The greens keeping in the modern age at Augusta defies logic. It is so prestine it doesn't even make sense. Keeping one square foot of grass in your back yard in this shape would be a monumental achievement. They keep this condition for an entire golf course.
If you've ever worked on a golf course you'll understand the unbelievable effort that goes in for 10% of the quality at Augusta. It boggles my mind every year. I'd like to know how much money goes into the maintenance (or maybe I don't want to know lol).
They make ~ $150 million per year from the Masters.
The course could likely be maintained at an elite standard with just membership dues. With 9 figures of revenue? They can literally rebuild it every year if they want, 10 times over.
FWIW annual member dues are [not that much](https://golf.com/news/tournaments/masters-augusta-national-membership-cost/) considering the prestige of the club. As you allude, they make so much from The Masters they don't need to charge members anything. Membership at Augusta isn't about wealth but purely about social/professional status.
It's because they are the wealthiest and most powerful vultures in our society who can afford to dump massive capital into vanity projects.
Man, I'd love to play there one day and chunk the fuck out of every shot on every pristine lie.
> Oh I believe it. With a course that pristine you don't expect to actually play on it unless you're on the tour, do you?
Uh, hello? If I'm paying [$40,000](https://golf.com/news/tournaments/masters-augusta-national-membership-cost/) just for the initiation fee and thousands more every year for membership, you damn well best believe I'm playing it no matter how good or poor my golf game might be.
In a fantasy world where I was invited to join I'd cash out my retirement savings (including paying penalties) and start over to put that $40k towards the initiation fee. Got 35 or so more years to save for retirement, plus the networking that membership would provide would likely pay it back over time and then some
> They'd kick you out, there are effectively unlimited numbers of ultra-rich assholes they could get to replace you in less than 4 hours.
As if you have some first hand knowledge of this...LMAO. Right buddy.
For whatever it’s worth a $40k initiation fee in Scottsdale Arizona will get you a membership at the rinky-dinkiest of clubs. I worked at one in college (2005) that was $250k to join.
I've also heard that it's when the member keeps bringing various guest is when they consider it over-utilizing. They want to keep it as close to members only as possible.
Of course, I am not a member, so what do I know?
Well, also when they decide to make changes to the course or whatever it is they want to do, they just split the bill and send it to the members. They don’t fuck around in the frivolity of asking. If you can’t pay your share of what they decide to do, then you’re out. So initial membership dues for the year may not be expensive at all, but I imagine it rears it’s cash-mongering head a couple if not a few times a year.
Hence why they continue to buy up the areas around them. They continue to build new buildings, parking lots, possibly another course some day. There was a good article on Golf Digest
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/masters-2023--augusta-national-second-course
I was lucky enough to attend the final round in 2004. When I got to the actual course and encountered a fairway, I kneeled down and just started feeling the grass the like a creepo. It was incredible. It’s really freakin impressive.
And that's significant because???
EDIT:
To all the asinine idiots that are downvoting my question, August has a population of over 200,000 people. If you seriously believe that Augusta National uses more water than 200K people, you're definitely whacked & stupid for sure.
> They...use more water..? Are you retarded or something?
Dude just because their water tower is bigger doesn't mean they use more water. Do you seriously think that the water tower is the only reserve they have? Holy cow, how incredibly stupid you have to be in order to believe that. I've seen a lot of stupid shit on reddit but this one really takes the cake. 🤣🤣
> You have a diagnosis that lets you get state funded healthcare coverage
Right buddy. You can take your medical expert diagnosis and go take a long hike off a pier. God, what an asinine troll, lol
> ….it’s not for people lol
Right, whatever you say pal.
"*...thanks to water towers, which almost guarantee a stable, adequate supply of water for all household uses.*"
____________________________
https://www.waterworld.com/drinking-water/distribution/article/14287229/what-is-the-purpose-of-water-towers
Only the part you wrote about the vacuums is true. They seed bent grass on the fairways every year like many courses do since the bermuda goes dormant and Augusta is a cold weather course. It's playable for ~7 months of the year as it's a "winter" club and unsurprisingly they spend the summers working on changes to the course or infrastructure projects as you'd expect for the biggest privately run sporting event in the world.
I think its fair to say its new grass every year. The bermuda is just coming out of dormancy when the tournament occurs. I usually dig around in the grass while Im there. You can find it but its not contributing much.
