It is now 20 years since Tiger Woods destroyed the field on his way to a record Masters win, 12 shots clear of nearest challenger.
The Augusta National Golf Club was set up at 6,925 yards in 1997 but this year sits 500 yards longer as organisers try to protect the course from the players who hit the ball further and further.
And as Woods explained how to overcome the challenges of some of the course’s most difficult holes, he revealed that golfers like Bubba Watson could have made a mockery of Augusta.
“Imagine Bubba playing the Augusta of ’97 and, for example, taking on the bunker from the 1st tee,” Woods wrote in his book Unprecedented: The Masters and Me, as quote by The Times.
“He would hit his drive within 50 yards of the green.
“Or on two, he would hit that cut of his and be down there with a sand wedge in his hand.
“On the 1st hole, the deep bunker on the right side of the fairway wasn’t even there for me [in 1997].
“My plan was to hit the drive over the top of the bunker. I didn’t see it.
“If I hit the drive the way I wanted, I had a sand wedge or lob wedge in.”
Woods is not playing the Masters this year after pulling out due to a back injury which kept him away from competitive golf for more than a year.
But the four-time Masters champion also called on the Augusta organisers not to lengthen the 12th hole, an iconic par-3 over the water, and threatened not to play the competition again if they did.
“The 12th is one of the best par threes in the world just the way it is,” Woods added.
“There’s no reason to change it, and I hope Augusta National leaves it alone.
“It’s perfect at 155 yards.
“The day the hole is lengthened to, oh, 200 yards will be the day I quit playing the Masters.
“I’ll be done. I can’t imagine playing 12 at 200 yards.
“We have eight-irons and nine-irons in there, or wedges, six or seven-irons max, and we still make doubles and triples and worse.”
