It’s a change that’s been years in the making and it finally appears that Augusta National‘s famous par-5 13th is getting a makeover, new images have revealed.
Measuring 510 yards, the hole named ‘Azalea’ is shorter than a lot of modern par-4s, with the best players in the world regularly reducing it to a drive and a short iron when The Masters rolls around each year.
Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley admitted that’s “not really how it was designed” ahead of the 2022 edition and images posted by Eureka Earth show that work is underway to build a new tee set further back into the trees.
The club bought the land behind the 13th tee from neighbouring Augusta Country Club in 2017, with talks emerging that the the plan was to build a ring road around the famous layout. Instead, the diggers have rolled in to carve a path through the trees which looks set to add some 40 yards to one of the game’s most revered holes.
More importantly than the additional length, though, the change would make it harder for the likes of Bryson DeChambeau and the other power hitters to launch it over the trees and cut the corner. Instead, as of next year, the game’s best could face the prospect of taking on Rae’s Creek and the other myriad pitfalls with a long iron. Some, if we’re lucky, might even need to reach for some timber.
They could, of course, just lay up, but where’s the fun in that.
The Green Jackets tend to remain quite tight-lipped about any changes made to the course, so make sure to follow Eureka Earth on Twitter (opens in new tab)and Instagram to keep up with the latest developments from Augusta National.
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