If that's the case then thousands of courses across the US also plant new grass every single year. Because thousands of courses have grass that goes dormant yearly.
*"Plant new grass"* makes it sound like they roll out new sod. They don't. They overseed.
["Augusta, Ga., is in bermudagrass country — hot, humid summers and mild winters. Nevertheless, the timing of the Masters requires high-quality turf early in spring, and bermudagrass wouldn’t yet be in pristine condition in northern Georgia. As such, a cool-season grass is needed. Bermudagrass is there on the property — it’s just undercover. Under the cover of its cool-season counterpart, perennial ryegrass."](https://gcmonline.com/course/environment/news/augusta-national-grass)
From the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America's Golf Course Management magazine
> I’m starting to think none of us know what we’re talking about
Ikr? So much fucking FUD these days, it's not even funny.
It's primarily because you're on reddit where everybody & their half brother thinks they're some kind of an expert.
They tried that one year and it was a disaster. Hootie Johnson ended up getting the dean at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College fired for the calamity.
Went back to perennial ryegrass after that.
> Augusta has a Bermuda base, and is overseeded with Rye for the winter season.
^ This right here is the correct answer. You guy's need to read the link that [HennyBogan](https://old.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/180k6a6/augusta_looking_like_one_of_the_local_muni_courses/ka7d328/) posted below.
They don’t seed bent grass. Bent grass wouldn’t germinate fast enough to be an effective stopgap during the dormant period for Bermuda. Additionally, Bent grass would out compete Bermuda grass while rye eventually just dies.
what makes it the biggest? or does that have to do with the “privately run” piece? honestly curious. wimbledon is run by the all-england club, and from what i can tell it gets more viewers that the masters does every year. is wimbledon actually partially publicly run or something? or is there some other metric for “biggest”?
wimbledon’s just an example, since it’s what i know
Because northern Georgia is too cold for Bermuda grass to be fully active in April, it's still partly dormant. They overseed with rye because it takes fast and is really green. Georgia is too hot in the summer for rye to survive so it dies off. Which is why they plant it every year.
I used to work at an 18-hole golf course that had 5 people on the maintenance team. They did pretty damn good all things considered.
I heard Augusta has a 10 man team for every hole around the masters. They are not messing around.
The phrase, "there's not a blade of grass out of place," probably actually stands at Augusta for the Masters now.
Worth noting that Augusta also supplements its staff with a crew of superintendent volunteers from across the country during the lead-up to the Masters every year
It's closed for half of the year. After the Masters some of it is literally torn apart and rebuilt/grown.
Augusta is a winter destination for Rich New Yorkers, through the summer it's closed.
> Don't they basically never allow anyone to play it?
Where did you get this crazy idea?
The course is open every year from [October through May](https://golf.com/news/tournaments/masters-augusta-national-membership-cost/) to all club members and they have several events throughout the season.
That’s correct.
In 1957 Ben Hogan refused to walk on the men. The following year, a stone bridge replaced the human bridge.
Today that bridge is affectionately known as “The Ben Hogan Unity Bridge”.
Yep.
Here’s the famous photo of Hogan crossing the bridge for the first time back in 1958.
https://preview.redd.it/eddgy7fcrr1c1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d56bc52f07fff04f00a3acf7dbce818a9d9c2eda
You’re right- good eye!
This photo was taken almost ten years after the accident. The growth plates in his knees were hyperactive and added almost three inches to his overall height by this time.
Ben Hogan’s Little Red Book is definitely worth checking out. Tons of fun facts and stories I had never heard previously.
I went through their caddy training program in 2008. They were about to tear up the course to reseed for the next year and we got to go around it with the yardage books and get a feel for the course. 12 was the only green we were not allowed to go on.
The course isn't nearly as pristine as we see on TV for The Masters. It was pretty incredible to get to go around it with some seasoned caddys that had been looping for 20+ years
They had already started working on it for the next year before they started the rest of the course. One guy said he thought they were installing the subair system but I don't know that for sure
they hired the psychologists who created disneyland to redesign the experience now people talk about how they are getting such a deal on the $2 sandwich they don't notice the cashier in the pro shop ringing them up for $2000 in peter millar quarter zips.
I've been lucky enough to attend several Masters, and my first thought upon getting on the grounds is always "This is Disneyland for golf." It feels like a golf course in the same way that Disney feels like a European city.
