Augusta & St Andrews

The Masters is only a few days away, and it is interesting to note the links between two of the world's most famous courses - Augusta National and The Old Course. When you watch the rolling green fairways and the array of beautiful flora on display at Augusta, it is sometimes easy to forget that a lot of the inspiration for this golfing masterpiece actually came from St Andrews.

Augusta National was the brainchild of Bobby Jones, and he dearly wanted to differentiate it from the countless other cloned golf courses that were appearing throughout America. The most notable architect of that time was Donald Ross, but Jones required someone with the vision to design a tough layout that still gave the golfer options from any point on the course - a thinking man's course. Jones had an ideal in his head of spacious fairways with severely undulating greens and cleverly placed hazards that punished poor approach shots. Ross was known for lining fairways with hundreds of bunkers, a design that suited the robotic straight hitter. But he chose Dr. Alister Mackenzie for his love of St Andrews and his ability to take the best aspects of great holes from around the world and fine-tune them to the land available.

At least five holes from The Old Course were used as inspiration in building Augusta National. Perhaps the most obvious is the the par 3 4th, which is very similar in nature to the short 11th on The Old Course. A large sloping kidney-shaped green is protected by two punishing bunkers. One short and right (relating to Strath) and one on the left (Hill bunker), where Jones famously tore up his scorecard and walked off the course in 1921. This version at Augusta plays much longer at 240 yards, but possesses all the characteristics of it's cousin back in Scotland. Every year I enjoy watching Ken Brown's (BBC Commentator) previews of the holes at Augusta. He is always of the belief that an imaginative short game is more important than raw power around this 7400 yard track. Shots such as the 'bump-and-run' with a seven iron are employed just as often here as at The Open Championship. The course plays fast and fiery, and that's exactly what Bobby Jones envisaged when he hired Mackenzie.

The fairways are large, but simply hitting them isn't good enough. Like St Andrews, being in the centre of the fairway is sometimes the worst place to be. The angle of attack is usually much easier from one side or the other, i.e. adding difficulty to your tee shot will benefit the following approach shot. Take the 9th for example - unless you are on the extreme right hand side of the fairway, you can't see the green due to the bunkering on the left apron. Being centre-cut will also leave you with a hanging lie, and a pin-point approach to a green that runs away from you. I think this is very similar to the 4th at St Andrews, probably where the blueprint of the hole originated.

So when you're drooling over the azalea's and cherry blossoms this weekend, take time to look out for ways in which Alister Mackenzie tried to make Augusta play like Bobby Jones' favourite course - St Andrews.