Geoff Ogilvy - The Second Nine at Augusta National

of Augusta National. Today's episode will be all about the back nine, and if you missed it, be sure to check out yesterday's on the front nine. Without further ado, here's Jeff Ogilvie. I miss a green for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

maybe the hardest swing on the course for me. Down slope ball above your feet, five iron to a green that looks minuscule from up there. You're going down a pretty steep hill and it's such a beautiful environment. It's such a Ten is one of my favorite holes to play. It's a fun t shot. You're really trying to hit a really big draw, but if you don't, it's not the end of the world. You just get a really hard second shot. Every time I part ten, I was happy.

And that's another swing. You have to swing free on that second shot on ten because it makes you be careful but plays a little bit longer than it looks. The green looks tiny, the right bunkers definitely no guarantee, and left anything can happen when it bounces down left under the Amelia bushes.

patrons too. It's like it's a it's a brilliant place. I mean, ten is one of my favorite sort of environments to hit golf shots in it and play in the world. It's just a great feeling hole. But you're very happy to make part on ten and eleven clearly is it's.

I hadn't seen it in that gough digest right up where they have all the gain. It used to have a principal no center lane bunker. The tea used to be behind the tenth green. Yeah, and it was almost a dog leg to the right with a center bunker, so the narrow side being on the right to get the good angle to not have to come over the water. And then most people would end up going le after the bunker and then having to go across the water.

I mean that would probably be more interesting, but the scale and space isn't there for that now, you is, two short guys would drive it on the green from behind the tenth group now, so now it encourages you still to kind of drive it up the right. But really eleven, everyone's just trying to hit on the fairway because everyone just kind of wants to go thirty forty feet right of the pin two part and get out

of there. Eleven and twelve are really you would take four to three there every day and run to the thirteenth seat.

make you pay attention. Yeah, and it's incredibly quick from that's the low point of the course when everybody talks about like the grain or the slope or the pitch or everything breaks towards the red dot and there's all these theories about everything. Everything breaks towards eleventh green and the talk green. That's the low point. So that whole green is savage towards the pond on the left, So you're chipping uphill a little bit, not a lot, but

enough too a really steep downslope. And the real tricky thing at the Masters, and that's probably the spot where it's most evident, is the fringes are quite slow and the greens are very fast, so you really the best way to play is to just get your sixty out of fifty six and just get some spin on a little pitch and land it on the green and have it grab and bribble down. But that's a really scary shot, especially with the thin kind of grass or the short grass and the water past it.

I mean, I think it looked a little different than his bounce two or three times on that thing. It's harder to do that now, I think, especially in a wet weeak loves. It's one of those things you want to the safe players to bump it along the ground, but you can get that wrong because the fringe catches really fast. It's a bit like over the back of fifteen too. The fringe catches the ball really quick. And if you force that just a little bit and it

takes you want three bounces and it only takes two. Well, it's going to go straight in the pond. So that that and the shot from over the back of the fifteenth the two wed shots that will get your attention. They're really really tricky, but the whole forces you to hit it there almost it encourages you to hit it there. So because it kind of bail out, that's the bailout. I mean, you don't want hit in the pond because then you've got the drop zone over it. Oh you've got to go over the pond again.

and go in the water. So you can't go five yards short of the front edge right, which is really where you want to hit it. And it's like this course has got that everywhere that oh, this is where you want to go, but you can't. We're going to make you take this on. You have to take this on in some respect, even missing the grain to the right, you have to hit it deeper than you want, you

have to hit it further than you want. It's there's so many little suddle things like that out there that's incredible. And so that's the probably hit in the right trees. There's some gaps through there, and you can get it on the green, but you have to take it over those mounds. That are short right of the green, and if it goes over the mound the wrong way, it just runs into the water. So you end up you hit those guys who get it all the way out of the twelfth teet like they're just way out there

and people must be watching, what are they doing? But you can't risk that front right short of the green because it can go in the water.

