Augusta has no plans to shorten the course
AUGUSTA, GA. Change is constant at Augusta National Golf Club. Holes are reimagined on the regular. Greens are resurfaced with nary a trace. But when 2000 Masters champion Vijay Singh recently suggested the club add 10 or 15 yards to the most famous hole on the course — the 155-yard par-three 12th over Rae’s Creek — the idea did not go over well with club chairman Fred Ridley.
“I would say with a hundred per cent certainty that it would not be lengthened during my tenure,” Ridley said. “That’s almost like asking, you know, can we touch up the Mona Lisa a little bit? I mean, I think that the 12th hole at Augusta is the most iconic par three in the world. It has been, and I won’t say it always will be, but I think it always will be.”
That’s not to say Augusta National has ever been averse to lengthening holes. The course was 6,900 yards for decades until a guy named Tiger Woods showed up in the late 1990s and “Tiger-proofing,” as it was known, became a thing.
After the most recent supersizing — a 10-yard addition to the par-five second hole is new this year — the place tips out around 7,600 yards. But for all of the club’s well-documented lust for abutting real estate, even Augusta National has its limits. Ridley said the club is supporting the proposed rollback of the golf ball slated to begin in 2028. The idea is to take today’s long hitter — someone who drives it, say, 320 yards — and cut five per cent off the distance.
“That’s not insignificant,” he said. Ridley expressed concern that, no matter what happens to the ball, continuing advances in club technology and player training have the potential to offset any rollback. In other words, an imminent shortening of the course isn’t expected.
“What we found … over the years is that we lengthen the golf course, everybody says it’s really long, and then two or three years later it’s not so really long,” Ridley said.
“I don’t believe that we will start building new tees closer to the greens. It’s a possibility, I suppose, but I doubt it.”
Fowler takes on the curse
Rickie Fowler won Wednesday’s Par 3 contest, going 5-under for the nine-hole event. You know what that means: Don’t bet on Fowler to win the green jacket. Nobody who has won the Par 3 contest in the same week ever has.
That doesn’t seem to take away from the fun of the event, where plenty of the competitors allow their accompanying caddies — generally their kids or grandkids, or friends’ kids — to hit a putt or take a swing. The standout stand-in at Wednesday’s contest was Dakota Watson, the nine-year-old daughter of two-time champion Bubba Watson, who holed three putts to raucous applause.