Before getting into the weeds at Augusta National, there are yarns to share about grass. The mechanisms of control at this sporting nirvana go down to the roots.
It is why Bernhard Langer had himself a little laugh recently when we visited the topic of the Masters and the quirks of its setting.
His thoughts went to an unspecified point in the late Eighties, when the champions, then as now, gathered for the annual dinner in their green jackets on the Tuesday evening of tournament week.
‘The only person who comes into the room with us is the chairman of the club and he always makes a few remarks,’ explained Langer, whose first win of two, in 1985, gained him lifelong access to the most sanctified table in sport.
‘So the chairman (Hord Hardin) wishes us well and at the end, he asks, “If we can do anything better, let us know.” Arnold Palmer got up and raised a point. It was about the grass.
‘Maybe you know this or you’ve seen pictures, but back then half of the fairway was mowed away from us, and the other half was into us, so it was shiny and dark visually. Now it is all this perfect shade, no stripes, but back then, if you landed your tee shot on the where the grass was down-grain and running away from you, the ball would run an extra 40 or 50 yards. On the other, into the grain, the ball would dig in.
The mechanisms of control at Augusta National, the Masters nirvana, go down to the roots
The ambience is governed by tradition and the traditions are governed by security personnel
If there is a task harder than getting into Augusta National, it might just be getting anything out
‘And so Arnold said, “You know, Mr Chairman, we’re good, but we’re not that good – we can’t always hit the down-grain. It’s kind of unfair”. So the chairman made a couple of notes and said, “I think we can fix that”.
‘Sure enough, the next day, all the mowers lined up at the green and mowed toward us. Everything was into the grain. That’s been the case ever since. So lesson learned – be careful what you ask for.’
That was mildly amusing, albeit with the tiniest of loose ends – what was the exact year? Trivial, really, but details are always worth including, so Mail Sport emailed Augusta National. We received no response, which was fun in its own way, for no message is so very on-message.
Indeed, if there is a task harder than getting into Augusta National, it might just be getting anything out.
Unlike their azaleas, secrets of the club rarely come into bloom, which over the years has included enquiries about the volume of green paint used to correct the blemishes and the food dye that is said to cultivate the perfect hue in the water.
Seeking to establish who, of the old-world elite, is among the 300 or so members is a famously pointless undertaking – they won’t comment on that.
We know Bill Gates is in, Warren Buffett and Condoleezza Rice, too, and that the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower, was not only among the brotherhood (Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore became the first female members in 80 years in 2012), but also painted a portrait of the co-founder, Bobby Jones, and it still hangs in the Trophy Room of the clubhouse.
As media, we are permitted entry to that room, where they host the champions’ dinner, and we might choose to have breakfast on the veranda, overlooking the first tee.
President Donald Trump has never confirmed if he attempted to gain admission to that tightest circle of the sport he loves, but if he has, it has not yet worked
Unlike their azaleas, the deepest secrets of Augusta very rarely ever come into bloom
Tommy Fleetwood believes the strict phone ban keeping punters in the moment is ‘really good’
On any given day, Sir Nick Faldo or Jack Nickalus might be on the next table, which is simultaneously a privilege ungranted by most huge sporting events and one of the many contradictions of the setting – so many doors are open and even more are closed.
For now, that extends to Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Newcastle United chairman who holds the purse strings to Saudi Arabia and has the power to keep heads of state waiting for an audience.
When Al-Rumayyan’s LIV circuit and the PGA Tour first sought to merge 22 months ago, Augusta membership for the boss was one stipulation from the Saudis but there was an issue with that: you don’t tell Augusta you wish to join, you are invited. Just as you don’t tell them how to cut their grass, even if you have won the Masters four times.
President Donald Trump has never confirmed if he attempted to gain admission to that tightest circle of the sport he loves, but if he has, it has not yet worked.
To visit Augusta National is to glimpse the world the way the great gentleman amateur Bobby Jones saw it in the early Thirties, when he founded the club with Clifford Roberts on the 365-acre site of a defunct plantation called Fruitland. To this day, the spectator guide cites Jones’s words in their code of conduct: ‘Customs of etiquette and decorum are just as important as rules governing play.’
That means no running anywhere on the grounds, no cheering of a poor shot and guidelines for how one can sit on the pristine grass. Upright is fine, laying down is absolutely not.
Phones? They are strictly prohibited, as invisible on the course now as they would have been during the first Masters in 1934 (it was called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament until 1939, and legend has it that Jones felt ‘The Masters’ was a touch brash, but was overruled). Infamously, a journalist who accidently left his phone in his pocket when he left the media centre for the course was ejected and it took days of high-level diplomacy to get back in.
The ambience there is governed by tradition and the traditions are governed, zealously, by more than 1300 security personnel. Thankfully some have shifted – the club did not welcome its first black member until 1990 – and others will exist so long as golf is played.
When Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s LIV circuit and the PGA Tour sought to merge 22 months ago, Augusta membership for him was one stipulation from the Saudis but it doesn’t work like that
To visit Augusta National is to glimpse the world the way the great gentleman amateur Bobby Jones saw it in the early Thirties, when he founded the club with Clifford Roberts
Augusta National is timeless. There is an absence of clocks and no corporate advertising
With the phone policy, the effect is positive – patrons (never call them fans) are present in the moment, watching great sport through their eyes and not a screen.
‘I think that aspect is really, really, really good,’ Tommy Fleetwood told Mail Sport, with the confession that ‘players often have them in their bags, but wouldn’t take them out’.
