In the early 1930’s, near a sleepy little town in Georgia, an old tree farm was converted into one of the most challenging golf courses in the world. One of the men responsible for developing the Augusta National Golf Club is also recognized as one of the greatest athletes to ever swing a golf club; one Robert Tyre “Bobby” Jones Jr. Jones had retired from competitive golf after the 1930 season, when he had won what became known as “The Impregnable Quadrilateral”. This phrase was then changed to a slightly more understandable “The 1930 Grand Slam” in which Jones, who always played competitively as an amateur, had swept both the United States and the British opens and amateur championships, a feat not duplicated since. Having competed in golf since the age of six when he won his first children’s tournament, Jones then surprised the golfing world as he retired at the age of 28. Bobby Jones, while winning one golf title after another, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1922, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Harvard University in 1924. He then passed the Georgia State Bar Exam after only one year of studying at Atlanta’s Emory University in the School of Law. Jones, who had also married at the age of 22 in 1924, settled into practicing law in Atlanta after he retired from golf, but his interest in the sport never wavered, and he kept involved with the development of the Augusta National Golf Club.
Bobby Jones envisioned building a top quality course and formed a partnership with an investment banker, Clifford Roberts. Jones then hired Alister MacKenzie, a well-know golf course architect to co-design the course with him. Mr. MacKenzie once described his style of course design, “In discussing the need for simplicity of design, the chief object of every golf course architect worth his salt is to imitate the beauties of nature so closely as to make his work indistinguishable from nature itself." Together, Jones and MacKenzie designed what would turn out to be Mr. MacKenzie’s last course in a long line of top golf courses he designed around the world as he suddenly passed in 1934 without ever seeing a Masters Tournament played there.
The new course opened in January, 1933, and in April of the following year, the inaugural playing of the “Augusta National Invitation Tournament” came to pass. Jones was initially not in favor of calling it the Masters Tournament, but after five years he finally relented and allowed the name to be changed.
Augusta National has been the recipient of many changes over the years and primarily these were physical in nature. These physical changes were meant to insure that as golf’s technology advanced so too did the course’s layout and the ensuing difficulty of play. A change of a different sort took place after many years of vocal criticism aimed at the Club’s exclusion of black Americans. In 1990 this ended as the first American of African descent was admitted to membership. Another visage of old time society has yet to fold under withering criticism. The Augusta National Golf Club still does not accept female members…
The course’s physical changes include lengthening the course by 745 yards, from it’s original 6,700 yards to 7,445 yards after the latest adjustment in 2006. This lengthening process has drawn criticism from past champions, who questioned the seeming favoring of the long strikers, but to no avail. The original wide-bladed Bermuda grass putting greens were deemed too slow and were switched to much faster bentgrass in 1981. A higher cut rough has been used in recent years that acts to slow wayward balls. This adds some measure of good and bad. Distance is cut down, but lie may be enhanced. Even the type of sand used in the Augusta National Golf Club’s sand traps has been changed from a beige #### sand to a now signature pristine white in 1975.
Over the years there have been three great golfers beyond Bobby Jones who have etched their names into Augusta National’s Masters Tournament lore. Arnold Palmer won four Green Jackets in the late 50’s into the early 1960’s. Jack Nicklaus then won six Green Jackets across a span of 24 years. Finally, beginning with his first Masters Tournament as a professional golfer in 1997, Tiger Woods has won four Green Jackets. (Since 1949 when Sammy Snead won his first of three Masters Tournaments, the tournament winner has been awarded a Green Jacket, emblematic of membership in the Augusta National Golf Club. The current champion can take the Green Jacket with him for one year, and then it must be returned to Augusta National. The jacket may then only be worn when the past champion is on the Augusta National Golf Club grounds. Each winner is awarded his Green Jacket by the past year’s winner in a post tournament ceremony. Only three winners have won back to back tourneys and of these only Jack Nicklaus [1966] put on his jacket unassisted. Nick Faldo [1990] and Tiger Woods [2002] were assisted by the chairman of Augusta National.)