That's and it's true, you have absolutely no clue where it's going from. The wind can whistle if it's coming from the right way, it can pump down the thirteenth fairway and there's a massive wall of trees behind twelve, so it seems to come down thirteenth fairway, it kind of around the bend and hit the trees and almost

bounce back towards the tee. So all day, if you look at your wind map or your compass in your yardish book, you know it's supposed to be down off the left or down off the right or whatever, but it actually one minute out of every three it can play into the wind because it's bouncing off that big wall of trees and it kind of holds up the ball. So you know that. So everyone has a theory about looking at the flag on eleven or wait till this

does that and then hit it. Then I haven't. I've said two or three days there two or three situations that were just like oh my god, I just what do I do? Because it's very easy to hit it in the bank over the back too, and the water is the ultimate miss because then you have to do it again, like we saw Jordan and historically lives a lot of people do that. So the right pin is tough and taking the wind out of the wind is

an element that has really made the whole famous. Probably but without that the genius, especially because most golf is the right handed in the short riders in the water and long left is over the green, and a right hander, when they miss it left, it goes long, and they miss it right it goes short.

on twelve. Well, if they're trying to play the smart play and push it, it's guaranteed to be in the water. But if you're trying to go to the pin somewhere near the pin and you pull it, you're going to be on that hill or over the back. And for a left handed I think it's fifty percent easier like a half shut at least. Yeah, because their pool goes along, so ams at them. Philip barbarraiment at the middle of the green. They pull it. It gets there and they

push it. It doesn't go long. So if there was no angle, if the t was twenty hours further the ride, or thirty yars further the ride, it wouldn't be much of a hole. It wouldn't be the hole it was. It'd be beautiful and famous and it'll be tricky, but it wouldn't have that kind of edge of.

and you're pretty much at the green every time. But If you don't, you've got long left, which is stressful, less stressful than the water, but it's and it just makes you nervous. Like it's a beautiful as I said ten eleven twelve, you just want to get to the thirteenth team at that point, like, just get me there,

no carnage. Maybe you're feeling it good and maybe you make a birdie through ten eleven twelve, whatever it's happened, you know you can do it, but it's definitely the part of the course that can ruin your day the.

you've come off twelve. Where there's the most beautiful noise in golf is when you make a put on twelve and there's that speed of sound gap, right, You've got that three seconds until you hear the cheers and the collapse. It's just fantastic. I mean, I don't know, there's something about it that's just really rare in golf, and it's just a nice feeling. So you're back on thirteen, you're tucked away, nobody can see you, and you're looking at the most beautiful t shirt of the world. So it's

like it's just a nice you're always on show. You're a goldfish at something like the Masters.

stands behind your put. There's one guy at the putting green and he walks around to stand right behind the line of your put to watch your part. And it's a perfectly fair thing for him to do, and and that's a great way to watch you put. But it's you notice that one guy. But you get to the ex Open, and I mean that would be a little different, but you're in the Masters and there's five thousand people on every hole. It's just a bit of a blur. It blends in and it's almost it's white noise. So

it's like the noise canceling headphones. It's almost you don't notice them as much.

noise canceling headphones effect. It's just you don't even notice it after a bit.

it looked like the sensible way to play it. And the the trouble really because it's once you've gone left once or twice, it spooks you for a long time about going left again. So your problem really is hitting it through the fairway because that really takes out wow.

Unless you get lucky in the pine straw, it brings in the risk, So I would try to hit kind of three woods with a decent draw, but give the trees a lot of air, Like the trees are very penal, and everything seems to bounce in the water from the trees every single time, or left of the water even

and that's just terrible. So I generally hit three wood, and I think I ended up hitting a few more drivers trying to get a little bit more aggressive, but I I wasn't really that great, or haven't been that great in big draws of drivers, so I kind of was willing to accept like a three or four on

under the green. I didn't really ever try to get much closer than that, because, as I said, you hit one left one time and you get so burnt by being left, and you just feel like you've wasted a shot or two and you've missed out on maybe the fun of shot on the course, which is the second shot that I used to give it a bit of air, and I used to block a few and then you'd be way out and you'd have to lay it up.

But at least that way you don't go left. So I would just try to sort of almost back for the three would and hit kind of a low, screaming hook.

The further away from the creek you are, the further from the green you are, the more the ball is above your feet, and the worse your angle into the green. And it's incredible how steeply or how much the ball

is above your feet on that second shot. I think it surprises everyone for the first time when they hit the second shot and thirteen they hit a nice drive up to the middle of fairway, maybe around the corner a little bit, and they've got this four or five iron, three iron, four iron, five iron with the ball legitimately six or eight inches above your feet, and that's really quite difficult.

and kind of the shortest carry. I mean, the carry to the front edge is probably thirty yards shorter than the carry to kind of the right edge of that back right pin. So you could that safe one where you always fell. Oh well, if I hit it straight, then I'll just miss the green left. But I can kind of make burdie over there. But you have to with the ball above your feet kind of hit a draw. And so you're hanging it over the long carry and you're hanging it over the water. And yeah, it's hard

to hit it high. And that shot is actually it doesn't even look at when you're standing there but the water in the creek runs quite significantly and quite fast, from the green towards rays creek, it runs back towards the teeth, so it's obviously quite uphill. A second shot. I actually can't remember we've got slopes in our books now but what it plays, but it would definitely play five ten yards longer than it measures just because of the hill. So you've got it's again like it is

all the way around the course. You've got this shot that all you want to do is hit a high fade, and all of the stances trying to give you as a low drawer.

the trees the creek on the left. It's the second shot. Yeah, that it just feels like you should be going down to the green, but you're actually still going quite significantly up to the green.

