Augusta National Golf Club, sometimes referred to as Augusta or the National, is among the most famous and exclusive golf clubs in the world, located in Augusta, Georgia, United States. Unlike most private clubs which operate as non-profits, Augusta National is a for-profit corporation, also it doesn't disclose its earnings, holdings, membership listing, or ticket sales.
Since 193, the club has played host to the yearly Masters Tournament, one of the four big championships in professional golf, as well as the sole major played each year in precisely the same course. It had been the top-ranked course in Golf Digest's 2009 record of America's 100 best courses and has been the amount ten-ranked course based on course architecture on Golfweek Magazine's 2011 record of best classic courses in the United States.
The club held racist and sexist policies: Augusta National admitted no African Americans as members until 1990 and no girls as members until 2012. The club long required all caddies to be black and barred black golfers in the Masters Tournament until Lee Elder engaged in 1975. In 1997, Tiger Woods became the first person of color to win the tournament.
In 2019, the course started co-hosting the Augusta National Women's Amateur.
History
Jones sought to make a world-class winter golf course from his native country of Georgia. Throughout the first decade of the club's existence, membership was low and financing were short because of the Great Depression and the relatively remote location of Augusta, forcing the duo to scrap future strategies for a"ladies' course," tennis and squash courts, and various estates.Its first club specialist was Ed Dudley, who served in the role until 1957; Dudley was one of the top tournament professionals of the era, with 15 wins on the PGA Tour.
The Masters were first held in 193 in an attempt to entice players and audiences. Roberts persuaded Jones, then retired, to come back to play in the tournament. (Jones initially was contrary to the title Masters.)
Eisenhower took a liking to the club, becoming a part, also hired Roberts as his executor and financial advisor, who had a house constructed for Eisenhower about the grounds. During his presidency, Eisenhower visited Augusta National 29 times.
Facilities and grounds
Augusta is renowned for its well-maintained impeccable look: pine straw is imported, bird sounds are played on inconspicuous speakers, and even the ponds were dyed blue. The club is famous for its azaleas and dogwoods.
Policies and rules imposed on workers, club members, and visitors (referred to internally as"patrons") are famously strict. No cell phones or other electronic devices are permitted (except in the press construction --spot checks are performed elsewhere); no running or loud speaking is allowed; and spectators are not permitted to cheer when a player makes a mistake. Security guards apply those principles, and therefore are traditionally provided by Pinkerton. Rule-breakers are permanently banned, if not prosecuted as soon as possible.
Other noteworthy facilities include Butler Cabin, near hole 18, in which tournament winners are introduced with a green jacket; the clubhouse, close to hole 1, which dates to the 1850s and contains a well-stocked wine cellar; and a practice range.
The club's on-site press building has television studios, a free restaurant and snack alternatives, staffed bathrooms, and leather seats. Cameras placed across the course are directly joined to the media building's studios via underground cables.
Berckmans Place
Berckmans Place, occasionally called Berckmans or BP,11 is a 90,000-sq. -ft. non-public shopping and dining complex built in 2012. It operates for one week every year, during the Masters. Entry goes for the week cost $10,000 (up from $6,000)12 and require Augusta National's approval; there's a 10-ticket limit.11 As in the rest of the club, neither cell telephones nor photography are allowed.The cost includes free dining in Berckmans' five full-service restaurants, each of which can seat hundreds of guests: Augusta's Seafood,13 Calamity Jane's, Ike's Place, MacKenzie's Pub, and the Pavilion. Toilet stalls are attended and cleaned after every use. There is a professional shop12 and four putting greens dubbed the"Placing Experience": 3 slightly smaller replicas of holes , 1, and 16; and also a"composite course".111213 BP customers can use a distinctive parking lot and entryway (Gate 9).11 The complex is located near hole 5.
Berckmans Place is named after Belgian Louis Mathieu Berckmans, whose family owned the property the club is built on from 1858 to 1910.