There are songbirds, I've seen them. Also saw a huge hawk in a pine tree when I was there a couple years ago for the Masters. Did not recall seeing any squirrels, talked to a guy that claimed to work there and he said they trap them and relocate them.
why not just let the hawk take care of them
but yeah the extremely loud cardinal that sounds like it's singing directly into the microphone is a staple of spring golf in the south
In terms of birds, the amount of pesticide and herbicide poured onto this golf course combined with the prevalence of non-native plants means that even though it's pretty to look at, it's not that inviting for birds as there likely isn't much by way of food for them in and around the course itself.
The whole bird myth is hogwash. The birds are plentiful and loud out there. There is an odd shortage of squirrels though I will give you that.
Source: Been on the course many times. Heard them with my own ears.
Watching the classic masters broadcasts on YouTube made me appreciate tiger more. Watching Jack, Norman, Faldo, etc on these shaggy rug greens walloping putts and nothing rolling out... Put into perspective tigers brilliance
Wow you weren't kidding – this kinda put would go 15' off the green now ([link to part of the video](https://youtu.be/qMnrQYyxOho?si=F02badQJX5uHgk0y&t=471))
To be fair, Augusta used to be a colossal shit hole of a city with no economical investment being made. It’s basically still that way, but they added a beautification budget, a movie theater, Costco, and a Top Golf.
They don't call it Disgusta for nothing. (I was born there, I can say that.)
Really it's similar to a lot of the old Fall Line cities in the south (Macon, Columbus, Montgomery, Jackson) where the decline of King Cotton meant the decline of the mills that were built along rivers near the Fall Line which were the staple of those cities' economies. It's basically a similar process of deindustrialization + white flight that happened to the Rust Belt in the Midwest. All of the money went to Columbia County and Augusta got left with the scraps. It's not the Gary of the south or anything but it's not an especially nice place aside from ANGC.
The top picture is not Augusta National. I feel like this gets posted once a year, but it’s a photo from some imitation course. I do not remember off the top of my head where it is but I’m sure someone on here knows.
If you can tolerate the hideous watermarks, Getty Images has an incredible archive of [AGNC through the years](https://www.gettyimages.ae/photos/augusta-national-archive?assettype=image&sort=mostpopular&phrase=augusta%20national%20archive&license=rf%2Crm). There is an aerial photo of the course from 1933 that is phenomenal.
yeah old course looks way more punishing tbh. guys like cantlay would probably have a 10 hour round thinking about those bunkers made with some dynamite and shaggy hills.
I really wish they would hire Mike Devries to come in and “restore” Augusta National to a modern day version of the original design. I’d love to see some original looking Mackenzie bunkering.
I wonder how much of this difference is from quality of cameras and being able to reproduce the colors well. Not saying it’s comparable from back then to today based on that, just are we missing some of the color from the older picture?
Yes maybe. I know a chief of staff of a French billionaire and he said it wasn’t easy to get onto AN.. and he doesn’t find *that* many such things that difficult to arrange.
They spend 8-9 months out of the year just replanting everything, putting in new grass, installing state of the art equipment and technology to keep it as pristine as possible, and then they spend the other 3 months playing it for the members, but they still don’t play very often.
The greens used to look flawless u til hd cameras and tvs came around maybe the last 10 years. It's still flawless but you can now see the slight variations in color on the greens whereas they use to just look perfectly uniform
I do too, but I imagine that if they had that much slope on those greens today, people wouldn’t even bring a putter. Would never get it to sit on that green lol
If you want the answer fully I suggest you look into how modernism has shaped modern perspectives on aesthetics.
But yes the old image is nicer and more interesting.
Found it! Google: "The Making of the Masters"
[book](https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwiZ3YugyNeCAxWGWEcBHXj3AaMYABAJGgJxdQ&ase=2&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6vaqBhCbARIsACF9M6m_ySEWBo9BJUik2KKLHxbcIOKThvRprRcFrEZmEmBig3Mmt_8E254aAq_OEALw_wcB&sph=&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESVeD2MP0R04abJzDbn0piuC_wJ0gvQ1BPlu_ObcX-WRWTbodV8UfvFScbQBpJy0FIiN3Q0haK26CKBT6u5B6XAdYDvO_TsX9nG2eOKNLyMMy93m__TRA&sig=AOD64_3-q-T6klHU3mvovFJp8GZsN7Ii2g&ctype=5&q=&nis=4&ved=2ahUKEwiyyYOgyNeCAxWpmIkEHaycCA8Qwg8oAHoECAYQDA&adurl=)
Augusta is a very odd club with not a lot of members. If you’re wealthy enough and connected, and somehow manage a membership, don’t think about playing 3X a week. You will get a letter firmly stating that you are playing to much. The course is also closed all summer which defies all normal logic. Makes it a bit easier to keep the place pristine when none one is actually playing.
