Masters golf 2026: What it’s wish to play at Augusta, Warren Smith’s hole-by-hole diary after taking pictures 74 at iconic course

Fox League commentator Warren Smith bought a priceless invitation to play Augusta Nationwide the day after Rory McIlroy the 2025 Masters. A yr on, he displays on the once-in-a-lifetime expertise.

What’s the very first thing you do if you’re handed an envelope containing an invite to play Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership?

Sure, it might be 11.30pm at night time again in Sydney, with these nearest to you more likely to be sleeping, however with the thrill rippling by means of you and a golden ticket in your hand, you decide up the cellphone and name a very powerful individual in your life – your golf coach.

I’m joking, in fact, however it did cross my thoughts.

I imply, it’s one factor to be invited to play Augusta Nationwide, however being nicely conscious that this can be it, the one and solely time you get to take a divot from the identical turf that has been walked by each nice of the sport for the final 90 years, you’d like to have the ability to do the event justice and play one thing resembling half-decent golf.

It’s that thought – ‘am I as much as this?’ – that swirls by means of your thoughts as your head hits the pillow figuring out that when the solar rises, the house of The Masters shall be ready so that you can stride to the primary tee and unleash no matter you’ve managed to convey to the desk on one of many sport’s grandest phases.

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It’s Monday, April 14, 2025, and your tee time at Augusta Nationwide is 8.45am.

Your arrival time on the important gate on Washington Street, which leads you instantly down Magnolia Lane, is 7.45am.

Ideally you’d like extra time than one hour between arriving on-site and placing a ball on a peg on the primary tee, however there’s no level turning up quarter-hour early as a result of the very pleasant guard on the entrance gate will advise you that as your invitation says 7.45am, that’s when it is best to return to make the drive down golf’s most well-known piece of ashphalt.

It’s a wonderful morning – a type of Chamber of Commerce sort days after they take all the good photos of city halls – and the solar is streaming by means of the branches of the magnolia’s as you slowly drive in direction of Founders Circle and the long-lasting yellow jasmine flowers that make up the map of America in entrance of the clubhouse.

It’s a ‘pinch me, I’m dreaming second’, however you’re making an attempt to maintain it collectively so that you simply don’t arrive on the entrance door extra giddy than Warren Buffett’s stockbroker.

Luggage are unloaded and also you head upstairs for a Continental Breakfast, figuring out full nicely that when you’d like to simply sit and soak within the atmosphere of what was as soon as the house of the Berckman’s and their Fruitland Nursery, each minute you spend trying on the cupboards of memorabilia is one much less minute you’ll should warm-up on the follow vary.

As a collector of outdated golf golf equipment and an admirer of the historical past laid out earlier than you, the battle is actual.

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So is the need to hit golf balls. Now. On the identical vary utilized by the celebrities of the sport within the largest week of their golf calendar.

The vary you see on TV, by the best way, is accessible to Augusta Nationwide’s members on simply at some point of the yr – their single-round membership championships.

My caddie’s title is Brian Tam, a extremely regarded looper who has labored on the membership for greater than 20 years and who usually steers a number of the decrease profile Masters opponents across the fabled structure every April.

In 2025 he was contemporary off the bag of Evan Beck, the 34 yr outdated American having booked his ticket to Augusta by profitable the 2024 US Mid-Newbie.

I do know I’m not going to hit it like Evan, however it will assist my confidence ranges if I may simply handle to make contact someplace within the neighborhood of the center of the clubface, a aim that appears to be eluding me as I shortly destroy what was a stunning pyramid of balls with one rushed swing after one other.

Whack. Jeez. Rake. Whack. Gawd. Rake. Whack. Hoo Boy. Rake.

There’s nothing like an excellent warm-up in entrance of a gaggle of males carrying white overalls and inexperienced hats who’re sizing you up with each swing, and that is nothing like an excellent warm-up.

Let’s go have a fast chip and a putt.

The flat stick might be the very best membership in my bag, and having walked across the course for the earlier seven days eyeing off the depraved slopes and agency, quick surfaces of Augusta Nationwide’s greens, I used to be dying to roll a couple of earlier than we headed to the tee.