Course
The course was formerly a plant nursery,16 and every hole on the course is named after the tree or shrub with which it has become correlated. A number of the holes on the first nine are renamed, as well as hole #11.17
Contrary to most other public or private golf courses in the US, Augusta National hasn't been rated. Throughout the 1990 Masters Tournament, a team of USGA raters, organized by Golf Digest, assessed the course and gave it an unofficial evaluation of 76.2. It had been re-evaluated in 2009 and awarded an unofficial evaluation of 78.1.
The course's greens are meticulously maintained to provide a quick and hard golfing surface. This stability is aided by a subterranean irrigation and ventilation system known as the SubAir System, developed and set up in 1991 by course superintendent Marsh Benson. SubAir soon evolved to its own business in neighboring Graniteville, South Carolina, designing and installing similar automatic water cooling systems in venues like Pebble Beach, East Lake, Citi Field, and Citizens Bank Park.19
The sand traps, known as"bunkers," are filled not with sand but with material out of feldspar mines in North Carolina.
The golf course architecture site GolfClubAtlas.com has said,"Augusta National has gone through more changes since its beginning compared to some of the planet's twenty or so greatest courses. To call it a MacKenzie course is false advertising as his features are basically long gone along with his routing is all that's left." The writers of the website also add that MacKenzie and Jones were greatly influenced by the Old Course at St Andrews, and intended the ground game be central to the course.
Almost from Augusta's launching, Roberts sought to make changes to minimize the floor game, and effectively obtained free rein to do so because MacKenzie died shortly after the course's opening and Jones went to sin due to World War II and then a threatening disease.
The authors add that"with the ground game gone, the course was particularly vulnerable to changes in technology, and this brought on a ton of changes in at least 15 different'architects'. "20 Golf Course Histories has an aerial comparison of the architectural modifications for Augusta National Golf Club for the year 1938 versus 2013.21
Among the alterations to the course were many produced by architect Perry Maxwell in 1937, such as a significant alteration involving the current 10th hole. When Augusta National initially opened for play in January 1933, the opening hole (now the 10th) was a relatively benign par that played just in excess of 00 metres. In an elevated tee, the hole required little over a short iron or wedge for the approach. Maxwell transferred the green 1937 to its present location -- at the top of this mountain, about 50 yards back from the old website -- and transformed it to the toughest hole in Masters Tournament history. Ben Crenshaw referred to Maxwell's work on the 10th hole as"one of the great strokes in golf architecture".
For the 1999 tournament, a short rough was instated round the fairways. Referred to as the second cut, it's substantially shorter than the comparable primary rough in other courses, with an average length of 1.625 inches (.13 cm). It is meant to decrease a player's ability to control the ball coming out of this lie, and promote better precision for driving on the fairway.232
Amen Corner
The next shot in the 11th, each the 12th, and also the first two shots at the 13th hole at Augusta are nicknamed"Amen Corner". This term was first used in print by writer Herbert Warren Wind in his April 21, 1958, Sports Illustrated article about the Masters that year.25 In a Golf Digest article in April 198, 26 years later, Wind told concerning its origin. He said he wanted a catchy phrase such as baseball"hot-corner" or American soccer's"coffin-corner" to explain where a number of the most fascinating golf had occurred (the Palmer-Venturi rules issue at twelve, within an embedded ball judgment and the way it was handled,26 specifically ).
Thus"Amen Corner" has been born. He stated it came from the title of a jazz record he had heard in the mid-1930s with a group headed by Chicago's Mezz Mezzrow, Shouting in that Amen Corner.27 In a Golf Digest article in April 2008, writer Bill Fields provided new updated information concerning the origin of this title. He wrote that Richard Moore, a golf club and jazz historian from South Carolina, tried to purchase a copy of the old Mezzrow 78 RPM disk to an"Amen Corner" exhibit he had been putting together for his Golf Museum in Ahmic Lake, Ontario. After extensive research, Moore revealed that the record never existed.
As Moore put it, Wind, himself a jazz enthusiast, must possess"unfortunately bogeyed his mind, 26 years later". While at Yale, he was no doubt familiar with, and intended all along, the favorite version of the tune (with the correct title,"Shoutin' in that Amen Corner" composed by Andy Razaf), which was listed by the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, vocal by Mildred Bailey (Brunswick label No. 6655) at 1935.