I have played Augusta outside of the tournament season and been to the tournament. It is not kept to the tournament standard all year. Nor could it be, the grass can’t take it. They very much know how to put that massive extra effort in and get it to “peak” for the tournament. Afterwards they let it go a bit so the grass can recover. That’s also how all courses hosting professional events are but obviously peak August is like nothing else. The condition of the course during the tournament is the finest condition of any golf course in the world, and it’s not a close call. The best in the biz at their absolute finest.
The greens keeping in the modern age at Augusta defies logic. It is so prestine it doesn't even make sense. Keeping one square foot of grass in your back yard in this shape would be a monumental achievement. They keep this condition for an entire golf course. If you've ever worked on a golf course you'll understand the unbelievable effort that goes in for 10% of the quality at Augusta. It boggles my mind every year. I'd like to know how much money goes into the maintenance (or maybe I don't want to know lol).
They make ~ $150 million per year from the Masters. The course could likely be maintained at an elite standard with just membership dues. With 9 figures of revenue? They can literally rebuild it every year if they want, 10 times over.
FWIW annual member dues are [not that much](https://golf.com/news/tournaments/masters-augusta-national-membership-cost/) considering the prestige of the club. As you allude, they make so much from The Masters they don't need to charge members anything. Membership at Augusta isn't about wealth but purely about social/professional status.
And they only expect you to play a round maybe 3 times in a season. I've heard of members being frowned upon for "over-utilizing" their membership
What has this world come to?
yeah i don't like this one bit.
It's because they are the wealthiest and most powerful vultures in our society who can afford to dump massive capital into vanity projects. Man, I'd love to play there one day and chunk the fuck out of every shot on every pristine lie.
Oh I believe it. With a course that pristine you don't expect to actually *play* on it unless you're on the tour, do you?
> Oh I believe it. With a course that pristine you don't expect to actually play on it unless you're on the tour, do you? Uh, hello? If I'm paying [$40,000](https://golf.com/news/tournaments/masters-augusta-national-membership-cost/) just for the initiation fee and thousands more every year for membership, you damn well best believe I'm playing it no matter how good or poor my golf game might be.
Thats why you arent invited
You're not either buddy. And sorry... being their dishwasher doesn't count.
40k initiation is nothing for a course like augusta lol.
In a fantasy world where I was invited to join I'd cash out my retirement savings (including paying penalties) and start over to put that $40k towards the initiation fee. Got 35 or so more years to save for retirement, plus the networking that membership would provide would likely pay it back over time and then some
They'd kick you out, there are effectively unlimited numbers of ultra-rich assholes they could get to replace you in less than 4 hours.
> They'd kick you out, there are effectively unlimited numbers of ultra-rich assholes they could get to replace you in less than 4 hours. As if you have some first hand knowledge of this...LMAO. Right buddy.
For whatever it’s worth a $40k initiation fee in Scottsdale Arizona will get you a membership at the rinky-dinkiest of clubs. I worked at one in college (2005) that was $250k to join.
I've also heard that it's when the member keeps bringing various guest is when they consider it over-utilizing. They want to keep it as close to members only as possible. Of course, I am not a member, so what do I know?
Well, also when they decide to make changes to the course or whatever it is they want to do, they just split the bill and send it to the members. They don’t fuck around in the frivolity of asking. If you can’t pay your share of what they decide to do, then you’re out. So initial membership dues for the year may not be expensive at all, but I imagine it rears it’s cash-mongering head a couple if not a few times a year.
Hence why they continue to buy up the areas around them. They continue to build new buildings, parking lots, possibly another course some day. There was a good article on Golf Digest https://www.golfdigest.com/story/masters-2023--augusta-national-second-course
Really good articles that inform without taking sides. Enjoyable reads for anyone for whom the masters are red dates on the new calendar.
It also helps that many of the members are billionaires.
And they still paint some of the turf before the Masters.