HOLE 1: Tea Olive Par 4 | Yards 455 | 2007 Field Average: 4.474 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 2. Tee shots can easily find trouble either in the right bunker or in the trees to the left. Changes made before the 2002 tournament force players who used to use a wedge or 9-iron to take two or three more clubs on the approach.
HOLE 2: Pink Dogwood Par 5 | Yards 575 | 2007 Field Average: 4.776 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 17. This second hole is a dogleg left, reachable in two by the longest drivers. For the shorter hitters, it's one of the more difficult drives. Many players will choose a 3-wood to help avoid the left bunker on their first shot, while large, deep greenside bunkers take special attention on the second shot.
HOLE 3: Flowering Peach Par 4 | Yards 350 | 2007 Field Average: 4.138 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 13. The shortest par 4 hole with a small L-shaped table-top green that requires the utmost delicacy with the approach shot. The tough pin position is on the left, the arm of the "L."
HOLE 4: Flowering Crab Apple Par 3 | Yards 240 | 2007 Field Average: 3.417 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 4. A fine one-shot hole that can require a wood shot from even the long hitters. The green is wide. A shot sent to the wrong side of the green can leave a putt as long as 75 or 80 feet.
HOLE 5: Magnolia Par 4 | Yards 455 | 2007 Field Average: 4.314 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 8. Now measuring an extra 20 yards for the 2003 tournament, the bunkers on No. 5 were also moved right and 80 yards forward. Players now must aim farther right off the tee, leaving longer approaches to a green that features a large hump in front.
HOLE 6: Juniper Par 3 | Yards 180 | 2007 Field Average: 3.189 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 12. An elevated tee looks down on this hole with a giant hump at the right of the green. The pin position at the top of the hump is one of the most difficult on the course.
HOLE 7: Pampas Par 4 | Yards 450 | 2007 Field Average: 4.295 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 10. Trees line both sides of fairway of this hole, the tightest on the course. A large tree between the tee and the No. 6 green creates a narrow chute for the players' first shots. After changes made before the 2002 tournament, players now take more than a sand wedge for their second shot to a small, well-guarded green.
HOLE 8: Yellow Jasmine Par 5 | Yards 570 | 2007 Field Average: 4.766 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 18. Only the longest hitters can get home in two, and they face a tough route. Since trees block the way to the green from the left side of the fairway, players have to flirt with the bunker on the right in order to reach the green in two.
HOLE 9: Carolina Cherry Par 4 | Yards 460 | 2007 Field Average: 4.138 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 14. Trees on the right can catch errant drives, especially since the ground slopes to the right. On their second shot, players have to consider the greenside bunkers. Then, they face a green severly sloping from back to front.
HOLE 10: Camellia Par 4 | Yards 495 | 2007 Field Average: 4.375 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 6. The fairway encourages a drawn tee shot which can kick off the hill and produce tremendously long drives. A drive hit too far to the right can require long second shots off a slanted lie.
HOLE 11: White Dogwood Par 4 | Yards 505 | 2007 Field Average: 4.510 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 1. The first of the water holes. The tee shot is through a very long chute, but once players reach the landing area it's wide open. More than length, the course demands accuracy off the tee, or the second shot becomes a perilous introduction to Amen Corner.
HOLE 12: Golden Bell Par 3| Yards 155 | 2007 Field Average: 3.401 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 5. The shortest and maybe the deadliest of them all. The narrow, canted green is guarded by Rae's Creek and threatens not the easiest of shots in the little pitch across the water after your tee shot splashed into the creek.
HOLE 13: Azalea Par 5 | Yards 510 | 2007 Field Average: 4.846 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 16. The hole is jealously guarded by a little creek that runs along the left side of the fairway before crossing just in front of the green and running past it to the right. Tee shots need to be hit long and straight just to reach the bend of this dogleg left.