It's always in the shadows. Well, it's in the shadows from lunchtime onwards probably, So if you're.

up towards the flowers. It's quite a significant dip. And it's enough that it's extremely slow to put up because it's quite a steep little hill, and it's like putting up a steep, little slow hill through the fringe and then just ultra fast all the way to the water.

It's not where you want to be. It's clearly better than being in the water, and it's better than generally it's probably better than laying up even close to the creek, but it's still not really your favorite shot, especially if you're anywhere near the mix, because it's a Again, it's that that speed differential between fringe and green is so great that you want to run it through the fringe

to the safety of the putter. But it's a really hard one to get right with the putter, so you kind of end up going with the wedge and if you don't get any spin on it, you don't clip it right, you catch the slope wrong. You can be thirty feet below the hole, or you can hit chip it in the water pretty easy, or lea it down where your feet are, so it's you don't want to be down there. It's better than being right, but you don't want to be down there.

it's really fourteen and thirteen fairway. You can lay it up as close to the creek as you want, left, right, anywhere, and it's really quite easy to hit the middle of that green in three shots, but you're never going to

make four. So as soon as you try to make four or three, you're bring in the creek off the tee because the only the easier that it's relatively easy second shot if you're down near the creek around the corner, as I said, because it's that lie, the angle is better and you're closer to the green.

it's three or four. And as soon as you try to do that, that's when you bring in all the stress. And that's when it's a really anxiety building hole, right, because you have to hit two of the most high quality shots you have to hit anywhere to get that eagle part with all sorts of risk involved. When you really could just go bail out to the right, bailout to the right, have a relatively easy wedge with a big back stop to that Sunday pin, you can get

it within twenty feet every time. But you can't really do that when you were in the mix and the six in front of something. I mean even three or four in front isn't enough. Really, the situation in the tournament being six holes to play, you really have to take on again. It makes you, It encourages you to take on shots that you might not necessarily want to take on.

like kind of false fronts, if you like. That's really big and severe, and it's super high on the left, and it's almost like a three tier green from left to right. So it's really high on the left, really small little level on the left, the medium kind of level in the middle, and then quite a big level down the bottom. Right.

they did those two changes, it got longer. I think the T shop got a little bit easier with that, and the fact when they started cut the fairways back to the teeth, because I think in the old days, from what I hear is you had to hit a drawer to keep it on the fairway because the fairway camps very It's quite high on the left and low on the right. So anything with anything, whether it's straight or fade, is going to hit and bounce and run to the right. So now there's a little.

to spin into. But it went from like a hook three would I think in the old days to like just smash the driver and if you can draw it, it's definitely an advantage because again the higher on the left you get the flattery stances. So again it's a bit like thirteen in the closer on the inside of the dog leg you are the flattiest stance, and the higher up you are, so the shorter the second shot plays.

But there's trees on the left that you I think dust and carry them yesterday, but generally no one can get them massive trees and you kind of have to go around them. Have you hit them. They again Augusta trees, they always bounce towards the trouble. Right Augusta trees somehow make balls bounce into the trouble, not back onto the fairway. But it's I felt, a relatively simple t shot. If you as long as you were hitting a big phasee for a right hander and get it up there to

eight nine nine wirdge, you've hit a good one. And then the second shot is it changes every day with where the pin is. That famous kind of pin in the middle that they have on Sundays where anything within twenty or thirty feet left of it just goes at

it just rolls towards it. That's a really fun pin to hit at when you're in the middle of the fairway, but you can get it wrong because if you miss it two feet to the right of the pin, you're going to have a sixty foot from the bottom right of the green, and that's a part that might be the slowest part of Augusta. You gotta smash it, so you don't want to do that. You can't miss the green short. If you miss a green short, it's a

one in five up and down, maybe even more. And again it's a hole you want to hit a drawer into because you want the drawer to be holding on the slope when it lands, But the ball is so far below your feet on the second shot, it's really

difficult hit to draw, so you end up. I usually ended up having a ball that was moving left to right, so the first bounce or the spin is kind of checking to the right, which accentuates all the slope on the green, so it's It is certainly a birdie hole with a good drive, but it's certainly a second shot that requires as much attention as any other second shot, because if you can't, if you don't get it on the right level, you're going to have a really long

part or a really fast part. One O yether and you can have puts on that green that break twenty five feet from twenty five feet.