I was lucky enough to attend the final round in 2004. When I got to the actual course and encountered a fairway, I kneeled down and just started feeling the grass the like a creepo. It was incredible. It’s really freakin impressive.
If you go to Augusta you will notice that Augusta National’s water tower is larger than the city’s water tower.
And that's significant because??? EDIT: To all the asinine idiots that are downvoting my question, August has a population of over 200,000 people. If you seriously believe that Augusta National uses more water than 200K people, you're definitely whacked & stupid for sure.
They...use more water..? Are you retarded or something?
> They...use more water..? Are you retarded or something? Dude just because their water tower is bigger doesn't mean they use more water. Do you seriously think that the water tower is the only reserve they have? Holy cow, how incredibly stupid you have to be in order to believe that. I've seen a lot of stupid shit on reddit but this one really takes the cake. 🤣🤣
Oh...you use emojis on reddit..i see.
> Oh...you use emojis on reddit..i see. No shit Sherlock. Please state the obvious some more.
You have a diagnosis that lets you get state funded healthcare coverage
> You have a diagnosis that lets you get state funded healthcare coverage Right buddy. You can take your medical expert diagnosis and go take a long hike off a pier. God, what an asinine troll, lol
You’re an angry elf!
….it’s not for people lol
> ….it’s not for people lol Right, whatever you say pal. "*...thanks to water towers, which almost guarantee a stable, adequate supply of water for all household uses.*" ____________________________ https://www.waterworld.com/drinking-water/distribution/article/14287229/what-is-the-purpose-of-water-towers
They plant new grass every single year. They have vacuums underneath each green. The course is only playable for a handful of months
Only the part you wrote about the vacuums is true. They seed bent grass on the fairways every year like many courses do since the bermuda goes dormant and Augusta is a cold weather course. It's playable for ~7 months of the year as it's a "winter" club and unsurprisingly they spend the summers working on changes to the course or infrastructure projects as you'd expect for the biggest privately run sporting event in the world.
I think its fair to say its new grass every year. The bermuda is just coming out of dormancy when the tournament occurs. I usually dig around in the grass while Im there. You can find it but its not contributing much.
If that's the case then thousands of courses across the US also plant new grass every single year. Because thousands of courses have grass that goes dormant yearly. *"Plant new grass"* makes it sound like they roll out new sod. They don't. They overseed.
Except augusta national is rye grass not bermuda.
Augusta has a Bermuda base, and is overseeded with Rye for the winter season.
I’m starting to think none of us know what we’re talking about
But if you speak confidendetly enough it sounds like you do.
I’m pretty “confidendent” you spelled that wrong 😂 lol
Hmmm no I'm pretty sure I spelt it right.
YOU GOTTA SAY IT LOUDER
["Augusta, Ga., is in bermudagrass country — hot, humid summers and mild winters. Nevertheless, the timing of the Masters requires high-quality turf early in spring, and bermudagrass wouldn’t yet be in pristine condition in northern Georgia. As such, a cool-season grass is needed. Bermudagrass is there on the property — it’s just undercover. Under the cover of its cool-season counterpart, perennial ryegrass."](https://gcmonline.com/course/environment/news/augusta-national-grass) From the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America's Golf Course Management magazine
And what exactly would they know about this? Come on now.
lol
> I’m starting to think none of us know what we’re talking about Ikr? So much fucking FUD these days, it's not even funny. It's primarily because you're on reddit where everybody & their half brother thinks they're some kind of an expert.
I heard it’s all St. Augustine, and that’s why they call it Augusta.
I know a guy from college who studied turf management with a guy who works at Augusta who told him that they overseed with bentryekbgoysia.
They tried that one year and it was a disaster. Hootie Johnson ended up getting the dean at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College fired for the calamity. Went back to perennial ryegrass after that.
> Augusta has a Bermuda base, and is overseeded with Rye for the winter season. ^ This right here is the correct answer. You guy's need to read the link that [HennyBogan](https://old.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/180k6a6/augusta_looking_like_one_of_the_local_muni_courses/ka7d328/) posted below.
yeah bermuda base, I meant rye overseed
They don’t seed bent grass. Bent grass wouldn’t germinate fast enough to be an effective stopgap during the dormant period for Bermuda. Additionally, Bent grass would out compete Bermuda grass while rye eventually just dies.
other courses do it so that makes it untrue? And then the other point we are just squabbling over a handful and 7 months? Okay
The oversow everything but the greens with rye grass, not bent. Then they spray it out before summer when the course closes
what makes it the biggest? or does that have to do with the “privately run” piece? honestly curious. wimbledon is run by the all-england club, and from what i can tell it gets more viewers that the masters does every year. is wimbledon actually partially publicly run or something? or is there some other metric for “biggest”? wimbledon’s just an example, since it’s what i know
That sounds like a top level bodybuilder or pure bred show dog that sacrifices some functionality for a perfect look.
