When Tiger won his historic first Masters, by 12 shots, in 1997, Augusta National was a 6,800-ish yard course with no rough.
It was the ultimate strategic (as opposed to penal) design - you could hit tee shots six different places on many holes and give yourself six different approaches to playing the hole. There was a huge, constant risk/reward element.
The year before Tiger made history, 1996, was the year Greg Norman blew a big lead and Nick Faldo reeled him in on Sunday. The signature shot of that final round was a high-pressure, high-stakes second shot to the par-5 13th by Faldo, off a hanging lie, that he just drilled, cold-blooded, into the middle of the green, hammering a nail in Norman’s coffin.
That shot was with a 3-iron. If it had been with a 7- or 8-iron, as anyone who plays golf knows, it wouldn’t have been nearly as hard or dangerous or impressive or dramatic. Those are the kind of shots that made Augusta National a great stage, and the Masters great theater and great television: dangerous, nervy, high-pressure shots, often over water, often with long irons or woods, especially on that iconic back nine, especially on Sunday. The kind of shots where laying up meant you weren’t serious about a green jacket, but going for it meant there could be a four-shot swing right here, right now, on this swing of the club.
But then the golf ball starting going too far, and the people who run golf did nothing to rein in the high-tech equipment that helped that happen, and Tiger and Phil were hitting 8-irons where Faldo hit a 3 and the Lords of Augusta faced the possibility of their course becoming a very stylish and historic museum piece.
Which is why the National is now nearly 7,500 yards long, with rough. But the greens are insane as ever. Winning the Masters has become about playing defense. The last two, and three of the last five, have been won by careful technicians with great wedge games (Mike Weir, Zack Johnson, Trevor Immelman).
Immelman also came up huge on 13 yesterday, but he did it by laying up and spinning an immaculate wedge in there to make birdie. Incredibly, Johnson won it last year without going for a par-5 in two a single time. That would have been unthinkable not so long ago.
If they still played the course Tiger played in 1997, he’d have won seven or eight Masters by now, it says here.
Tiger hit a wood into 15 yesterday. He wasn’t the only one. I wonder if the course isn’t long enough now, with the greens a constant diabolical element, to hold up to the world’s best without the rough. The Lords of Augusta have historically not been as horrified by low scores as the stuffed-shirts who run the U.S. Open.
Not to take a thing from Trevor Immelman, but it might be time to bring aggressiveness, and strategy, and some of Bobby Jones’ original vision for the golf course, back to the Masters.
