Augusta National is known for many things. The azaleas. The towering loblolly pines. The cheap eats. But perhaps its most notable calling card is its greens.
The putting surfaces at Augusta National are legendary. The green coats keep them so quick they can even perplex the best putters in the world. Tiger Woods even rolled his first-ever Masters putt straight off the green in the 1997 tournament, a moment he calls one of the “most embarrassing moments that I can ever remember.”
All 18 greens are tricky, no doubt, but which one is the most difficult? It’s a complicated question to answer, so we enlisted the help of some people who have seen them up close and know a thing or two about how difficult they really are.
Here’s what they had to say.
It depends on the pin position
Sean Foley has coached a number of successful players during his career — notably Tiger Woods — so he’s become intimately familiar with Augusta National and the challenges it poses. The GOLF Top 100 Teacher explained that with the difficulty of the surfaces, every green has a pin position that could garner it consideration as the hardest.
“The left pin on 1 is terrible, the left pin on 2 is terrible, the front-left pin on 3 is terrible,” Foley said. “Every green has a crazy pin … That front pin on No. 10 is just psycho.”
No. 10 is tough to read
Speaking of No. 10, that was the green longtime caddie John Rathouz mentioned when posed with the question. He has experience looping at Augusta during his career — highlighted by being in the bag for John Merrick during his T6 finish in 2009 — and said there was no green more difficult to read than No. 10.
“The green that stands out in terms of reading putts is No. 10,” he said. “I think the reason why is you get lost on the property on that hole … It’s just such a subtle green.”
It all depends on where you put your golf ball
Kevin Weeks is another GOLF Top 100 Teacher whose pupils have played at Augusta National. He was in the same camp as Foley with his response. Every green is a challenge, and three-putts lurk on every hole.
“All of my players tell me there’s no way to prepare for it, because every hole you have to put it in the right spot,” Weeks said. “Every hole is three-puttable as any of the rest of them.”
He did say that one green that always gives everyone trouble is No. 9. The tiered green has many spots that give players fits if they are in the wrong spots and putting off the front of the green from above the hole is always a possibility.
“Sometimes you’re better off leaving it short of the green than leaving it in the wrong spot,” Week said. “When the pin is in the front you can easily putt it off the green. That’s the one green that players talk to me the most about.”
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