They say the Masters is all about tradition. One involves the sense of trepidation that collides with excitement as the finest golfers in the world take to Augusta National. Rory McIlroy, now a Masters champion, was scared to take a divot when first taking to the Georgia venue. “For my first two or three times, it kind of felt like I was in a museum,” says Xander Schauffele.
Some visibly wilt under an intimidation provided by a course that is picture perfect. It is like the dazzling princess is concealing an axe.
Jordan Spieth, the Masters champion in 2015, is the ideal man to assess the golfing conundrum of Augusta. “It is all about approach shots,” Spieth says. “You need to understand that there is a shot and a miss on every hole.
“In order to hit the shot that gives you the easiest putt, you have to risk being in a place where you will be pretty far away for par. Some places that means hazards, some places it is simply a slope. The terrain is so dramatic that a miss in the wrong spot, no matter how good you feel about your short game, isn’t something you can get away with. It stands the test of time by continuing to force you to play the course the way it was designed.” This is all logical, if also far easier said than done.
The Masters rewards experience. No debutant has donned a Green Jacket since 1979. Yet while elite players will generally figure out the vagaries to which Spieth alludes, there is more – a lot more – involved. The Augusta thing is difficult to pinpoint but exists inside the heads of competitors. “It is nervy,” says Robert MacIntyre.
“Even now when I go back, it is still a bit uncomfortable. You are a bit on edge. You don’t know what you can and can’t do. I am still working out what you can’t do. There are strict rules and regulations that must be on some kind of form we are given but … It is just different. You walk across certain bits of grass and think: ‘Am I allowed to do this?!’
“It is a wonderful place, it is special. But this will be my fourth time and you still feel on edge. When I am on the course and hitting shots, I don’t care. Nothing is getting in the way. It’s just when you are walking around or posting things on social media, you are on edge.” MacIntyre alludes to sacred areas, which those in charge of the Masters are content to remain beyond the eyes of a wider world.
The US PGA Championship will make a rare stop at the historic Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania next month. It will be natural for entrants to familiarise themselves with the course in the weeks leading up. Those qualifying for the Masters for the first time do the same thing as part of a psychological process. “It was the strangest day,” says Ryan Fox.
“I have never played so badly and not cared at all. I didn’t think about playing golf, I just walked out there and thought ‘oh wow, this is what it looks like.’ It felt like that on every single hole.
“You build it up to be this massive thing. You have a picture in your head of what it will be like and it is actually quite different. Everyone says it will be more hilly than you think, then it is actually more hilly again.
“As a golfer, it is like a religious experience the first time you go there so I am glad I did that socially. It would have been too much in Masters week itself.”
Spieth’s Augusta experience started on the 10th tee after early arrival for a social visit meant he could play the back nine the evening before his scheduled round the following morning. That first shot was fine. The 1st tee hours later, less so. “It shouldn’t be that way, right?” he says. “That isn’t even one of the harder tee shots there.”
Tommy Fleetwood attended the Masters as a spectator in 2014. He returned several months before playing in the tournament for the first time, three years later. “As a spectator, you get to the 12th tee and you can’t go any further,” Fleetwood says. “You are looking over at the 12th green and 13th tee. So the thing I will always remember is the moment I got to walk to the 12th green and 13th tee.
“I wasn’t intimidated playing the course for the first time. I think when you do that, it is more playable than you think it is going to be. But the first time I played in the tournament, I was really nervous and got caught out by so many things. I made a bunch of mistakes and shot 78. Part nerves, part hitting the wrong shots where I didn’t know where to give the course respect. You learn every time you play there. I am still learning every time I play it.”
Schauffele and Fleetwood are top 10 golfers in the world. MacIntyre has a strong chance in this week’s 90th Masters staging. Spieth has scaled the heights in his sport. And still, Augusta messes with minds. “It’s just the Masters, it’s hallowed turf,” Fleetwood says.
“There are the major nerves but the Masters hype is a little bit more. It’s the one major where you go to the same place every year. I feel like everyone who gets there for the first time thinks they know it but actually you don’t. You have lived and breathed other people’s shots and suddenly you are the one hitting them.”
For players in contention, there is nowhere like it. “The roars rip through the property when you are in the final groups,” Schauffele says. “You are creating your own memories there, trying to hit those shots. It absolutely inspires you at that point.”
You have to get to that scenario, though. Which even for golfers at the peak of their power is fiendishly difficult.
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