The golfer Brendon Todd takes comfort in the memories of practice rounds he played at Augusta National Golf Club with José Maria Olazábal, who won the Masters Tournament in 1994 and 1999.
The course was shorter when Olazábal was dominant, and the difference between the longest hitters and everyone else wasn’t that large, Todd said Olazábal told him.
“He said everyone hit the ball the same distance, and it was shorter back then,” said Todd, who has played in three Masters tournaments. “It was about accuracy. It was a second-shot golf course. That’s still the case today.”
But there’s a big difference: The course is about 600 yards longer than it was 30 years ago and is now at 7,545 yards. And the big hitters absolutely bomb the ball today, which has the United States Golf Association considering changing how far golf balls fly. Todd, who ranks 203rd on driving distance on the PGA Tour this season, is not one of them.
“On the hardest holes — 1, 5, 17, 18 — the big hitters hit driver and 8-iron,” Todd said. “I hit driver and a 5- or 6-iron. That’s not coming down soft enough on the greens.”
The Masters lives in our imaginations as the only major venue that never changes. It’s an annual rite of spring to see azaleas bloom and pimento-cheese sandwiches in patrons’ hands, and anyone lucky enough to be invited to play — or even score a badge to watch — treats their time going around Augusta National with reverence.
This is the course that Dr. Alister MacKenzie, among the best Golden Age architects, and Bobby Jones, the great amateur champion, created to host an invitational tournament that would bring together the best golfers.
All of that is true, but the course itself is like a living entity, growing, shifting and changing regularly. It looks little today like it did when the first tournament was played in 1934.
No fewer than 10 architects have made changes to the course, and even more players and designers have consulted on modifications. These have included Perry Maxwell, credited with significant early changes; Jack Nicklaus, the six-time champion; and Tom Fazio, the current architect.
This year, all eyes are on the 35-yard-longer 13th hole, which over the years has had daring Sunday charges, like Phil Mickelson threading a shot through a stand of pine trees and on to the green as he mounted a charge to win his third Masters in 2010, as well as plenty of ignominious failures as balls dropped into Rae’s Creek in front of the green.
The par-5 hole may be too long for such excitement this year, at least for a majority of the field, which doesn’t drive the ball as far and accurately as Rory McIlroy.
“The length is a big thing,” said Matthew McClean, who received an invitation to play the Masters because he won the 2022 United States Mid-Amateur Golf Championship. “It’s long. The most underestimated thing about Augusta is how hard it is off the tee.”
McClean, an accomplished player from Northern Ireland, said he hit his drives around 290 to 300 yards on average. And that isn’t enough. “There’s a myth that you can just hammer a driver around the course,” he said. “That’s not true. It’s as demanding a golf course as I’ve played anywhere.”
The 13th hole has been lengthened to 545 yards. (It was 480 yards in the first playing of the tournament.) That doesn’t seem that long for the best players in the world, but it’s the angle of the hole that’s tricky. It bends around to the left with danger for the player who hits it too far to that side, but there is also trouble too far right.
That angle and the added distance this year may have players going for something less than the heroic shot that Mickelson made in 2010, preferring instead to hit something short of the famous creek and then pitching it over.
That’s strategic golf, and how Zach Johnson played Augusta’s par 5s en route to his Masters victory in 2007. His strategy was to hit wedges into every par 5 on the course. It was good enough for a two-shot victory over Tiger Woods, but it wasn’t the most exciting tournament in memory.
“I don’t think it’s better for the tournament,” said Jose Campra, a veteran caddie who has worked at the Masters for Ángel Cabrera, a past champion, and twice for Emiliano Grillo.
“We’re going to see only 5 percent of the players going for the green on 13. The rest are going to lay up,” he said, meaning they will have the ball land short of the creek so they can hit over it with their next shot.
That may be smart playing, but there’s also a feeling that it could reduce the excitement. Sundays at the Masters are known, after all, for the roars that ripple across the course, with every charge or failure.
“There’s going to be less risk-reward,” Campra said. “Before, we’d see a lot of guys hit it into the water on 13. That was excitement on Sunday. You used to have a lot of guys take it over the trees on 13 and go for it in two. But not a lot anymore because they can’t cover the distance.”
Bernhard Langer, a two-time Masters champion, called it his favorite hole.
“One of my luckiest golf shots in my career was on 13,” he said. “It was Saturday in 1985, and I was trying to hook my tee shot around the corner. It went kind of straight and ended up on the right edge of the fairway. I didn’t have a good lie. But I was 6 behind. I asked my caddie, ‘What do you think?’ He said 3-wood, but look at that lie. I said I know it’s not easy to get a 3-wood up and over Rae’s Creek.”
But Langer gave it a try. It didn’t look promising at first. “I hit it a little thin. It never got more than four feet off the ground. I said, no way it’s getting over. Back then, there used to be a little mound. It bounced over the creek onto the green. I made about a 60-footer for an eagle. I birdied the next hole and 15. I was only 2 behind going into Sunday.”
That would be Langer’s first Masters victory. But one thing he also recalled: He was never overpowering the course.
“When I used to be paired with Tiger, people said Tiger is intimidating, but I never felt that,” he said. “He was playing his game. I was playing my game. He out drove me by a huge number. I know I can’t hit it 325 yards.”
Many shorter hitters this week know that playing their own game is the key.
“Our game is our game, and our strengths are our strengths,” said Todd, who did not make it into this year’s tournament.
In 2021, when he made the cut and finished tied for 46th, he said he stuck to his strengths.
“I hit more fairways,” Todd said. “I put my long clubs in the center of the greens. I played the par 5s well with my wedges and made some birdies.”
“When we’re fortunate to play a course like Augusta, its practice and experience,” he added. “At the Masters, there are 20 to 25 guys who have played the last eight to 10 majors, and they have an experienced edge on you. That’s why you see the same class of players who do well.”