The 16th hole at Augusta National is a bridge to golf immortality
The 16th hole at Augusta National is one of the most special places on the planet. Here's what various pros as well as Verne Lundquist had to say about its unique atmosphere.
By
Kyle Porter
•
8 min read
Let's take a trip around No. 16 at Augusta National.
I'll play tour guide; you just follow along.
We'll start at the tee box and head counter-clockwise. Right there, to our right, is the 15th green. It's the place so many have stalked second shots over the hill and over the water.
It's where I saw Phil Mickelson hit the greatest flop shot I've ever seen in person from behind the green downhill to a short-sided pin.
It's where Tiger Woods' famous twirl and traipse happened.
It's where a lot has happened, really.
If you were allowed to sit behind the 15th green, you would have seen it all. That would, theoretically, be one of the best spots on the entire course to sit.
Instead, an announcing tower used to be there. It was just between the 15th green and the 16th green. That was before Verne Lundquist got Augusta National to move it.
"I went to No. 16 in 2000," said Lundquist. "At that point the announce tower was to the right of the pond. The difficulty was the later in the afternoon it became, the lower the sun went.
"It was very much like getting lasered at times. I lost the ball so often. I asked Lance and Sean in their meetings with Augusta National if we could move that tower to the back. They very kindly agreed to do that."
If you keep walking towards the 16th green, you'll arrive at the first bunker on the right-hand side of the green. This is where patrons start filling up space on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
The pine tree area on the back right of the 16th green is premium seating for everybody arriving at 6 a.m. or earlier.
“It’s great. They’ve been there all day," Webb Simpson told me recently about the crowd at No. 16. "There’s a lot of energy there. When you’re on No. 6 (right next to No. 16), you hear it all."
I have many a college memory of camping out in long lines down Berckmans Road, talking to fellow patrons from all over the country, trying to be one of those folks who's "been there all day."
We would sit there and wait for the powers that be to fling wide the gates to golf's version of heaven. We also craved those sausage biscuits.
"I went every year from age 7 until I went to college," Charles Howell III told me recently. "As a spectator, I remember how hard it was to get down there and see."
If you keep walking the loop around the 16th green, you'll pass the 17th tee on your right. The area behind the green will start to roll from No. 17 down towards the pond on No. 16.
Oh wait, there's the new Verne-inspired TV tower.
"My favorite thing about climbing that tower is successfully negotiating it," said Lundquist. "It's pretty well straight up.
"The last six or seven rungs, I've usually got the cameraman reaching down and grabbing my briefcase. I'm almost holding on with both hands. Sometimes I've been known to crawl across the threshold to make sure I get there. Having accomplished that for 15 years, it's such a great, great spot."
Keep going, though.
You're almost to where Tiger Woods chipped in next to the monster pine tree in 2005, site of his last Masters win. It's the spot Davis Love III made nearly the exact same shot in 1999.
The Woods version is probably one of the five most famous shots in Masters history (because he's Tiger). It happened right next to where I used to sit as a college student.
10 years ago, Tiger Woods holed out on No. 16 in dramatic fashion. Watch this historic shot from a different angle. https://t.co/5bnny62LBO
— Masters Tournament (@TheMasters) April 5, 2015
Those were good times, coming to the Masters in college. Me with my parents, perusing pairings sheets and sipping beers until we broke down and bought a handful of pimiento cheese sandwiches.
I took some college buddies one year. We set up shop on the steep hill across from the big pine tree that Woods made famous. The scenery over there was far superior. It's really one of the underrated things about the Masters. Not the scenery, mind you, but the wraparound hill from No. 16 to underneath the 6th tee box.
That hill is where the 16th green used to be. It was over a stream (now the pond) and the 16th tee box was to the right (not the left) of the 15th green.
In 1947, Bobby Jones brought in Robert Trent Jones to do what Robert Trent Jones does.
The stream became a pond, the green was moved to the other side and the tee box was pushed to the left of the 15th green. It's iconic now. It wasn't always like that.
