AUGUSTA, Ga. — Amen Corner is part of the lore of Augusta National and the Masters Tournament. Once more with feeling: Amen Corner is a poetic shorthand for the approach into 11, all of 12, the tee shot on 13. Water hole, water hole, water hole. If you’re trying to win the springtime invitational here, your tee shots there can make or your day, week and life.
More recently — roughly 70 years after Herbert Warren Wind coined the phrase Amen Corner — Adam Scott (in a wonderful interview with Golf Digest) referred to the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th as a “troublesome area of the course.” A lot of good golfers would agree! Consider Greg Norman on 9 on Sunday in 1996; Rory McIlroy on 10 on Sunday in 2011; Raymond Floyd on 11 in a playoff in 1990; Jordan Spieth on 12 in 2016.
If you drill into Scott’s “troublesome area,” with Amen Corner playing in your ears (it was a song title before it was a golf-course destination), you can think of a similar stretch on the course, with the same rhythm as the Herb Wind original: the approach shot into 9, all of 10, the tee shot on 11.
If only it had a name, and some history.
The par-4 9th green has such severe slope that even with modern low-spin balls you can have an approach shot pitch on the green, spin off the putting surface and finish 30 yards short of the green. Over the green is even worse. Here comes 5.
The par-4 10th is an easy driving hole — until it’s not. If you find yourself playing off the pine needles and through the pines on either side of the fairway, you’re going to do well to be within 10 feet of the hole in three shots. Smells like 5 from here.
The tee box for the par-4 11th hole is deep in a narrow shoot with no margin for era, just straight-ball golf, driver in hand, for most. (It’s well over 500 yards.) If you drive it play you should have something short for par. If you don’t, you’re looking at another possible 5.
To review: three mistakes on those three holes and you’re playing that stretch in 15 shots. There’s no shame in playing those three holes in 12 shots, none at all. It’s not as if there are any green-light birdie opps there.
Which brings us to Justin Rose, 45-year-old English golfer who faced Rory McIlroy in a one-hole playoff at last year’s Masters. Rose, the leader in the clubhouse, was on a practice putting green early on Sunday night last year when McIlroy was playing the 18th hole. This was on the Washington Road side of the clubhouse, the opposite side from the course. There were very few people out there; Rose’s agent, Mark Steinberg, was one of them. He heard the moan come from over the clubhouse, knew it meant that McIlroy had made a bogey on the last and that Rose and McIlroy would soon be starting a playoff, each looking to win at Augusta for the first time. Rose is still looking.
Rose played the 9th, 10th and 11th holes in 9 shots on Friday en route to a second-round 69, three under par on this par-72 hole course. Nine shots! Birdie, birdie, birdie. A three-hole stretch that got him into the thick of this tournament at its halfway point. He’s five under through two rounds. Once again, he’s right there.
Rose was asked about the stretch after his round and this was what he said:
“Given these conditions, with the fairways rolling out, you hit a good tee shot you’re getting a nice angle at that 9th green, so I don’t necessarily see that as overly tough,” he said.
“Ten is just a beautiful hole, isn’t it?”
To look at, sure.
“I think 11, where the pin was today, is the most comfortable flag on the green. Back right where you want to hit the ball. Any other pin, you have to play away from the flagstick, which makes it tough.
“But the way the holes played today, it was 9-iron, 9-iron, 7-iron. So it wasn’t as tough as it could be.”
Fair, as the kids say.
You may know that Justin Rose is a horse guy. Loves horses, has owned racehorses, knows the horse game.
You may know that many spectators here come through the gates, check out the 9th green, make the downhill walk on 10 and wind up in a place where they can see the tee shots land on 11.
We offer a name for this stretch, the approach to 9, the whole of 10, the tee shot on 11, nodding to Rose and his Friday play and his love of the track:
The Clubhouse Turn.
If Rose is wearing green Sunday night, we will revisit.
Until then, the weekend.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
