How do you conquer Augusta? Here’s what The Masters favourites say about the greatest test in golf
· Yahoo Sports
Sitting in a tidy pile at home, Matt Fitzpatrick still has the notebook he used at his first Masters tournament in 2014. During a practice round that year, Justin Rose gave him a little piece of advice: never go flag hunting on the first hole. “Hit it centre of the green and leave yourself 20 feet every time, you’re never going to go wrong,” Fitzpatrick recalls. “That’s still in my book.”
Fitzpatrick just missed the cut, aged 19, and he’s been on a journey to understand Augusta’s quirks ever since. Experience is the key that unlocks Augusta National, as a player begins to understand each green’s intricacies, each knuckle, each wrinkle, each innocent crater that carries the ball away into some impossible valley. There is a reason no debutant has won since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979, nearly half a century ago.
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What does it take to win The Masters? The first hurdle to overcome is the unique psychology of simply playing golf at Augusta. It has been said to feel almost sacrilegious, hitting drives down hallowed fairways like crashing drums in an ancient cathedral. Strict rules and stiff traditions all add to the tension. Robert MacIntyre said he is still “on edge” walking around the grounds, telling the Guardian: “You walk across certain bits of grass and think: ‘Am I allowed to do this?!’”
The blooming azaleas and flowering crab apples paint a picture of tranquility that belies the pressure inside the ropes. There is almost no respite from watching patrons apart from one sliver of Amen Corner.
“You’re playing the green on 12 and the tee shot on 13 with virtually nobody there,” says Jon Rahm. “It is odd because of how quiet it is. If you were to make a putt on 12, you hear a two-second delayed cheer from the grandstands at 12, but you don’t know if it’s somebody doing something on 11, a scoreboard changing, or your shot. It’s a very nice moment of peace within the madness at a tournament this big on a Sunday afternoon.”
Jon Rahm practices at Augusta National ahead of the 2026 Masters (Getty)With the psychological toil comes a unique test of strategy and technique. Approach play and shots around the greens are both far more telling at Augusta than the average PGA Tour course. Long drives help, and missed putts cost dearly, but Augusta’s real challenge lies in what it asks of your irons and short game, often from sloping fairways with the ball six inches above your feet. Can you land a six-iron on a plateau the size of a dining table? Can you skip a wedge onto a dinner plate?
There are certain parts of the course that the outside world underestimates. “I could make that argument for every single shot on this golf course,” Rahm says. “Honestly, I don’t think the wedge shots on 13 and 15 [two par fives], if you lay-up, are ever talked about enough. You’re most likely going to be on quite a bit of downslope and it’s very, very difficult to hit the pin towards the back of the green.
“Those are two shots I always tell people, especially 15 with the water being a threat … it’s a lot more difficult than anybody would realise. I can make that case for a lot of shots. I think a lot of people have this idea that Augusta National is wide, and then you come here for the first time and you start seeing how narrow it gets, how narrow one, two, five can get. Seven is way narrower than people think, even eight.”
Learning Augusta’s secrets means knowing where you can afford to miss, and where you really can’t. “There are spots you definitely need to avoid,” says Scottie Scheffler. “When you get out of position around this golf course that’s one of the greatest challenges, getting the ball back in position and trying to make your par.”
Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick walk over the Nelson Bridge on the 13th hole during practice (Getty Images)It is a test of execution, and few right now are hitting the ball cleaner than Fitzpatrick. His recent improvement with irons in hand was why he went so close to victory at The Players Championship last month and then won at Valspar the following weekend. “It’s definitely the most confident I’ve been,” Fitzpatrick says. “I wouldn’t say that means I’m going to go out there and play well [but] this is the best form I’ve been in coming into this tournament.”
But Fitzpatrick also acknowledges a limitation of his game which could partly explain why he hasn’t often located his best golf at The Masters. It is a course that demands control not only of where the ball lands on each green but of how it lands: the speed, the trajectory, the spin. A high ball with a soft landing was a key part of Rory McIlroy’s winning armoury last year, most notably in his famous hooked seven-iron over water to the 15th green. But Fitzpatrick’s low ball flight into Augusta’s firm, fast greens is a recipe for losing control.
“It hinders me a little bit … just naturally, particularly with irons, [not] having that stopping power on the green. But I think I’ve managed to hit my irons with a little bit more shape these past nine months, a little bit more cut spin on it, which should soften it despite a lower flight.”
In a wide open field – neither McIlroy nor Scheffler have found top gear yet this year – Tommy Fleetwood is another contender, and his solution to the series of 200-plus-yard approach shots around Augusta is a relatively novel one. Fleetwood carries the lesser seen nine-wood in his bag to generate the height needed to give him some control from distance.
“It’s a perfect nine-wood golf course,” Fleetwood says. “I’ve had that in the bag for a few years now. If I can put myself in position on the par-fives, or the long par three (fourth hole) – for me, I can’t really hit that high floaty four-iron, so a nine-wood helps me a lot.”
Tommy Fleetwood plays a shot from the 12th tee during a practice round at Augusta National (Getty)This is the only major which returns to the same golf course each year, and yet each edition of The Masters is different. Every day is new. “Augusta always makes a few changes and they don’t tell us what they’re doing, they just do it,” says Scheffler. “So there’s always little stuff you’re trying to figure out.
“A lot of that’s green speeds. Depending on firmness as well, a lot of the strategy can change as the greens start to change. Each one has its own challenges, and so I think a lot of that is getting prepared for how you think the golf course is going to play because, even when you go out there on Wednesday, it’s going to be different when we show up on Thursday.”
Nearly a century after the first Masters, the tournament endures as a unique sporting spectacle, a staple of springtime. And despite the arrival of supersonic ball speeds and monstrous long drives, despite gradually decreasing scores, it is still a true test of skill and nerve, an examination for which players never stop accumulating knowledge through the years.
“My first Masters, the first round, I made a ton of mistakes and I remember that was a big learning curve,” adds Fleetwood. “I think you’re learning all the time, you really, really are. No matter how many times you’ve played this golf course, or how many times you’ve played the tournament, I think you always learn something new when you’re playing. You definitely start to understand the golf course can give a little – but it can take away a lot as well.”