The hilly area is now full of youth whose parents are rife with disposable income. Go there and have a chat or two with a couple of couples and you'll feel like conquering the world ... or at least a Southern Tide outlet store.
Let's finish off our journey, though.
If you keep going around the Tiger pine back towards the hole, you'll see two things. The first is the aforementioend wall of chairs set up to your right climbing towards that 6th tee box.
Nobody touches chairs at the Masters. I didn't know that when I first went. "This isn't the damn Phoenix Open," I overheard one overserved fellow exclaim after a woman had moved his chair .0004 centimeters to the left of where it was.
Noted.
The other thing you notice is the volunteers you see year after year on the same holes. Folks who give up their week for no pay but a week in paradise (and a round at Augusta National later in the year).
A fair trade, if you ask me.
If you look to your left before barreling down the path right towards the tee box, you'll see the Sunday pin placement -- back left (or middle left, depending on your definitions of angular greens). It is nearly as famous as the hole itself.
To score here on Sunday, all you have to do is throw one against the backstop and let it trickle down the hill and scare the cup at the bottom. Easy for me to type, incredibly difficult to accomplish.
"The thing I remember most about it is I felt like I'd waited a whole year to hit that shot," said Bo Van Pelt, who made an ace at No. 16 in 2012.
"The year before, I'd eagled 15 to get in a tie for the lead. I hit what I thought was a good shot the year before and it just hung up on the slope. That one ate at me for a long time.
"I just told myself if I ever hit that shot again I was going to be more aggressive with the line. I hit it and I saw it land. I saw it coming back but it just looked like to me like it was going to be behind the hole.
"I saw it coming down and -- all of a sudden -- I just remember seeing everybody stand and -- all of a sudden -- the place just went bananas and started screaming when it disappeared."
Van Pelt said he had some friends who threw down some cash on the prop bet of a hole-in-one at Augusta every year. They were pleased with the outcome at No. 16 that year, even if it took until Sunday afternoon to get it done.
I asked Van Pelt if that was one of his favorite golf memories.
"For sure. It's such an iconic hole that I grew up in Indiana watching every year. It's my favorite tournament I've ever played," he said. "To do it on a day you were already playing well, to shoot a round like 64 at that place, it's definitely something I'll remember forever."
Let's complete our journey down the pebble-laden path back towards the tee box.
Wait!
Before we go, look left. There, at the front of the green, is the spot Jack Nicklaus drained his 40-foot bomb in 1975 to secure green jacket No. 5.
"That was the end of me," said Tom Weiskopf, whom Nicklaus beat that year.
This path back towards the tee is the most-traveled but least-populized spot during tournament play. Folks make bathroom and beer runs down this path.
They don't watch the action from there, though.
Turn left and we're back at the tee box. Congratulations, you've just successfully navigated one of the most famous par 3s on the planet.
If you did it during a tournament, it wouldn't be nearly as peaceful. It would be stressful and fun. It would also be incredibly loud.
The 16th hole at Augusta is not a kingmaker, but it does hold the crown. Nos. 13 and 15 make champions. No. 16 is there waiting to take your jacket size.
"Unlike the par-three 12th, where one has two reachable par fives to attempt to recover from a bad hole, the 16th is where it can all end for a player in the final round, " wrote David Sowell in his book, The Masters.
"Losing a stroke here, this close to the finish, is often fatal. A player's fortituge and his ability to overcome adversity are offten put to an extreme test here."
Just after 16 lies a quick gauntlet of par 4s.
"It's your last really good birdie opportunity before you play two tough finishing holes in 17 and 18," said Howell III.
"People forget, even the year that Tiger had the miraculous chip-in for birdie at No. 16, he had bogeyed the last two holes to go into a playoff."
A moat around the castle of immortality at the very end. No. 16 is a bridge, a way across. Tame its Sunday tricks and you'll ride into Butler Cabin a champion.
Just don't whiff on the handshake when you get there.
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