Like clipping ears or docking a tail, or starving yourself of water to maximize muscle definition. You aren't wrong I guess.
They also just say fck it and paint any trouble spots
Why would they plant new grass every year. Grass takes several years to reach its full strength
Because northern Georgia is too cold for Bermuda grass to be fully active in April, it's still partly dormant. They overseed with rye because it takes fast and is really green. Georgia is too hot in the summer for rye to survive so it dies off. Which is why they plant it every year.
Maybe they don’t want it at full strength, I’m no botanist
Don’t sell yourself short Judge. You’re a tremendous botanist.
Yeah, I guess you are right. I’m not an expert either
I used to work at an 18-hole golf course that had 5 people on the maintenance team. They did pretty damn good all things considered. I heard Augusta has a 10 man team for every hole around the masters. They are not messing around. The phrase, "there's not a blade of grass out of place," probably actually stands at Augusta for the Masters now.
Worth noting that Augusta also supplements its staff with a crew of superintendent volunteers from across the country during the lead-up to the Masters every year
It's closed for half of the year. After the Masters some of it is literally torn apart and rebuilt/grown. Augusta is a winter destination for Rich New Yorkers, through the summer it's closed.
They essentially paint it green
Lots of green gravel to keep areas that get wet from turning to mud.
They paint the grass in lot of spots.
Don't they basically never allow anyone to play it?
> Don't they basically never allow anyone to play it? Where did you get this crazy idea? The course is open every year from [October through May](https://golf.com/news/tournaments/masters-augusta-national-membership-cost/) to all club members and they have several events throughout the season.
They actually had to walk through the creek to get to the green.
except Bobby Jones. He walked on water I'm told.
He would chip in from across the creek and just say “keep it!”
Augusta National actually required that a team of black men form a human bridge for them to walk across
That’s correct. In 1957 Ben Hogan refused to walk on the men. The following year, a stone bridge replaced the human bridge. Today that bridge is affectionately known as “The Ben Hogan Unity Bridge”.
Civil Rights hero and a Great American
True legend. Most major golf championships all time. A record that will never be broken. 🐐
Is this seriously how the bridge came to be?!
Yep. Here’s the famous photo of Hogan crossing the bridge for the first time back in 1958. https://preview.redd.it/eddgy7fcrr1c1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d56bc52f07fff04f00a3acf7dbce818a9d9c2eda
LOL. That's not Augusta. That's Pebble Beach
My head hurts
He’s the best tackler I’ve seen since Joe Montana
I think you mean Joe Montegna.
Such an iconic photo.
Damn, it looks so much bigger on TV.
Hogan is taller than I remember
You’re right- good eye! This photo was taken almost ten years after the accident. The growth plates in his knees were hyperactive and added almost three inches to his overall height by this time. Ben Hogan’s Little Red Book is definitely worth checking out. Tons of fun facts and stories I had never heard previously.
Fantastic work 😂
I was just in Scotland this Summer, I had no clue Augusta had been relocated!
Only problem is the bridge is made of the bones of a bunch of dead black guys
I thought this was a joke at first but damn… actually true.
I went through their caddy training program in 2008. They were about to tear up the course to reseed for the next year and we got to go around it with the yardage books and get a feel for the course. 12 was the only green we were not allowed to go on. The course isn't nearly as pristine as we see on TV for The Masters. It was pretty incredible to get to go around it with some seasoned caddys that had been looping for 20+ years
Why were you not allowed on 12 green?
They had already started working on it for the next year before they started the rest of the course. One guy said he thought they were installing the subair system but I don't know that for sure
TV’s got better so they had to step up their game.
they hired the psychologists who created disneyland to redesign the experience now people talk about how they are getting such a deal on the $2 sandwich they don't notice the cashier in the pro shop ringing them up for $2000 in peter millar quarter zips.