HOLE 14: Chinese Fir Par 4 | Yards 440 | 2007 Field Average: 4.321 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 7. A fairly straight hole -- the only one on the course with no bunkers -- with trouble on the putting surface. This hole has one of the most difficult greens on the course, with a large hump running across the front it -- definitely three-putt country.
HOLE 15: Firethorn Par 5 | Yards 530 | 2007 Field Average: 4.981 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 15. The hole on which Gene Sarazen made his famous double-eagle in 1935. The landing area presents one large mound and several smaller ones, reducing the width to only 30 yards. A straight tee shot can allow long hitters who evade the mounds to try to reach the green in two, flying over the pond immediately in front of the putting surface.
HOLE 16: Redbud Par 3 | Yards 170 | 2007 Field Average: 3.304 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 9. Fairway? What fairway -- it's all water. The green has a small, back neck that protrudes left into the water. When the pin is there, it takes a desparate golfer to shoot for it. Also to watch out for - the bunkers to the right of the sloping green.
HOLE 17: Nandina Par 4 | Yards 440 | 2007 Field Average: 4.215 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 11. A large ever-growing tree, the Eisenhower Pine, stands sentinel on the left side of the fairway. The green slopes off toward the back, making it nearly impossible to hold an approach carried past the center of the green.
HOLE 18: Holly Par 4 | Yards 465 | 2007 Field Average: 4.423 | 2007 Difficulty Ranking: 3. This stern test requires 330 yards -- uphill -- to carry the bunkers on the left. Players face a second shot uphill to a green difficult to hold with a longer iron. Need a par to win The Masters? Play hard. Need a birdie? Good luck.
Will Tiger Woods take the first step in his pursuit of golf’s holy grail, the Grand Slam, and win his fifth Green Jacket at the 2008 Masters Tournament?
I'm a sports fanatic living on the west coast of Florida. I'm a rare bird that moved here from the left coast a couple of years ago. I advocate an even playing field in all of life's endeavors.
best slot
as one of the greatest athletes to ever swing a golf club; one Robert Tyre “Bobby” Jones Jr. Jones had retired from competitive golf after the 1930 season, when he had won what became known as “The Impregnable Quadrilateral”. This phrase was then changed to a slightly more understandable “The 1930 Grand Slam” in which Jones, who always played competitively as an amateur, had swept both the United States and the British opens and amateur championships, a feat not duplicated since. Having competed in golf since the age of six when he won his first children’s tournament, Jones then surprised the golfing world as he retired at the age of 28. Bobby Jones, while winning one golf title after another, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1922, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Harvard University in 1924. He then passed the Georgia State Bar Exam after only one year of studying at Atlanta’s Emory University in the School of Law. Jones, who had also married at the age of 22 in 1924, settled into practicing law in Atlanta after he retired from golf, but his interest in the sport never wavered, and he kept involved with the development of the Augusta National Golf Club.
Palmer won four Green Jackets in the late 50’s into the early 1960’s. Jack Nicklaus then won six Green Jackets 
across a span of 24 years. Finally, beginning with his first Masters Tournament as a professional golfer in 1997, Tiger Woods has won four Green Jackets. (Since 1949 when Sammy Snead won his first of three Masters Tournaments, the tournament winner has been awarded a Green Jacket, emblematic of membership in the Augusta National Golf Club. The current champion can take the Green Jacket with him 
for one year, and then it must be returned to Augusta National. The jacket may then only be worn when the past champion is on the Augusta National Golf Club grounds. Each winner is awarded his Green Jacket by the past year’s winner in a post tournament ceremony. Only three winners have won back to back tourneys and of these only Jack Nicklaus [1966] put on his jacket unassisted. Nick Faldo [1990] and Tiger Woods [2002] were assisted by the chairman of Augusta National.)