The biggest one Augusta by a long way, I mean heights. I mean it's probably only three feet, but it seems twelve feet above you right when you're short of that green and you have to smash the puts so hard and so far left of the hole because of all the break that it's as I said, it's probably a one in five, one in ten up and down from

short of the green, So everybody knows that. And when the balls below your feet and you end up kind of carving up a bit of a fade, it's very easy to miss it short of the green, so you're conscious of that.

right is generally short right. So if you can miss it to the long right, if you actually hit it straight or hit a draw pull one off, it's going to go long right, long left, and long left is a disaster. So again, it's just a very clever use of slope. Serendipitous, I think a little bit because you couldn't have built a different green there that you could only build a green that went high left to low right because the severity of the hill. But it just

it just worked. And there's some incredibly impossible pins that where you have maybe there's this kind of frontish left pin which isn't really front left, but it's front left of the usable green. It's probably twenty five on the green, but it's in the first eight feet of usable green on that high left side. And if it's maybe a six foot circle that you could get it close, and if you don't, you're going to be potentially one hundred

feet from the hole. If you miss at one foot right of that pin, you can potentially be not all the time, it can hang on that middle tier, but if it gets a bit of momentum off the very top tier, it goes down the middle tier and then down all the under the lower tier, and you can have one hundred foot And as I said, that's the slowest part of the Masters. And I think sometimes the slow parts are the Masters are the hard ones because you're so fearful of the one back if you smash.

foot ninety foot up two tiers up. I don't even know what to know ten percent kind of slow grade. It's incredible how hard you have to hit it, and it's really really hard to get yourself to hit it that hard because you just don't want that six foot on the way back, because the six four the way back you could potentially go back all the way down again.

infamous hall. I feel like just surviving it for four rounds.

Really you can just tee off because if you don't smash it, it's the hole you on the tee. You do everything you can to be able to go for it too, because as hard as that second shot is, and as much trouble as there with a second shot, getting it over the water in two on dry land is preferable to anything short of water. There is nothing

good short of the water. It's the hardest wedge in golf, so by a long stretch, I would say with the most train wrecks happen on the third shot generally, not the second shot or the drop after the second one goes in the water. That wedge is just beyond brutal. So you are very motivated to hit a good T shirt. And it was always never on the edge for me, but it was funny. It's one of those holes that in practice you're maybe not quite in tournament speed yet

because you're not the adrenaline isn't going and stuff. I always felt like I had two forty to the pin in practice. It's like, how do people go for this is ridiculous, and like you would go for it in practice because it doesn't matter, and hitting two irons and three irons and three woods even and it's just like

not the target for a three wood. But as the tournament comes on, usually by the fourteenth you've kind of pretty you're swinging it pretty hard and if you're feeling decent, you can't seem if I get it up there to two twenty like three four five iron kind of when you're playing really well, so you really really really want to. The most important thing of the day on fifteen is being able to get it on dry land for two over the pond, because it's, as I said, just the

complete nightmare of a pitch shot. And then when you get it on, it's a super fun second shot to pull off. Though it's similar to thirteen, and there's a lot of history involved in that because we've seen so many people hit the shot. And the pins on the right depends on the right are the easy pins. That Sunday pin on the right is the eagle pin. The I mean they've moved it. They've kind of dabbled around

with the Sunday pins. It's been a bit more in the middle of the green, and Sergio's was in the middle of the green a couple of years ago and that unbelievable Shotty hit. But that back right pin is certainly the green light pin. And you would go at that back right pin with almost any club if you could get it there. I think.