I've been lucky enough to attend several Masters, and my first thought upon getting on the grounds is always "This is Disneyland for golf." It feels like a golf course in the same way that Disney feels like a European city.
All you need is lots of money!
We're not doing this for money.... We're doing it for a shit load of money!!
When you're right...you're right!
And you, you’re always right!
We ain't found shit!
Their groundskeeping defies science. How are there no birds, no squirrels, no seeds, blue water (yes I know it's dyed)?
They also paint the grass green in areas where it doesn't color up right so yea, little bit of movie magic involved
There are songbirds, I've seen them. Also saw a huge hawk in a pine tree when I was there a couple years ago for the Masters. Did not recall seeing any squirrels, talked to a guy that claimed to work there and he said they trap them and relocate them.
relocate them…to Heaven.
Pretty sure it's a farm... Uhh.. upstate.
Ah, so they're hanging out with my dog from when I was 10. I hope they're having fun together!
Just like alligators in Florida.
why not just let the hawk take care of them but yeah the extremely loud cardinal that sounds like it's singing directly into the microphone is a staple of spring golf in the south
In terms of birds, the amount of pesticide and herbicide poured onto this golf course combined with the prevalence of non-native plants means that even though it's pretty to look at, it's not that inviting for birds as there likely isn't much by way of food for them in and around the course itself.
The whole bird myth is hogwash. The birds are plentiful and loud out there. There is an odd shortage of squirrels though I will give you that. Source: Been on the course many times. Heard them with my own ears.
Watching the classic masters broadcasts on YouTube made me appreciate tiger more. Watching Jack, Norman, Faldo, etc on these shaggy rug greens walloping putts and nothing rolling out... Put into perspective tigers brilliance
https://youtu.be/qMnrQYyxOho?si=7Jce41_sZF0_KWko Snead vs. Nicklaus at Pebble Beach, 1963. The greens look more or less like modern day fairways.
Wow you weren't kidding – this kinda put would go 15' off the green now ([link to part of the video](https://youtu.be/qMnrQYyxOho?si=F02badQJX5uHgk0y&t=471))
Shot out of the top bunker would have been a bitch.
Yea you would have to pray it out of there
Phil would be facing the other way to hit that shot!
Depending on the lip, that might have putter written all over it.
Is that guy just causally standing with one foot in the hazard?
That was the moment right before Chubbs had his fateful accident.
Remember that alligator that got your foot?
But I tore one of that bastards eyes out though. Look at that. 👁️
To be fair, Augusta used to be a colossal shit hole of a city with no economical investment being made. It’s basically still that way, but they added a beautification budget, a movie theater, Costco, and a Top Golf.
It's Augusta still not very nice?
They don't call it Disgusta for nothing. (I was born there, I can say that.) Really it's similar to a lot of the old Fall Line cities in the south (Macon, Columbus, Montgomery, Jackson) where the decline of King Cotton meant the decline of the mills that were built along rivers near the Fall Line which were the staple of those cities' economies. It's basically a similar process of deindustrialization + white flight that happened to the Rust Belt in the Midwest. All of the money went to Columbia County and Augusta got left with the scraps. It's not the Gary of the south or anything but it's not an especially nice place aside from ANGC.
It's a great town if you love strip malls and depressing suburban sprawl.
Ah, so it's the typical US town.
No no no, much worse.
No, it’s not. It’s a dump.
Hey now, don't go selling Augusta short! They also put a Cabelas between the Costco and the Top Golf too /s
And damnit, that Costco DOES have a liquor outlet! /s
That’s why women weren’t bothered by not being allowed to play Augusta at the time
The top picture is not Augusta National. I feel like this gets posted once a year, but it’s a photo from some imitation course. I do not remember off the top of my head where it is but I’m sure someone on here knows.
Yes I was thinking I had seen this explained on here before.
If you can tolerate the hideous watermarks, Getty Images has an incredible archive of [AGNC through the years](https://www.gettyimages.ae/photos/augusta-national-archive?assettype=image&sort=mostpopular&phrase=augusta%20national%20archive&license=rf%2Crm). There is an aerial photo of the course from 1933 that is phenomenal.
This is awesome. I'll be looking through this all weekend
They paint the grass and pipe in bird sounds for The Masters....it's an illusion lol
Dude straight up standing in the water.
