It’s the most famous three-hole stretch in golf. It has spawned a plague of naming conventions, like the Green Mile or the Bear Trap or the Snake Pit, to swoop up other sets of holes into one bucket. Herbert Warren Wind used the name Amen Corner in 1958 to describe the farthest plot of the property from the clubhouse. Originally, it captured the second shot on No. 11, all of No. 12, and the first two shots of No. 13 at the very bottom of a cascading hill that runs down from the clubhouse to this corner.
The 5 senses of Augusta National’s Amen Corner
It’s the most famous spot on the most famous course in the world. Some observations from hanging out among the hustle and bustle at Amen Corner.
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
The holes have changed, especially No. 11, but the corner has remained largely the same with the most famous par-3 in the world as the anchor. It sounds like we will be getting significant changes in the coming year, as Augusta National moves the tee on No. 13 way back after purchasing land from the adjacent Augusta Country Club. Here’s Tiger Woods on how to play the three-hole stretch.
Amen Corner has become so much more than just golf shots on some of the best golf holes in the world. It’s a social event separate and distinct from the rest of the Masters. If you come to the Masters, you need to at least visit Amen Corner and see it. Some of the largest grandstands on the entire course run along the hillside behind the 11th green and 12th tee. One of the largest concessions stands is set up in the trees behind it. No patrons are allowed to walk the holes or cross Rae’s Creek. Patrons are confined to a rigid, well, corner. A friend once compared the social scene to what you’d see at the Kentucky Derby, but just quieter.
Maybe you camp out at Amen Corner every year. Or maybe you’ve never been there. Here’s an attempt to capture the five senses of Amen Corner.
SEE
- pleated pants
- men’s shorts with 6-inch inseams
- seersucker and white pants (Memorial Day rule is not a hard-and-fast one)
- quarter zips of every color and logo, both vested and sleeved
- tour visors, men’s and women’s hats of every kind, color, and brim style
- croakies of every kind, color, style
- no denim, at all
- a weathered “phone box” to make calls from the farthest corner when you’re playing the course, which you never will
- no trash, not even a scrap of paper or cup that got loose from the thousands of people who may be inebriated
- mating rituals
- golf course logo peacocking. You have to wear something with golf course logo on it, whether it’s a hat, a shirt, a sweater, or a belt. It may be your local muni or it may be Cypress Point, but everyone wears golf course logos.
- four old school green TV stands positioned on both sides of Rae’s Creek
- rows and rows of folding chairs. Augusta has many defined areas for folding chairs and a well-known rule that you can set up your chair first thin in the morning and leave it without fear of losing your spot. Hours before players will ever come to Amen Corner, before 9 a.m. each day, the rows stretch 18-25 deep, empty and set up for the day.
- Perhaps not a lot of golf! There is a certain segment that is there to be seen and heard and chat. It’s also crowded and unless you’re set up in one of those chairs or up in the grandstands, it can be a challenge to see all the shots at 12 and 13, or at least see them well.
SMELL
- cigarette smoke and cigar smoke. The Masters may be the most dense per capita collection of people smoking cigars that is not a cigar bar.
- that olfactory cocktail of sunscreen mixed with sweat
- the pine straw
- beer, these four kinds, wafting through the air
- this pungent wet grass and mud smell back by the concession stand that you’d get at a rainy music festival, enhanced by this green kitty litter-looking mixture they throw down on top of high-traffic areas that could become slop.
HEAR
- a constant murmur and hum. It never gets totally silent. There are too many people and the play is often so far removed from the rope lines and grandstands. There is never the cold, still silence you associate with golf galleries but rather a persistent chatter in the pines.
- unsolicited and unheard advice from weekend chops to the best in the world on how to play golf or which shots to hit
- airplanes. Augusta controls everything on the grounds, but the sky is harder and the winds this week have created flight patterns with pretty steady air traffic, often private, over that corner of the course.
- feet shuffling out of and pounding down the grandstands. Whenever a marquee tee time, or marquee cluster of tee times come through, the grandstands can clear out like it’s the end of a basketball game.
FEEL/TOUCH
- breeze in your hair and on your face. I do not mean this in a purple or treacly way. There’s a nice breeze down there! It’s also completely unpredictable and changes often and that’s why the players find a short 155-yard par-3 so difficult.
- pine straw shuffling and moving beneath your feet. This is a slightly amorphous, unstable, and frictionless surface to walk on and I am terrified of going down every time I’m on it and it moves beneath my feet.
- sun beating down on your head. The breeze is nice, but if you gather outside of the pines or in the grandstands, it can be one of the hottest spots on the course.
- security tapping on your shoulder if you shout something stupid
- totally disconnected. Ok this is cheating and not really a sense, but you feel completely disconnected from the rest of the tournament. There is a large manual scoreboard across the pond in front of the 11th green. That’s the only way you can be kept up to speed on what’s happening elsewhere on the course, but you have no real clue how it happened.
- touchscreens! Technology is not completely absent from the grounds at Augusta National. There is a station of tablets set up on the back of the grandstand for people to fill out the “patron survey.” The questions range from basic demographics like gender, age, or where you’re from (the four options are Georgia, South Carolina, another state, another country) to the experience of the event. Those cover how much you paid for housing, whether you smoke and how you’d want it regulated at Augusta, your experiences with the restrooms, new merchandise mansion, and security, and how you get your #content, from OTT services or elsewhere. There’s also a question on whether the Masters fits in with your conception of an “ideal sporting event.”
TASTE
- cigar smoke, there’s too much of it not to taste it
- beer, you don’t have your phone attached to your hand like usual so there’s more room to hold more beer and it is by far the most prevalent beverage throughout the entire corner
- anything you choose from a moderately priced menu!
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
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