel the difficulty of the hole is over rated but of course we have seen disasters there over the years
Yeah, that didn’t look promising either…downhill lie to an uphill plateau with the green running away…I hit 3 wood from the tee and drew it around the corner. Hit 5 iron in each day and 2 putted for birdies.
The green is actually much smaller than it appears on tv. I think the right pin is a good one to go attack. If you miss a bit right it is a basic chip or putt uphill. The only real bad spot on that hole is long, and I mean not just over the green but even anywhere past flag high. It leaves a treacherous downhill sloping chip or approach putt that many a person has gone whistling 10-12 feet by with
Players just won’t win there unless you have a great nerve with your short game that week. The greens are unbelievably difficult, even the flatter ones because they are fast and the putts still have gradual breaks that can get away from you.
A hole like the 3rd is short and unassuming but the pitch shot to the left pin is diabolical. Too far you are dead and will chip it back the other side and off the green and short rolls backwards about 25 yards into the valley of death, where up and down is almost non existent. You pretty much have an 8 foot landing circle which you have to combine with the correct amount of spin. Tough under rated hole
Thanks for posting this TM - while watching your video i thought how unreal the roll of the ball was on the greens, especially downhill - it just never seemed to stop. I´m sure that can be nervewrecking!
range Rat…are you sure you haven’t jumped the gun and gone to Augusta early?..snipped today from Shackelford site
Well sounds to me that the culprits were garden variety rodents and not pure-bred rats…big difference!
But maybe unknowingly they have left a trail to examine.
Hey Two, a very long time ago a golf magazine, I think it might have been Digest, had an article around this time of year which told the story of all the old time caddies that worked Augusta. It told about where they lived in the city, and had some great additional story lines as I recall.
Any chance you have that article for posting.
RR,
Don’t think I have an article about that…but you never know what is in the storage box…one day may run across it or something similar.
I knew Carl Jackson well from playing out on tour. He was an Augusta caddie and always caddied for Crenshaw at Augusta…Crensahw had his own regular tour caddie (Lyn Strickler) but always used Carl in The Masters…Carl ventured out on tour for a while caddying for a few other guys in the regular events, real nice humble guy
Looking out my back door. Azaleas getting ready. Masters on my mind.
Damn Eagle…you’re killing me up here. What a great shot of your yard.
Do you have a pair of white bib overalls that you wear when manicuring your lawn? 
It will be great to have Bradley discussing Augusta with us all this coming week. Having someone who has not only played the golf course, but actually
PLAYED IN THE MASTERS couple of times I might add.
You don’t have to listen to my weeping violin story how my invitation was snatched from me on the 18th green at North Shore CC in 1983. 
Could be time to take the last of the 8/1 Phil by the look of it… 8 top 5’s in the last 10 years at Augusta & course record today at Firestone - coming to the boil nicely