Masters hole No. 13 at Augusta: Love it or lengthen it?

In 1933, Alister MacKensie and Bobby Jones designed a 480-yard, par-5 golf hole that would become one of the most famous in the world. In 2015, Bubba Watson blasted a drive up and over the dogleg of that same hole that could wind up costing the course’s owners more than $30 million.

The hole is the iconic Azalea, No. 13 at Augusta National Golf Club, which will host the Masters tournament this week. It’s consistently ranked among the world’s most famous golf holes, but is increasingly being overpowered by today’s professionals, even after being lengthened several times to its current 510 yards.

“I mean, Bubba (Watson), Dustin (Johnson), these guys are hitting wedges and 9-irons into that hole, just making a mockery of it,” Golf Channel analyst Chris DiMarco said.

Augusta National officials apparently have seen enough of that. Golfweek reported in February that Augusta National was near a deal to buy the ninth hole of Augusta Country Club, the hole that sits directly behind the No. 12 green and No. 13 tee box at Augusta National. The deal, which would include Augusta National paying for someone to build a new No. 9 for Augusta Country Club, would give the home of the Masters room to move back the tee on No. 13.

Augusta National hasn’t commented on the deal or its plan, but it’s widely believed that this year’s Masters will be the final tournament with the hole in its current configuration.

“It’s going to be the most expensive tee in the history of the game,” said Irmo native Bobby Weed, who owns and operates course architecture firm Bobby Weed Golf Design in Ponte Vedra, Fla.

That said, Weed would like to see the change. The doglegged 13^th hole historically plays as the course’s second-easiest hole with a stroke average of 4.78. In 2015, the hole’s stroke average (4.546) was the lowest in the tournament’s history, and it played as the course’s easiest hole.

“If these guys can cut around the corner, they are hitting a short iron in there,” Weed said. “That was not the intent of the golf hole.”

That much was made clear by MacKenzie himself, whose intentions for the hole were laid out in a manuscript published after his death under the title “The Spirit of St. Andrews.”

“In his book, he talked about the necessity of golf courses being elastic to keep in step with technological increases,” Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee said.

However, the modern game has finally snapped the 13^th hole.

“He wanted players to deal with that awkward sidehill lie and a long shot into that green. That's what he’d want them to deal with,” Chamblee said. “And when you see players now, curve the ball around that bend and have a short iron into – from a flatter lie than he would have liked to that green, that's not at all what he had in mind. So to try to restore that hole to the intent, to the imaginative intent, to the technical intent that Alister Mackenzie and Bobby Jones had in mind I think is a great thing.”

If Augusta National consummates the reported deal with Augusta Country Club, it would be the third time it has bought land from ACC in order to tweak its own design. It did the same thing in 1976 and 2001.

“I certainly hope that they can do it,” Chamblee said. “I think it is the most beautiful par-5 in the world, and I'd like to see guys have to really bend their tee shots around that corner and not cut the corner. And then I'd like to see them have to deal with trying to work a shot left-to-right from a right-to-left lie with peril all around the hole.”

The hole (named for the 1,600 azaleas that decorate it) has ping-ponged distances since the first tournament in 1934, starting at 480 yards, shrinking to 470 in 1955, bouncing up to 485 in 1976 before going down to a low of 465 in 1984 and ballooning back to 485 in 1994. It was lengthened to its current 510 yards in 2011 and still it doesn’t seem long enough at times.

“I think what makes that hole, and I know I've done it a bunch of times, you try to hit a 3-iron or even a hybrid or a 3-wood off that sidehill lie to a very awkward second shot, which you know that left is almost as bad as hitting it in the hazard right,” DiMarco said. “These guys aren't dealing with that.”

Weed expects the club will take the tee box back about 50 yards and move it more toward the 12^th green (to prevent the hole from becoming a “right angle”). From a design perspective, the change is “not a big deal,” he said.

“It’s right in line with what they’ve already done to so many of the holes on the golf course already,” Weed said. “I think it’ll be a great change. It’ll be a lot better seeing them hit longer irons in there.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Masters hole No. 13 at Augusta: Love it or lengthen it?."