So the fairway on fifteen is relatively flat, but the green is really a lot, very very fast from right to left, and it's progressively shallower the further left you go on the green too, Like the back left hand side of the green seems to slope towards the back of the green a little bit down towards the water on sixteen, whereas the right hand side of the green seems a bit more receptive and a bit kind of into you. You can kind of stop a three on on the right hand side of the green on the

left hands tide of the green. It seems like you can't stop a wedge. So it's kind of I don't know how to describe that in words, but it's it's an uphill kind of it lands on an upslope on the right hand shake a potato chip. Yeah, it's got a little bit of a twist, in't it. Yeah. It's like it's it's an uphill put from the front right to the back right pin, and it's a downhill part from the front left to the back left pin. You know, So it's.

a bit more room on the green. But the further right you are on the fairway with that wed shot from one hundred yards or eighty yards, you are landing it on that pretty significant downslope of the green from right to left, and the first bounce is so big that if you land it anywhere near pin high, it's just one bounce over the back. And we've all seen that shot a lot, that wedge that lands next to the pin and just goes bounce over the back. So

you're off a downslope on that. As I said that that fairway grass that demands precision, I mean, it's not difficult, but it demands precision like it's unforgiving. It's an unforgiving light, especially with a wedge. So I initially was trying to lay it up on the right, and in two thousand and seven I laid it. It was that crazy, ridiculous Saturday when it was thirty four degrees and the year is Zach Johnson won and we're all shooting over par.

But I think I was somewhat in the mix, two or three behind, I think, with four holes to play on Saturday, and I wedged two in the water and I laid it up down the right and landed my sixty like on the front engine. It just spun off the greend of the water, and then I got stubborn and dropped it in the same spot, or maybe I walked up two yards or no, I didn't do that.

I think the Tiger Woods thing. I can't remember whatever I did, but I just did it again because the fear of that one bounce over the back is really there. And it's such a downslope, so your wedge comes.

You can hit a pitch that lands twenty or thirty feet kind of right of it, yeah, and kind of spins left because it comes back down the hill and you can get it, and it's a very receptive type. It's a safe way to play the shot. But from the right, it's it's really difficult. I mean, it's really difficult to describe unless you've been there. But every yard you go to the left, the more the more receptive the green gets because the more it kind of you're turning, it becomes on an upslope.

with a bit more flight. The green is quite deep on the right and really shallow on the left, so if you're at the left, you can kind of create more green depth by hitting it quite a lot right of the pin with all the depth and maybe use a bit of backspin to get it so you don't really have to risk landing it near the water when

you're pitching it from the left. But still it is I think if you asked guys in the field, if it wasn't the t shot on twelve, if they had to pitch into fifteen, would be most guys least favorite shot in the course of the one they're most trying to avoid. I mean, it's inevitable. Usually once in a week you're going to have to do it. In some weeks four times. I mean Zach Johnson did it four

times that year, which is outrageously good. In some years, it gets long and it's into the wind and guys are laying it up a lot, and that's when you see cartage. You guys backing the balls off the green all the time, And I guess people watching you're like, well, why these guys, Why don't these guys just hit it past the hole? But over the back is the toughest up and down of the masters probably, so it's you're damn if you do down. If you don't like it's

neither option was shorts clearly terminal and long is. I mean, Phil's got that shot, but not many. It's a really from one or two yards over the back of fifteen, it's doable, but it never stops one or two years over. It just keeps running down and ten yards over the green. You've got that thing that I've been kind of describing the whole time. Is that really really slow fringe because it's quite steep and the way they cut the grass and how fast the greens are, there's some massive speed

differential between the fringe and the green. So is it a one bouncer and check because if you go for two or three bounces, it generally doesn't get to the green or you've got to hit it so hard to skip it through for three bounces that you're risking it very easy to just blow it back into the water.

around there. The wind is very hard to get right or to trust.

the pin is left, you're right of the pin. No one really misses that left of the pin on fifteen when the pin's on the left because everyone's giving it air to the right. So if you're twenty feet right of the pin and ten yards over the green for that left pin, you've got a pitch. You've got that pitch where you've got to get the bounces right or do the fill super flop thing, and it's going to hit and break straight to the rights. It's a it's just a really hard shot.

and it ends up where Thursday's pin is. So those days are really fun. Friday and Saturday pins generally that front right on Friday and the background on Saturday excruciatingly difficult one. The front right one on both areas again maybe six twelve foot circles, maybe six foot from the hole on Friday to stay up there in a good spot, and if you don't, you're either down the hill or you miss the green in the right and just off

the right edge is okay for that Friday pin. That front right one and that front right bunk is not too bad. It's not great, it's not too bad, but generally you end up with that thirty forty foot er up the hill. And if the front right pin, if you're you've got to be careful not to miss it very much past pin high. If you're shorter pin high, that front right pin, it's a pretty much just a

straight bang up the hill. It's not incredibly difficult, but every yard you get past the pin left down the bottom tier putting with that front right one, the putt can break fifteen twenty feet. You've got to it's really kind of severe because now you're putting across the tier a little bit and the tear just sweeps it to the right, and it's really easy to just have it leave it back down and put it down to the front edge.

in ten two part. I would say, it's a part that would break twenty or thirty feet and the last fifteen twenty feet of it is straight down the hill. Yeah, really really tough, but you manage it because it's usually the front tee on Friday and it's like the nine nine or something, and if you're playing well, it sounds crazy to people, But if you're playing well in the masses and you're contending getting it within six or ten feet of the hole with a nine nine, isn't that outrageous?