I wouldn’t say it was a mistake to make use of the follow inexperienced beside the primary vary, however I wasn’t precisely feeling like Jordan Spieth circa-2015 once I stored working the ball by the opening, at pace, on a inexperienced that was working at about the identical pace on the stimpmeter as varnished marble.

I wanted much more time there, however time was up. The quickest hour of your life was gone in a blink and also you had a urgent engagement with Tea Olive, or as anyone who isn’t Jim Nantz calls it, Gap #1.

Now, let’s not child ourselves right here. There’s a median of 60 yards distinction between the tees the professional’s play and the tees the members play.

That’s common.

You would possibly get 15 to twenty yards headstart on the Par 3’s, however on a number of the Par 4’s – the eleventh particularly – the member’s tees that we’re enjoying from are a full 120 yards in entrance of the Masters tees, that are to this point again up the hill they may simply be in South Carolina.

My handicap is 3, and whereas the whole yardage we’ll play on this spherical is just like my dwelling membership of Bonnie Doon in Sydney’s south-east, the intimidation issue together with lightning quick greens and steady elevation modifications will make the Nationwide a novel problem.

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Can I break 80? I’d do handstands if I may, however then once more, I’ve all the time been gymnastically-challenged.

So right here we go..

Gap 1, Par 4 – A drive into the left tough and a 7-iron into the guts of the inexperienced. You magnificence! A birdie putt first up. Which I depart 12 toes quick.

If par is your good friend in golf, I had no pals on the 1st Gap.

Three putts, and an alarming over-estimation of how fast my first putt was going to be, which ought to have appeared apparent provided that it was uphill to a again pin, however with the drycleaners nonetheless engaged on my underwear after the follow inexperienced expertise, I used to be slightly apprehensive about knocking that first putt off the inexperienced and making an entire goat of myself. Bogey, and 1 over par.

Gap 2, Par 5 – My caddie fingers me my driver and says I’ll see you down within the fairway. Brian the Optimist. Or maybe we must always name him Brian the Psychic, as a result of I pipe one over his head and catch the downslope that results in the inexperienced.

Which is terrific, other than the truth that my second shot is now off a downslope the likes of which I can by no means keep in mind having earlier than. Anyplace.

A four-iron comes out LOW, discovering the left greenside bunker, which shortly removes any imaginative and prescient of creating eagle after being nicely inside attain of the inexperienced.

Sure, I may have holed the bunker shot, however I may have additionally been lead singer for Midnight Oil. Peter Garrett’s job, and an eagle at two, had been by no means in peril. Par, 1 over par.

Gap 3, Par 4 – The enjoyable solely actually begins at Augusta Nationwide if you begin lacking greens in regulation, a field I tick on the third.

My method has spun off the entrance of the inexperienced to a pin that’s famously one of many extra diabolical within the last spherical of the Masters. We’re enjoying to those self same actual pins on Monday morning.

The flag at Quantity 3 is on a peninsula of inexperienced that no modern-day golf architect would dare replicate. The inexperienced falls off alarmingly in entrance, beside and behind the place the opening is minimize, and it’s simple to go over and again a number of occasions with out ever getting your ball to cease on the inexperienced. It’s a feat I virtually accomplish. My fifth shot is a 12 foot putt from the entrance fringe of the inexperienced and it dives into the cup for a bogey when double or worse regarded seemingly.

Bogey, 2 over par.

Gap 4, Par 3 – One other very troublesome pin to entry, tucked behind a cavernous bunker. Right into a membership of breeze it’s a 5-iron for me, ending pin-high on the left fringe of the inexperienced. The massive-swinging 50 foot putt rolls right down to tap-in distance, an enormous reduction and the primary actual signal that the mind is falling into sync with the tempo of the greens. Par, 2 over par.

Gap 5, Par 4 – After the lower than stellar vary session I used to be anticipating a day heavy on scrambling from off the greens to avoid wasting par, however two stable strikes and I’m on in regulation for the fourth time in 5 holes. Who’d have thought?

