{"id":611441,"date":"2026-04-16T20:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T20:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611441\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T20:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T20:24:12","slug":"i-played-augusta-national-about-as-well-as-i-could-have-hoped-heres-why-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611441\/","title":{"rendered":"I played Augusta National about as well as I could have hoped. Here’s why \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

I shot a 74 at Augusta National the day after Rory McIlroy won his second green jacket. That\u2019s not a sentence I expected to write.<\/p>\n

Augusta National has a way of exposing everything\u2014your swing, your decision-making, your patience. As a 1 index capable of breaking par but also shooting in the 80s, I didn\u2019t feel like I played perfectly, but I also didn\u2019t feel overwhelmed. In fact, I played about as well as I could have hoped.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what went right.<\/p>\n

I handled the nerves before I ever hit a shot <\/p>\n

The most nervous I felt all day wasn\u2019t on the first tee\u2014it was Friday afternoon when I found out I\u2019d won the media lottery. Those nerves sat with me all weekend, and by the time Monday arrived, they had almost burned themselves out. So when I drove down Magnolia Lane, trying to slow the moment down, and stood on the first tee, I wasn\u2019t fighting the adrenaline as much as I expected. I made bogey after punching out of the trees, and it didn\u2019t spiral. At Augusta National, that\u2019s everything. One bad swing can turn into three quickly.<\/p>\n

For me, it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

RELATED: 7 things they don\u2019t tell you about playing Augusta National<\/p>\n

I kept the ball in play off the tee <\/p>\n

This sounds obvious, but it isn\u2019t at Augusta National. There are misses that still leave you in the hole, and others that don\u2019t. I managed to stay on the right side of that line most of the day, even when I wasn\u2019t perfect. And then there was the moment that reminded me it\u2019s still just golf\u2014I hit what felt like a perfect drive and walked up to find my ball sitting in a divot. At Augusta National. For a second, it almost felt wrong since the place is flawless. The course doesn\u2019t eliminate bad breaks\u2014it just magnifies how you respond to them.<\/p>\n

1 \/ 13 \"Augusta <\/p>\n

Dom Furore<\/p>\n

2 \/ 13 \"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2020\/11\/augusta-national-18th-green-pano-sunset-ben-walton.jpg\"\/ <\/p>\n

BEN WALTON<\/p>\n

3 \/ 13 \"Augusta <\/p>\n

Dom Furore<\/p>\n

4 \/ 13 \"Augusta <\/p>\n

Dom Furore<\/p>\n

5 \/ 13 \"Augusta <\/p>\n

Dom Furore<\/p>\n

6 \/ 13 \"2017-02-Augusta-National-GC-hole-4.jpg\"\/ <\/p>\n

Stephen Szurlej<\/p>\n

7 \/ 13 \"Augusta <\/p>\n

Dom Furore<\/p>\n

8 \/ 13 \"Augusta <\/p>\n

Dom Furore<\/p>\n

9 \/ 13 \"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/course-photos-for-places-to-play\/augusta-national-course-shot-jd-cuban.jpg\"\/ <\/p>\n

JD Cuban<\/p>\n

10 \/ 13 \"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/course-photos-for-places-to-play\/JD2_9506.jpg\"\/ <\/p>\n

J.D. Cuban<\/p>\n

11 \/ 13 \"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/course-photos-for-places-to-play\/JD2_9532.jpg\"\/ <\/p>\n

J.D. Cuban<\/p>\n

12 \/ 13 \"Masters <\/p>\n

JD Cuban<\/p>\n

13 \/ 13 \"Masters <\/p>\n

Stephen Denton<\/p>\n

Previous Next Pause Play false Private Augusta National Golf Club Augusta, GA 5 13 Panelists <\/p>\n

100 Greatest
\nBest In State<\/p>\n

No club has tinkered with its golf course as often or as effectively over the decades as has Augusta National Golf Club, mainly to keep it competitive for the annual Masters Tournament, an event it has conducted since 1934, with time off during WWII. All that tinkering has resulted in an amalgamation of design ideas, with a routing by Alister Mackenzie and Bobby Jones, some Perry Maxwell greens, some Trent Jones water hazards, some Jack Nicklaus mounds and swales and, most recently, extensive rebunkering and tree planting by Tom Fazio. The tinkering continues, including the lengthening of the par-4 fifth in the summer of 2018, the lengthening of the 11th and 15th holes in 2022, and the addition of 35 yards to the famed par-5 13th in 2023. View Course My iron play kept me in control <\/p>\n

If anything travels at Augusta, it\u2019s solid iron play. My shot on 12 is the one I\u2019ll remember most. The wind was swirling a little, the pin was tucked, and everything about the hole makes you want to guide it. Instead, I trusted the number, took an extra club, and hit a smooth shot to the center of the green. Walking off with par there felt like stealing something. The same thing showed up on 15, where the second shot doesn\u2019t quite look real when you\u2019re standing over it. The green feels like it\u2019s sitting on a ledge\u2014water short, nothing comfortable long. It\u2019s not a shot you can ease into. You either commit, or you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I adjusted to the greens\u2014just enough <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen Augusta National\u2019s greens on TV my entire life, and it still doesn\u2019t prepare you. It\u2019s not just how fast they are\u2014it\u2019s how extreme the changes are. Downhill putts feel like they could run off the property, and uphill putts require more commitment than feels reasonable. On the seventh, I trusted my caddie completely on a 31-footer. He pointed to a spot a few feet in front of me and said, \u201cThat\u2019s your hole.\u201d Halfway there, he said it was going in\u2014and it did. Birdie. One hole later, I thought I had figured something out. I hadn\u2019t. I three-putted for par. That\u2019s Augusta. You\u2019re never fully comfortable\u2014you\u2019re just managing it better than you were a few holes earlier.<\/p>\n

\"20-Augusta-National-practice-area.jpg\"\/ <\/p>\n

Andrew Redington\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

RELATED: The bogey golfer\u2019s guide to surviving Augusta National<\/p>\n

I took what the course gave me <\/p>\n

This might be the biggest reason the round held together. I played Amen Corner in even par and still walked away thinking I could have been under. That\u2019s the trap. Augusta doesn\u2019t reward forcing anything\u2014it rewards discipline. Taking the center of the green on 12, accepting par on 13, getting up and down when you need to\u2014that\u2019s how you stay in control. That stretch doesn\u2019t always ask for brilliance. It asks for restraint.<\/p>\n

I committed when it mattered most <\/p>\n

By the time I reached the 18th, I was exhausted. The walk, the heat, the mental energy\u2014it all adds up. But the hole gives you one last moment. The drive was perfect, and the approach\u2014130 yards uphill\u2014came down to one thought: one more committed swing. The ball landed past the hole and spun back to five feet. Standing over that putt, it felt bigger than it should. It\u2019s just five feet. It isn\u2019t. I backed off once, reset, and told myself to commit. The ball started on line and never left it. And just like that, it dropped. Birdie on 18 at Augusta.<\/p>\n

The takeaway <\/p>\n

Augusta National isn\u2019t about playing perfect golf. It\u2019s about limiting the damage and fully committing to the shots that matter. For one day, I managed to do both.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I shot a 74 at Augusta National the day after Rory McIlroy won his second green jacket. That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,38935,755,138747,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-611441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-courses","12":"tag-golf","13":"tag-golf-digest","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}