Like a prospect? Now, the pin on the Saturday pin that Nicholas and seventy five pin, it is an incredibly small area. I mean anything left of the pin, anything is going down the hill to Sunday's pin. I don't know how many balls can land left of that and stay up. It's an amazingly slopey green and it's a really really small area. You can hit it right of

the pin and it'll stay there. But if you're hitting that right bunker, you're not going to make You're going to have to two part from forty feet for bogie.

sort of feeling. The only way you can really hit a great shot there onto those really small pins, to hit those really precise shots is to swing it free and loose, and it's hard to get into a free and loose mindset. When you know all the bad things that can have you get protective, and the protective swing usually goes short and it dribbles down the tier and then you've got this again, an incredibly slow part that

Nicholas up the hill and then seventy five part. You've got to hit it really, really hard, with the idea that you don't want to hit anywhere past the whole.

that is a really tough thing to do. Sixteen. It gives you a chance to make up for something you might have done on fifteen, and it gives you a chance to kind of solidify your advantage or continue your good stuff. And it's what a spectator hole. I mean that there couldn't be many better places to watch golf than sixteen on Sunday, the Masters, I mean, you're gonna have twenty five balls when they land you think might go in. Quite often, it seems the last ten years

there's been one or two hole in ones. I've been quite regularly. Every couple of years. It seems like we have a couple that's another one of those holes. It feels like they have that pin so dialed in that if they want hole in ones, they can almost orchestrate them almost they can move it four inches one four inches one way, or are the four inch one it doesn't go in four inches the other way that's the

one where it might go in. It's incredible. And then again, if you hit the smart shot and you can somewhat get it under the hole, it's a relatively easy part. But if you've had it pass the hole, it's just a part. Again. I mean, you can make the put break as much as you want. I mean Tiger's chip, so if you're on the back left edge of the green, you could hit it kind of straight with a bit of speed, or you can make the put break thirty feet if you wanted to. You know, it's just one

of those crazy situations. But what a hole and what an environment and the whole the whole setting there. It's just and that's the meat end of the business end of the tournament. That's usually when there's it's quite close to the fifteenth green, so you're very aware of what the people are doing on fifteen when you're playing sixteen and vice versa, and there's always action and activity.

You can't quite see it as clearly. You're very aware that if you let it go low, it's going to go six or eight feet past, even at no speed, very very to make the hole in one. To hit it really really close, you have to almost get it past the hole, off the tee to the right and have it come back towards it. But again, if you pull that a little bit, you're going to be long down where Tiger was or even at the back edge of the green, and you've got your You've got your work cut out just two punting.

it was visually less intimidating when it was gone. Again, relatively, I mean the trees on the right they got introduced at some point ninety eight, was it or two thousand and five.

interesting green. Over the back of the right hand side is completely terrible. So when the pins are on the right half of the green, you have to miss it short of the green or short of the pin. Yeah, And if the pins are on the left, you want to miss it past the hole. It's a it's a front to back green on the right, and it's a it's a back to front green on the right, and it's a front to back green on the left.

a really fast down slope. So a lot of people hit it in that front right bunker because they're just if you're between clubs, you have to pick the shorter one. You can't cruise on the longer one. You just can't because you just you can get it up and down from the front right. It's really difficult, but you can,

but you just basically can't from long right. So you'll see a lot of balls either in that front bunker for those right side pins or like running off that kind of falsy front on the extreme right of the green, and that's a relatively easy up and down, so it's it's all relative on the seventeenth hold the masters, but you can do it from there, and you don't really want to be on the left hand side of the green because that's one of the greens where the whole

raised creek is the low part of the course. Phenomenon is very evident. The put from the left hand side of seventeen to the right, it's it seems like an uphill part, but it's actually quite downhill. But at least it plays downhill because of the grain or the slope or raised creek or whatever it is. So you got that twenty foot of from thirty foot to forty foot from left that you feel like you have to bash, but you actually have to hit it quite a lot

softer than you think. And that's when it looks uphill. Your brain gets confused when it's downhill. Now it looks uphill, but it isn't really. It might be flat, it might not be downhill, but it's certainly not uphill as it looks.

is a really incredibly difficult, difficult green. I mean that back left pin I think they did it on Friday is a really fun pin because you can kind of filter things down in towards it, and you can miss it just over the green. You see a lot of guys will chip it in from just over the back.