The fifth inexperienced is a type of wildly undulating numbers that put the enamel into ANGC – first putt from long-ish vary settles a foot previous the opening, the reduction washing over you figuring out that you simply’ve prevented a six or eight footer coming again to keep away from bogey. Par, 2 over par.

Gap 6, Par 3 – Did I point out Augusta Nationwide has a number of the world’s most troublesome greens?

Right here’s one other one. The pin is again proper, on a shelf no larger than a youngsters blow-up pool. Something lower than a exact iron shot is repelled, and I’m quick on precision on the second of the Par 3’s. A chip and two putts totals 4, and whereas the prospect of breaking 80 is alive, each golfer is aware of that after the Bogey Prepare begins to roll it may be awfully arduous to tug up. Bogey, 3 over par.

Gap 7, Par 4 – One other of the Par 4’s the place the members tees are a good distance ahead, and my finest drive of the day leaves solely a 40 metre flip to a front-right pin sitting in the midst of a bowl.

Brian the Optimist says hit it 5 paces left of the flag and the slope will do the remainder. And he’s CORRECT!!

Two toes for a 3, in she rolls, and a way of reduction that, if nothing else, I did handle to make a birdie in little ol’ Augusta, Georgia. Birdie, 2 over par.

Gap 8, Par 5 – It’s stunning seeing this gap within the flesh and realising how far uphill it’s, the second shot particularly.

There are days when the motive force and you’re like strangers on passing trains, however fortunately, and surprisingly, at the moment isn’t that day.

One other one proper out of the center, adopted by a hybrid membership up the hill to simply off the facet of the inexperienced. A chip to shut vary and a clean stroke and bada bing, I’ve made two birdies on the bounce. My enjoying companions are excited, the caddies are excited, I’m excited!!

There’s not a cloud within the sky, it’s spring time within the south and all is correct with the world. Birdie, 1 over par.

Gap 9, Par 4 – Within the house of two holes, ideas of unrealised targets have given option to the concept of, ‘what if?’.

What in the event you flirted with taking pictures Even Par? What in the event you did one thing extraordinary and broke par? What in the event you bang one other drive over the hill, hit a 9-iron to 6 toes and might the putt on your third birdie in a row!?!?!

Have I blacked out? Is that this actually occurring?

Now there are excessive fives, mile-wide grins and a scorecard that claims thirty-six photographs for the primary 9 holes. It’s a sense I received’t simply overlook. Birdie, Even par.

Gap 10, Par 4 – I’m assured in saying there isn’t any gap just like this in your complete world {of professional} golf. It’s so far downhill all you are able to do is stand on the tee and shake your head. Put some moguls in the midst of the green and it’s a slalom run.

Which is becoming, as a result of I’m waaaay over my skis as we wait to hit.

A good however not spectacular drive finishes on the extreme downslope, and now it’s a must to discover a stance and a swing that can mean you can get the ball within the air and cease it on a inexperienced with quite a lot of tilt constructed into it.

The birdie run involves an finish, however two putts from off the left hand facet of the inexperienced maintain me degree with the cardboard. Par, Even par.

Gap 11, Par 4 – The drive right here is nowhere close to as intimidating from the mortals tee markers as it’s from up the place the world’s finest play from, however then, the tee shot at Quantity 11 is just the entry worth for the joys journey you’re about go on.

Sydney has the Opera Home, The Louvre has Mona Lisa, and Augusta Nationwide has Amen Nook.

I miss the inexperienced to the appropriate, and whereas there’s a lot of placing floor to work with to a back-left pin, the pond that joins Rae’s Creek behind the flag is inconceivable to disregard.

I’d have beloved to have written down a 4 on the cardboard however it’s a 5 that goes within the books. You could possibly spend hours hitting chips and pitches from throughout this inexperienced to gap areas imagined and actual. It’s a chic piece of golf actual property. Simply you, some pals and a spot within the solar to lose your self in. Bogey, 1 over par.

Gap 12, Par 3 – In the event you had been instructed you possibly can play just one gap at Augusta, this could be my alternative.

Golden Bell. It’s the Sistine Chapel of golf.