It is beyond cliché at this point to say Augusta National is timeless. But there is an absence of clocks on the grounds, and no corporate advertising. No digital scoreboards, either. None of it is allowed to leave a modern footprint. None of it can be imposed on the mood or the nature that defines its appearance.
In fact, it can occasionally seem as if not even nature is permitted to impinge on nature – for all the birdsong you will hear on television, only a few birds are seen around the course.
That has become a running gag among players and observers. ‘You do hear bird noises when you are out there,’ Viktor Hovland told Mail Sport. ‘They sound eerily similar to perfect. It’s almost like, you know, they might have speakers up in the trees.’
Langer added: ‘We sometimes have this joke amongst the players, are there actually birds out there? You don’t see squirrels either. I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet, but maybe someday I will.’
One of the buggy-drivers who ferry media to the course joked to me last year: ‘I did see a squirrel once. But they are quite strict with credentials.’
As with so many aspects, it feeds into the mystique of a tournament and club where aura counts for so much; a bygone fantasyland of manicured perfection in a town that feels the strains of real life.
The prestigious tournament has a mystique at a club where aura counts for so much
That one in five of the Augusta population live in poverty is the strongest contradiction of all
Each hole has the context of what went before, like Rory McIlroy’s meltdown at the 10th in 2011
That one in five of the wider Augusta population live in poverty is the strongest contradiction of all. Among the bridges from one world to the other is John Daly, the two-time major winner who spends Masters week signing autographs on hats, shirts and the occasional breast at the Hooters restaurant on Washington Road, a mile from the most private of private clubs.
That will be the backdrop to the 89th Masters, as ever. At once it is both the youngest of golf’s four majors and the one that conjures the most history, owing to its distinction as the only venue where they return year on year.
Every hole has the context of what went before – Tiger Woods in from off the green at 16 in 2005, Jordan Spieth’s two balls into Rae’s Creek at 12 when miles clear in 2016, Larry Mize chipping in from 140 feet at the 11th to win the play-off. Rory McIlroy’s meltdown at the 10th in 2011 and Bubba Watson’s hooked recovery of wonder from the trees on the same hole a year later. Ernie Els’s six-putt at the first in 2016 and Nicklaus’s raised arm as the 15-footer for the lead dropped on the 17th three decades earlier.
Each individual has their own list of moments. Their reference points.
For Clayton Baker, a patron who visited from Oklahoma in 2012, it will probably be the time he crept under the ropes at the 10th and stole a cup of chalk-white quartz from a bunker (regular sand it isn’t white enough, so Augusta source a material known as SP55 from Spruce Pine Mining District of North Carolina for their traps. The pine needles beneath the trees is also imported). He was bundled to the ground, arrested and briefly thrown into prison.
The on-site shop sells $270 worth of merchandise every second, such is the demand and Augusta’s refusal to shift products online, but their bunker sand can only be obtained one way and it evidently comes with tremendous risk.
The sense you are being watched can be heightened in the walnut-lined media areas – there is often a sense of surprise from first-time visitors during press conferences, which derives from the attending officials, drawn from the green jacketed membership, knowing precisely who is asking a question. Fuel for egos, perhaps, but the truth is reportedly tied to the microchip in our passes.
For the golfers, this place is all about the course at its heart, naturally. ‘It’s perfect,’ said Collin Morikawa, the world No 4. ‘Perfect and hard.’
Collin Morikawa, the world No 4, has previously described the course as ‘perfect and hard’
Steve Williams (left), who caddied for Woods in three of his five Masters wins, had his gripes
You might be able to bend a tree at Augusta, but folding a green jacket to your will is far harder
Langer, who first played at the Masters in 1982, added: ‘One thing I never noticed until about 10 years ago is the shape of the trees. They go straight up but then bend in at the top to make the sight-line as intimidating as possible.
‘You end up wondering why they’re all leaning in, but it’s deliberate. They cut the branches to promote growth in a certain direction and I’ve never seen that on any other course in the world. At Augusta, there’s nothing left to chance. They take care of every little thing.
‘Look at the 13th tee, par five – I think it was Bubba Watson a few years ago who blasted it over the corner and hit wedge into the green. Well, they didn’t like that. So the very next year, they took a rope, they grabbed the tree, and they bent the tree so you couldn’t cut the corner. They’re very creative.’
Control through beauty – it’s a bankable theme at a course where it is not uncommon for locals to see lorries loaded with full-grown trees heading through the gates.
After Hurricane Helene destroyed large sections of the club last year, it will be no surprise to see the course restored to a state of perfection by the time the tournament starts. Nothing gets in the way of the spectacular visual.
For the most part, folk find that to be just swell. For others, the commitment to artifice is too much.
Steve Williams, who caddied for Woods in three of his five Masters wins, is retired now, but he had his gripes. Asked about the quirks of the land, he told Mail Sport: ‘First thing that comes to mind is caddies have to wear overalls and I think these modern days that is a bit archaic.
‘We have to wear hats as well. I vividly remember standing on the 17th tee one hot spring morning and I took my hat off when I was walking to Tiger’s second shot. A guy then comes up and taps me on the shoulder and says, “If you don’t put that hat on you can’t come back and caddie next year”. There was no tolerance.
‘Another thing – every tournament in the world gives a caddy a pass for their wife or partner and Augusta don’t extend that at all, which I think is pretty unfair.’
Arnold Palmer once felt the same way about the grass and didn’t quite get his wish. You might be able to bend a tree at Augusta National, but folding a green jacket to your will is far harder than winning the tournament.