The whole shots from just over the back. So the left pin short is bad, long is good, the right pin short is good, long as bad again, completely changing the way you approach the second shot just by moving the pin, which is again it happens all the way around the court.

it there. It's always difficult to miss it in the right spot.

kind of corridor and it's a tough T shot. But for me it was always one of my more comfortable T shots on the course because my miss is right, not left. My miss was always a kind of a week kind of drift to the right. If I didn't like really smash it, it would be not right, but drifting just kind of right.

stops on eighteen. So for me, I just aimed at the bunkers and smashed it as I could, and generally if I missed it, that would just drift off to the right middle of the fairway, and if I had it straight then it probably didn't get to the bunker. And I was fine. But the second shot I've found really difficult because again, so.

definitely not a draw T shirt. And the second shot I was found difficult because it's a really extreme upside. You're hitting it off and hitting it up a long hill. I mean, if it's one sixty, you got to the pin. It's playing one seventy five, like it's playing a lot longer than a measures and it's off up slopes. Again, my miss, particularly off upslopes. If I missed it, I missed it right. And so you miss it in that

right bunker, which is very rarely a good spot. I mean, it's okay to the back right pin, oh, that kind of the back pins, but to that sunday pin, that right bunker, it seems like it would be the miss. But it's a really, really tough shot.

up and down from over the back on eighteen. They're into that back then, but left of the green on eighteen runs down into the patrons, and that's an awful kind of spot to be and that right bunker. As I said, it's no guarantee you look off a good lie. If you could find a bit of an upslope and a good lie, it would be relatively simple bunker shot for most two guys to get it up and down from that right bunker. But you generally don't end up on the upslope, but a really perfect lie you end

up on the flat or a downslope. And it's the last hole we've be around at the Masters, and you really just want to get in and there's a bunch of people around, and that's not really the shot you love. But again that front pin on eighteen that we've historically seen a lot of people make birdie where people hold that putt from the Marko mirror partn all those parts from twenty feet right of the pin. You've got probably a thirty foot circle to hit it like depth and width,

and you'll have that part. You'll run up the tier, run back, or it'll just land and roll in. That spot will generally end up there, But if you miss that thirty foot circle, you're going to have some problems.

So it's it really is a course that just purely by the pimp positions, they can completely change the way you feel about your swing, the way you are, the putch you're going to have. It's it's every hole can play difficult, and generally most holes, not all holes, but most holes could play somewhat easy with simple pins or the fun funnel pins and the repelling pins. I mean,

every hole complay just so brutally difficult. And again the genius again usually is it makes you tight and scared to miss it, and that's when you don't hit precise shots, hit in precise shots. When you do that, and that's where it catches you out. That's why you see guys like Phil and Phil win the tournament a lot because they've got that cavalier win or it doesn't matter kind of attitude. And that really is the only way to kind of truly contend that the Masses consistently is to

be a little bit cavalier about it. You've got to play well, you can't miss it, but it rewards free swinging aggression.

Seventeen is not round not that long and guys have relatively short shots in there. But it's one of those ropel pins where you really don't have a very big area to hit it in two and if you don't hit it in that area, you're going to have a really tough time making par and eighteen is kind of similar to that front pin. It's a very arniable pin, but if you miss that area, you're gonna have an awful time making power.

no real double bogies. You know, the score thirteen is legitimately four to seven, the score three to seven, scoring rate fourteen is three four and five. Maybe even a six fifteen is three four five six seven. Sixteen is two to five. You know, as much more dramatic swing as you're going to get in the scores through those holes, and seven eight nine you could get par birdie par really really regularly. You probably won't see many doubles on seven,

you'll see no doubles on one. The whole nine you can mess up, but it's a pretty wide fair way, and really, if you had to make par you can find a way to just kind of miss it long right of the pin and just find a way to make par right. But there's thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. You can be six under or six over with a few bad swings or a few good swings. I guess the drama that's what makes the Masters is the swings and

the drama, like the you're never too far back. Really with five or six holes to play on the front, you would be.

maybe the hardest stadium hole anywhere in the world. So you you get a chance to kind of solidify your score on sixteen, and it's just you can maybe make a Burtie on seventeen with a good shot, but you can have a train wre because the nerve most nervous where John You're ever going to have an eighteen it's just two of the best shots you've ever hit, or even a misagreen.