Moore told Fields that, being a excellent admirer of Breeze's job through time, he had been reluctant, for months, to come forth with his discovery which contradicted Earth's memory.
In 1958 Arnold Palmer outlasted Ken Venturi to win the tournament with heroic escapes in Amen Corner. Amen Corner also played host to Masters moments such as Byron Nelson's birdie-eagle at 12 and 13 in 1937, and Sam Snead's water rescue at 12 in 199 that ignited him to triumph. On the reverse side of destiny, Jordan Spieth's quadruple bogey on 12 during Sunday's final round in 2016 charge him his 2-stroke direct and finally the championship.
"The Big Oak Tree" is on the golf course side of the clubhouse and has been planted in the 1850s.28
Eisenhower Tree in 2011
Also called the"Eisenhower Pine", a loblolly pine was situated on the 17th hole, about 210 yards (192 m) from the Masters tee. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, an Augusta National member, hit the tree so many times , in a 1956 club meeting, he suggested that it be cut down.29 Not wanting to violate the president, the club's chairman, Clifford Roberts, instantly adjourned the meeting rather than reject the request. In February 201, the Eisenhower Tree was eliminated after suffering extensive damage during an ice storm.
In a trip to Augusta National, then-General Eisenhower returned from a walk through the forests on the eastern part of their grounds, and educated Clifford Roberts that he'd found a perfect place to construct a dam if the club would like a fish pond. Ike's Pond was constructed for Eisenhower to fish named after him; the dam is located just where Eisenhower stated it should be.31
Rae's Creek cuts across the southeastern corner of the Augusta National property. It flows along the rear of the 11th green, facing the 12th green, and forward of the 13th tee. This is the smallest point in elevation of the course. The Hogan and Nelson Bridges cross the creek after the 12th and 13th tee boxes, respectively. The creek was named after former property owner John Rae, who died in 1789.33
Rae's Creek runs in front of No. 12 green, has a tributary evident at No. 13 teeand flows at the back of No. 11 green. It was Rae's home that was the farthest fortress up the Savannah River from Fort Augusta. The house kept residents safe during Indian attacks once the fort was out of reach.
Over time, Augusta National has purchased and redeveloped local land. By 1999 to 2019, the club invested roughly $200 million to buy 100 distinct properties totaling over 270 acres, some more than a mile distant from the club proper. Most purchases are ordered via LLCs linked to Augusta National in order to obfuscate the transaction's details.3 Greater than a dozen of those LLCs are proven to exist, as well as five may be involved with one buy.3 Augusta National ultimately buys each LLC, obtaining its land holdings and keeping the real estate price from public documents. NDAs are also generally employed.
Augusta National has obtained, demolished, and redeveloped entire strip facilities and residential blocks.35 The company helped fund a job to re-route Berckmans Road.3 The club also intends to construct a huge tunnel underneath Washington Road.
Because Augusta National has invested so much to acquire land, homeowners at Richmond County have had to apply for special property tax assessments to be able to negate the effects of the club's actions. Investors have also started to buy condos and property adjacent to Augusta National.
Membership
Augusta National Golf Club has approximately 300 members at any given time. Membership is strictly by invitation: there's no application process. In 200, USA Today released an inventory of all of the current members.36 Membership is believed to cost between $10,000 and $30,000 and annual dues were estimated in 2009 to become less than $10,000 annually.37 Club members are sometimes referred to as"green coats"For decades, the club non-refundable to African Americans. "As long as I'm alive," stated co-founder Roberts, who served as the club's chairman,"each of the golfers will be white and the caddies will be shameful.
Augusta encouraged and accepted its first African-American member, tv executive Ron Townsend,39 at 1990 later Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club, an all-white golf club in Alabama, denied membership to African-Americans. The club also faced demands the PGA Championship not be held there because of racist comments from the club's founder.
Inside his 2012 pre-Masters press conference, Chairman Billy Payne declined to talk about the club's refusal to admit girls.12 He defended the club's position by noting that in 2011, more than 15 percent of those non-tournament rounds were played by women who had been spouses or guests of active members.1 But on August 20, 2012, Augusta National declared its first two female participants: Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore.3
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