Part 3: What The Numbers Say About Augusta National's 1-5-7
As the 2024 arrives, significant trend suggest the updated 1st, 5th and 7th have become more difficult and are less likely to be birdied.
Part I considered how holes evolved at Augusta National to play roles in shaping how The Masters unfolds. Part II considered the original design intent and evolution of the first, fifth and seventh. Today, we look at the numbers.
I asked Tim Liotta, who is doing Golf Godly-work creating a free database and Grand Slam story-tracker at ForeMajorsGolf.com, to see if there were any trends in Masters scoring data that would confirm the sense that some of the first nine’s fun and games have become (too) difficult. At my initial request, he included the fourth hole given its 35-yard extension in 2006. Here’s what he shared:
Over the last three Masters (23-22-21), a total of 223 birdies were posted on 1-4-5-7, the lowest 3-year period “by a mile” since 1990.
The average number of birdies on holes 1,4,5,7 over the 31 years prior to 2021 was 334, which means the last three Masters fields posted 33 percent fewer birdies over those four holes than the previous 31-year average.
The second-lowest 3-year total for birdies on holes 1,4,5,7 since 1990 was 271 back in 1996-98, but he notes that’s “still 48 more birdies than this past 3-year run.”
The highest 3-year total for birdies on holes 1,4,5,7 was 411 from 1991-93.
In the 12 years from 1990-2001, holes 1,4,5,7 produced an average of 351 birdies each year.
The folks in Augusta diligently look at the numbers and probably know all of this. They might also respectfully point out that weather from 2021-2023 has not been up to Mother Nature’s finest hour during Masters week. A nice way of saying “it’s been bloody cold and wet so the course has played long at times.)
The Lords of Augusta also might okay with seeing some of the par 4s playing tougher since the two par 5s are trending in the other direction despite efforts to buttress the second and eighth holes from the juiced equipment.
During the 19-year period of 1990-2008, players posted sub-par scores 35% of the time when playing par 5s.
From 2009 - 2018 (10 years), players posted sub-par scores 40.3% of the time when playing Augusta National’s par 5s.
From 2019 - 2023, players have posted sub-par scores 44.7% of the time on the par 5s.
If the fields from 2019 - 2023 posted sub-par scores on par 5s at the rate seen from 1990-2008 (35.0 percent), only 2,030 birdies and eagles would have been recorded, a decrease of 559 from the 2,589 actually recorded.
Liotta concludes that the increased difficulty of holes 1,4,5 and 7 is offset in overall scoring with the par 5s yielding more subpar scores.
There is so much more to Augusta National or any enjoyable golf course than pure numbers. But we know a player increasingly put on the defensive is—forgive me Herb Wind—less likely get on the kind of “heater” that separates Augusta National from other tournament courses. We know the Masters is at its best when the player feels frisky enough to be aggressive. An air of excitement builds on the grounds when heroic rounds seem possible. And for all of the birdie there are often disastrous consequences for excess aggressiveness at the wrong time.
Given how the 4th has always averaged over par wherever the tee is located, I feel like the long par 3 inspired by the Old Courses High hole, is having less possible impact.
To illustrate the trends with the key par 4s, longtime blog/Quad reader, Rick McCann answered the call to put Liotta’s data to use to make a visual statement.
Each point on the graphs below represents the number of scores under par, at par, and over par for each year in the period listed on the x-axis. His analysis is "mean + standard deviation," which as McCann says, is “a bit much for golf but useful in this case.”
As a Georgian I don’t think I need to tell Rick this, but will any way: this isn’t golf. It’s The Masters!
Here is what Dr. McCann found using numbers put together by ForeMajorsGolf.com to tell the story visually.
“As for the statistical analysis, p-values (ANOVA for fellow geeks) are also a bit much, but by convention any value under 0.05 is “statistically significant,” he says. “This brings out the significant differences in how the fifth and seventh holes play over the years: birdies decreased and bogeys increased significantly on each hole as they changed.”
The First Hole
While the trend is not as stark here as at 5th and and 7th holes, the first hole has remained steadier with under par and par scores, but is starting to see an increase in over par scores since its lengthening and other changes made as detailed in Part II. There has been and increase from an average in the 70s to 89.3 in the era since 2006 when changes took hold.