The Third At Augusta National
Part I looks at the many changes and evolution of the short par 4 which may look and play slightly different this year.
Par: 4
Yardage: 350
Original Routing Hole Number: 12th
Name: Flowering Peach
Scientific name: Prunus persica
Historical scoring average: 4.08 (ranks 14th at Augusta National)
2024 average: 3.933 (with three eagles)
Alister MacKenzie considered Augusta National’s third hole to be nearly perfect.
The club contends it is the least changed hole on the course.
I’m not sure either party is correct. But we still love ’em!
On the eve of the 89th Masters where no intentional design changes have taken place, the drive-and-pitch par-4 may see a modest impact from last year’s hurricane. But a significant change has already been seen this century in how players attack MacKenzie’s supposedly lightly changed hole.
At a venue the world knows better than their home courses, the third somehow retains an air of mysteriousness, cautiousness, and extreme respect. Watching Masters action there is rarely dull. It’s also the last two-shotter at Augusta National to retain an indefinable, sure-fire way to play it. There is still plenty of risk, reward, and that fun fine line sensibility of a hole where prospects for a 3 on the card can quickly turn to a 5 with only the slightest mistake.
Modern technology and an early 80s landing area change have made the straightaway, uphill hole a little less option-rich. But with added distance has come the excitement of seeing players attempting to drive the green even if they need a lucky bounce to have a tee shot finish on the putting surface. The third’s left hole location remains as difficult to play to as it has since 1933, and is as dangerous to attack as Sunday’s back right pin on 12. And while the tightened landing area and insane carry distances remain, number three may see a rekindling of certain playing dimensions due to tree losses. After all, the current mentality to bomb away off the tee has done little to change its scoring average. (The thinking behind that approach covered in Part 2 of this saga might even be causing players unnecessary stress.)
Mastery of the third has been key to Scottie Scheffler’s two Green Jackets, including the site of his incredible 2022 chip-in. He’s four-under-par there in 20 competitive rounds at Augusta National. With 18 hole coverage, every shot on demand, and the collective appreciation for shorter par 4s that everyone can enjoy playing or watching, the third hole has become an early indicator of final round glory as the brutal stretch of 4-5-6 awaits.
But is it a great hole? Or just a little awkward enough to seem more interesting? I’m not sure co-architect and club co-founder Bobby Jones adored it as much as his design partner Alister MacKenzie, whose extreme enthusiasm for “Flowering Peach” may have been as much about keeping Clifford Roberts from overmeddling. Roberts was MacKenzie’s worst nightmare for a client: he constantly offered ideas while claiming he knew nothing about course design. And he didn’t pay MacKenzie’s bill.
The third hole has probably undergone fewer changes than any other hole on the course. Its principal feature today, as was true in the beginning, is a treacherously shaped green that sits on a tilted natural plateau. BOBBY JONES
In early publications and letters, MacKenzie suggested the 12th hole on the Old Course inspired the design. If you put a fingertip over the cluster of three fairway bunkers added in 1982 on the tee side of the original placed by MacKenzie, take a shot of bourbon and hit yourself with bat, you can see a close resemblance.
Jones and MacKenzie were conflicted in their invocation of the Old Course as Augusta National’s guiding light and refuted suggestions they were building a theme course. But we know the two are closely linked by giving the architects a starting place with several hole concepts. In the third’s case, they took inspiration by placing a similarly stubborn fairway bunker and envisioned a second shot to a crowned green.
Originally, players could play straight at the green, lay up in front of the fairway bunker, or, with a helping wind, hit a wood past it to a nice pad of fairway with a great view, if less idyllic angle for the second shot. The original green “compartments” were slightly more pronounced than today, but the overall shape has been retained through the decades with only one key modification to the front right by Perry Maxwell (when he was radically changing the seventh and 10th greens.)
“At this hole the super golfer, like Bob [Jones] has a most fascinating problem,” MacKenzie wrote in a letter reprinted by David Owens in The Making of The Masters. “To have a reasonable chance of three, he will have to attack the hole from the left, where all the slopes help him towards the hole. It is here that the tee-shot bunker comes in as he must make up his mind to play round it with a pulled shot from right to left or a fade from left to right, or, when a strong wind is in his favour, to play over it.”
Old topographic maps suggest the greensite was targeted by MacKenzie and Jones as an ideal spot when routing the course.
The third’s strategy was really quite simple: the option to play straightaway at the hole is there and maybe the best angle to attack right-hand hole locations. But room was provided to play left and short, around or over the bunker. From the left, the player gets to hit into the length and tilt of the green. As with the short par 4 10th of Riviera, which played this way before today’s decathletes started eating their Wheaties, the counterintuitive notion of taking the longer route to a short hole often makes good players do unnecessary things. It’s what we love about the tug-of-war between golfers and well-conceived holes.
MacKenzie’s most detailed third hole explanation came in the letter to Roberts, who asked about putting in a front bunker that would have been punishing for member play.
“Consider the many problems which face a golfer approaching the hole,” he replied to Roberts. “In the first place he can play safely to the right and rely on a long putt going dead to get his four. If he elects to go straight at the flag he must play a perfect pitch or else his ball would hit the bank and come back or run over the green.