get away that easy. You know you've got to You can't just go five under from thirteen to sixteen and then just like fake your way in. I mean, you're going to four real golf shots in the last two in sixteen.

attracted towards the pin. There's a lot of opportunity if you're hitting good shots to hit it inside ten feet eight times in a day, but with shots that aren't really normally wouldn't be inside ten feet anywhere else, but you have a lot of times that week where you could hit shots that would normally be ten feet that they're fifty feet.

is not. It's and again the slopes, the use of slope. The course is on quite a hill. The clubhouse is quite a long way above the twelfth Green. I don't know how many feet, two hundred feet, it's documented. But it's the traversing the slopes. They don't necessarily go straight up and down the hills.

great routing. It's just one of those kind of magic kind of coming togethers of things that just makes it really really work, and it provides an incredible golf course.

For the average person to play. I mean, it would be as fun as everybody thinks it really would, because the adien handicapper once you kind of if he could get his nerves out of the way and get out of the fact that he's at the Masters, play it two or three times, sensibly he would be shooting his handicap or under it every time, with a good caddy who told him where to hit it. You can keep

it out of trouble all day if you want. There's almost no force carries really, and mean twelves a forced carry, but it's a pretty short hole and fifteen you could even go around it if you wanted to. There's no real forced carries. There's no ruugh off the tee. You can hit the ball along the ground all day except for probably twelve fifteen, and you could play your handicap pretty comfortably and have a really good day. But as soon as you start trying to break your handicap by much,

that's when it all gets too hard. And that's the thing. Every day you go on these cycles. You start conservative when you get there because you're scared to get it wrong, and you gradually realize you've got to get more aggressive, more aggresive, more aggressive, and you start thinking, I've got

this place, I've got this place. And then you get aggressive and have an average day and hit a few bad shots and you have train wrecks everywhere, and then you get all the way back to the beginning and you get conservative again, and then you go through that, you get more and more confident and more aggressive, and then you go back. It just it's just eventually, the more aggressive you get that you're just going to get burnt. At some point, A guy.

really crazy tough pins and then really easy pins. And you'll get six with just the most outrageous pin high on the right and are really really the left hands tire the green. You kind of take a breath and everybody hits it close, you know. In sixteen, again there's the two easiest pins of the week at other masters, and the two hardest pins of the week might all

be on sixteen, you know. And that's genius architecture, really, because you get a different challenge every day, and you think you've got sixteen worked out well, put the pin up the top. You're not gonna have it worked out,

you know. It's yeah, it's brilliant, it's really good. And the variation that the variation in score from hole to hole in day to day is the sixty six on Thursday is completely different from how you have to do a sixty six on Friday because the holes that were EASi is show Thursday are probably going to be really tough on Friday and vice versa. So it's with the exception of thirteen and fifteen, I mean, they're traditionally the

holes appill make birdies in the path five. But you play one hole easy one day and then the next day that those those easy ones are hard and the hard ones yesterday are a little bit easier. And it's a it's the drama, it's the fluctuat, it's the it's the range of scores that it makes you shoot on each hole that keeps it endlessly interesting.

the pace of the greens. They can get their subair system, the gronomy at that point, the humidity, the temperature, I mean, absolutely everything, and then they can't dictator score, but they seem to be able to create the drama that they need and the tournament to almost always ends up Sunday afternoon with unbelievable fun for the last two or three hours.

I mean, they're just it's an advantage of having the same course, but it's it's testament to them and hats off that they can actually they pay enough attention and they're clever enough and smart enough, and they know the game and they understand everything well enough that every year on Sunday, even if the first few days it's like, oh, this is going to be a weird master is sure enough.

It's five of the top ten in the world making birdies and eagles on the back nine and doubles coming down the stretch, and the sun always seems to come out, and it's like the great Shadows, and it's they it's the attention to detail that they have and the understanding of what they've got and how to and how to.

They can't, as I said, they can't dictate a score, but they seem to be able to dictate a style of play, or encourage a style of play, and encourage a score line and a level of drama that no other tournament of course, seems to be able to do. It's a I mean, I say, I'm gushing like a fan, but like if the more times you come to the Masters, the more you just appreciate what they do. It's just an incredible thing.

can play like that, you know, care free aggression. It's like Sergio's aida on or whatever it was in the fifteen compus. I mean, you wouldn't take that shot on at any other course, that exact shot any other tournament ever, because it's a ridiculous shot to try to hit like close to that pin on the front there. But the Masters, it just seems to bring that. They seem to be able to bring that out of the best in the world, that that kind of take it on like attitude. It's just brilliant.