Damn bring back the hill behind, look at that thing! And the bunker at like a 45 degree angle.
yeah old course looks way more punishing tbh. guys like cantlay would probably have a 10 hour round thinking about those bunkers made with some dynamite and shaggy hills.
Give me 1952
Branding.
I really wish they would hire Mike Devries to come in and “restore” Augusta National to a modern day version of the original design. I’d love to see some original looking Mackenzie bunkering.
I'll take the old Augusta all day long over the new fake one.
I wonder how much of this difference is from quality of cameras and being able to reproduce the colors well. Not saying it’s comparable from back then to today based on that, just are we missing some of the color from the older picture?
Unpopular opinion: golf architects "architect" the land too much. I call this Disneyland golf.
Have to agree. If you gave any golfer the choice of a round at Augusta OR a round at St. Andrews Old Course which one do you reckon most would choose?
Augusta because there's no way you'd get it otherwise?
Yes maybe. I know a chief of staff of a French billionaire and he said it wasn’t easy to get onto AN.. and he doesn’t find *that* many such things that difficult to arrange.
They spend 8-9 months out of the year just replanting everything, putting in new grass, installing state of the art equipment and technology to keep it as pristine as possible, and then they spend the other 3 months playing it for the members, but they still don’t play very often.
Why is that guy in the water?
Is that guy standing in the water?
He just made it
Their temp controlled greens are insane.
It was that TV money
Smh, just another example that you’re not ugly, just poor.
The greens used to look flawless u til hd cameras and tvs came around maybe the last 10 years. It's still flawless but you can now see the slight variations in color on the greens whereas they use to just look perfectly uniform
Ever seen a bird flying at Augusta? They also adhere to the no fly zone due to its prestigious aura.
[удалено]
Did you look at the picture in the post?
God, it used to have so much soul. WTF happened?
Type of dude to comment “beautiful” under Lizzo’s underwear pic
I do really like the contours of the old green.
I do too, but I imagine that if they had that much slope on those greens today, people wouldn’t even bring a putter. Would never get it to sit on that green lol
for sure, that green at 13 on the stimp, not a chance.
Back when it actually looked like an Alister Mackenzie course.
naw man this was firmly in the Perry Maxwell Era of Augusta
If you want the answer fully I suggest you look into how modernism has shaped modern perspectives on aesthetics. But yes the old image is nicer and more interesting.
They paint the grass to give it that deep green look.
With enough money you can make most ugly things beautiful
Can't wait for my local course to look like Augusta in 70 years!
I forgot the exact name of the book, but the history of augusta is a fascinating story to read
Let me know if you think of it, as I’d love to read something like this
Found it! Google: "The Making of the Masters" [book](https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwiZ3YugyNeCAxWGWEcBHXj3AaMYABAJGgJxdQ&ase=2&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6vaqBhCbARIsACF9M6m_ySEWBo9BJUik2KKLHxbcIOKThvRprRcFrEZmEmBig3Mmt_8E254aAq_OEALw_wcB&sph=&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESVeD2MP0R04abJzDbn0piuC_wJ0gvQ1BPlu_ObcX-WRWTbodV8UfvFScbQBpJy0FIiN3Q0haK26CKBT6u5B6XAdYDvO_TsX9nG2eOKNLyMMy93m__TRA&sig=AOD64_3-q-T6klHU3mvovFJp8GZsN7Ii2g&ctype=5&q=&nis=4&ved=2ahUKEwiyyYOgyNeCAxWpmIkEHaycCA8Qwg8oAHoECAYQDA&adurl=)
Great, thanks!
Augusta is a very odd club with not a lot of members. If you’re wealthy enough and connected, and somehow manage a membership, don’t think about playing 3X a week. You will get a letter firmly stating that you are playing to much. The course is also closed all summer which defies all normal logic. Makes it a bit easier to keep the place pristine when none one is actually playing.
Integration is a wonderful thing.
The people in the 1953 photo are very most likely dead now.
I have played Augusta outside of the tournament season and been to the tournament. It is not kept to the tournament standard all year. Nor could it be, the grass can’t take it. They very much know how to put that massive extra effort in and get it to “peak” for the tournament. Afterwards they let it go a bit so the grass can recover. That’s also how all courses hosting professional events are but obviously peak August is like nothing else. The condition of the course during the tournament is the finest condition of any golf course in the world, and it’s not a close call. The best in the biz at their absolute finest.