In the Master Plan, All’s Quiet on the Augusta Front

Excuse me, but there are some holes in your Masters tournament.

They would be the holes at Augusta National that are as ignored as, say, a commentary by Gary McCord.

They are the front nine, the first nine holes, the ones that appear on television only because somebody invented videotape. After all, how many golf holes can you show in only five hours of television?

As originally conceived, the front nine was the back nine at Augusta National, but the nines were switched in 1935. And sure, the front nine holes have numbers, but they also have names--tree names, such as Pink Dogwood for No. 2, Magnolia for No. 5 and Carolina Cherry for No. 9.

But there are some trees that don’t have tree names.

The ones down the left side of the fairway on the second hole, for instance. They’re “the Delta ticket office.”

“You hook it into those trees and you’re buying your airline tickets out of town,” Larry Mize said.

And that par-three fourth hole, the one with the two-tiered green. Did you know the only palm tree on the golf course can be found along this hole? It was there when Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie designed the place, so they left it.

The par-three sixth is a sight to see too, but you probably never have. It’s one of the prettiest vistas at the Masters, and it’s as anonymous as the tailor of all those green jackets.

From the sixth tee, the view is a 30-foot drop over a convention of azaleas and whatever gallery is watching the action next to the 16th green.

And it’s such an easy hole to play, right? Not exactly.

“To me, it’s a brutal hole,” Phil Mickelson said.

Then there is No. 5, the 435-yard par four, the one that has the crest in the middle of the green that’s so high, it looks like a green Matterhorn. Not only that, but the green tilts toward a back bunker, which pulls balls in as if it’s a science project on gravity.

The fifth is the only green winner Nick Faldo missed on his way to a closing 67 last year. It’s the kind of hole where the best strategy may be to play for a tie, said Corey Pavin.

“About the best you can do is aim for the middle of the green and try to get out of there with par,” he said.

The front nine at the Masters is 3,465 yards of mostly overlooked golf real estate. And it’s overlooked by plan. The Augusta National Golf Club, which runs the Masters, doesn’t want CBS to televise the front nine for a couple of reasons.

One of them is that five hours of televised golf in one day are enough, even if it is the Masters. Another is that Augusta National wants to give those who bought tickets something special--a view of the golf course they don’t have to share with TV viewers.

Another reason, according to Masters chairman Jack Stephens, is that the tournament organizers want to avoid a situation where they turn on the cameras and turn off the paying fans, who would theoretically stay home and watch the television coverage instead.

“There would be nothing worse than to have a golf tournament and nobody show up,” Stephens said.

The front nine doesn’t have any shimmering water and it doesn’t have any historical bridges, as does the back nine, but it’s not without its share of interesting Masters moments.

For instance, there was Billy Casper’s near-miraculous escape from the Delta ticket office on No. 2 in 1970 when Casper wound up breaking Gene Littler’s heart.

The first hole rolls down and then up and features a huge bunker on the right. Maybe it’s not that tough, but it’s also not that easy.

The only player who eagled No. 1 in the Masters was Roberto De Vicenzo in 1968. That was the year De Vicenzo signed an incorrect scorecard and was deprived of a playoff with Bob Goalby, having to settle for second.

But for a really bad time, take the fifth. It has a small landing area on the left and a green so humpbacked it would make a whale envious.

Mize bogeyed it three times in 1994 when he just happened to miss a playoff with winner Jose Maria Olazabal by three shots.

Tiger Woods said the fifth certainly has captured his imagination.

“I think that people don’t realize how hard that hole is because they don’t get to watch it on TV,” he said. “Unfortunately, we still have to play it.”

Unfortunately for Olazabal, he had to play the sixth hole in 1991. From 180 yards, he made a quadruple bogey and lost to Ian Woosnam by a shot.

The seventh hole has big bunkers and the second-smallest green, which rises about 20 feet above the fairway.

Fred Couples, though, must like this hole. He holed out from a bunker when he won in 1992.

Couples also likes the eighth, probably not as much as Byron Nelson, who eagled it on his way to victory in 1942. In 1995, Couples bounced his approach shot off a greenside mound to the right and the ball caromed left, nearly rolling into the hole for double eagle.

The ninth is not a hole where you want your ball to be above the green. That’s where John Daly was two years ago. His putt rolled 30 yards down the fairway.

As many times as the Masters has been won on the back nine on Sunday, Seve Ballesteros proved you also can win it on the front nine on Sunday.

In 1983, he started the last day this way: birdie, eagle, par, birdie, and scored a four-shot victory over Ben Crenshaw.

It was a rousing start, even if nobody saw it on TV.