Sergio Garcia during a Wednesday practice round ahead of the 2024 Masters. | Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Knowing severe storms would likely delay the first round, 2017 Masters champion Sergio Garcia unveiled the holes most affected by weather.
Sergio Garcia knows his way around Augusta National.
He won the 2017 Masters Tournament in a playoff over Justin Rose and has recorded three other top-10 finishes there.
This year, inclement weather delayed the beginning of the first round by 2.5 hours, much less than initially anticipated. Yet, knowing severe storms would blow through Augusta early Thursday, Garcia revealed which holes at Augusta National would be impacted the most by weather.
“It’s going to impact every single hole, but obviously, you think about holes like 5, 10, 11, and 18—tough holes that are long holes that you’re not going to get any run, and it’s going to become quite tricky,” Garcia said Wednesday.
“We’ll see how the weather is and deal with it.”
Since the club lengthened the par-4 5th to 495 yards in 2019, “Magnolia” has become one of the most challenging holes on the course. This uphill dogleg left features a pair of deep fairway bunkers that players must avoid to the left—players will have no chance of carrying them in wet conditions.
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Sergio Garcia during the 2024 Par Three Contest.
Tiger Woods bogeyed this hole all four days in 2019 en route to his 5th Masters victory. The 5th hole ranked as the most difficult in 2023, playing 0.329 shots over par.
Garcia then mentioned the 10th and 11th holes, both par-4s that play downhill.
The 10th, which measures 495 yards, is a massive dogleg left. Its steep grade is reminiscent of a ski mountain, but in wet and soft conditions, players will not get the roll they usually would on sunny days. That makes the 10th-hole play much longer and more difficult.
The 11th hole, meanwhile, measures 525 yards and plays downhill from the approach shot. Like any other hole, soft conditions lengthen the golf course and will, therefore, create longer second shots into a green guarded by a pond left. Tons of rain create more mud, and unpredictability looms when a player has mud on their golf ball. Perhaps that pond will catch a few mudballs on Thursday.
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The 11th hole at Augusta National.
Finally, Garcia mentioned the uphill, par-4 18th hole, one of the best finishing holes in all of golf. Listed at 465 yards, Augusta’s closing hole will play even longer than that, thanks to the conditions.
Overall, the course will play much differently on Thursday than the past three days when plentiful sunshine created firm conditions in practice rounds. That will force the players to adapt but create softer greens, likely producing better scoring opportunities.
“You talk about it a little bit, and there are some different things that you can do here and there, but at the end of the day, it’s still about hitting the shots,” Garcia added.
“It’s as simple and as difficult as that. So you just got to try to do the best there.”
But the other challenge heading everyone’s way is the wind, which could gust up to 40 miles per hour at times on Thursday and Friday. That could cause headaches among many of those within the field.
“With high as these pine trees are, it becomes tricky to know exactly where the wind is,” Garcia added.
“When it blows a little bit harder, it’s actually not easier, but you can guess it’s a little bit better because it’s more consistent. If it’s switching all the time, then it becomes a little bit trickier. But if it’s consistently blowing one way, at least you know more or less what it’s doing. Then on a course like this, where you have to be so precise in every single shot that you hit, when you play with that amount of wind, it becomes very, very challenging.”
Challenges await the players at the 88th Masters, which surely will not disappoint.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