Throughout Masters week, the grandstand and hill behind the twelfth tee present an ideal vantage level to observe the motion to the left on the eleventh inexperienced and the tee photographs at Quantity 12.

Nevertheless it’s as shut as you will get to the well-known inexperienced which sits on the market 150 yards away on the opposite facet of Rae’s Creek.

It’s a really lovely scene, however one for taking a look at have a look at, not touching. Till at the moment.

There’s so much to think about. How a lot wind is there that I can’t really feel? What’s my aiming level? What membership carries the water however doesn’t attain the bunkers or azaleas on the rear of the inexperienced?

You may outthink your self earlier than you’ve even reached into the bag to seize a weapon.

We decide on a 7-iron, and to be trustworthy, my solely thought is hit this difficult and don’t stick it in with the turtles within the creek.

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To hit it stable, watch the flight in opposition to the backdrop of towering Georgia Pines, and see the ball come down pin-high 20 toes left of the flag is without doubt one of the most satisfying emotions I’ve ever had on a golf course.

A birdie to get again to even par? No, however it doesn’t matter. To make the stroll down the hill throughout the pristine turf, to pause for images on the Hogan Bridge, to see the inexperienced from side-on and realise simply how extremely shallow it’s, nicely, it’s greater than sufficient. Par, 1 over par.

Gap 13, Par 5 – The most effective par 5 in golf is the thirteenth at Augusta Nationwide. The ultimate leg of Amen Nook, it’s the last word risk-reward gap.

My caddie, Brian, thinks driver is an excessive amount of membership from the ahead tees and convinces me to take three-wood, which ought to take the pines out of play on the far facet of the green.

I’m eager to hit driver and we go back-and-forth on the professionals and cons of being that aggressive, however having steered me up to now of the course at one over par, I defer to Brian’s many years of native information and decide on three-wood.

A bit of draw across the nook would put me simply inside vary of hitting the inexperienced in two, however I push the tee shot barely and it finishes within the longer minimize of grass between the green and the bushes, and really shortly you realise the possibility to make that ‘momentous choice’ and go for the inexperienced in two is now not accessible.

A lay-up to the appropriate, 60 yard pitch, and two putts provides as much as a 5, which wasn’t the aim, however hey, you’ve prevented an enormous quantity on a gap that may wreck your spherical, so off we stride beaming about having simply performed essentially the most well-known three-hole stretch in all of golf. Par, 1 over par.

Gap 14, Par 4 – Dogleg to the left, with an off-camber fairway that slopes considerably from left to proper. The drive finishes simply on the appropriate fringe of the green, leaving pitching wedge to a wild inexperienced with a roller-coaster of a false entrance.

I’ve seen numerous gamers through the years undergo the destiny of watching their ball spin off the entrance of the inexperienced through the event, and that psychological picture is about to be performed out in real-life, leaving the craziest putt I’ve ever hit.

I’m simply off the front-right nook of the inexperienced, the pin is on the shelf back-middle, and now I’m being instructed to attempt to hit my putt off the back-left nook of the inexperienced, aiming at a tree that’s comfortably 25 yards left of the flag.

Wha?!? However?!? Severely?!?

Yep. And Brian nailed it.

I smash the putt up and over the small mountain vary on the entrance of the inexperienced, it speeds on the road in direction of the tree, earlier than gravity takes over and it begins bending in direction of the opening.

And retains going, and going, and ultimately stops six toes from the opening.

I by no means would have aimed anyplace close to our preliminary goal line, nor believed the ball would financial institution like an A380 in direction of the opening as soon as it started to expire of fuel.

Nice enjoyable! Not like the 6-footer for par, which I breathe on and watch it slide previous the opening for bogey. What an incredible place. Bogey, 2 over par.

Gap 15, Par 5 – Having pushed the ball past expectations up to now of the spherical, my worst of the day comes at No 15.

It’s a hook that settles among the many bushes down the left facet of the green, the identical bushes that Rory McIlroy bent a 7-iron round to get his Masters hopes again on monitor earlier than finally finishing the profession grand slam.

A punch-out down the hill, a wedge that flies 10 toes too far and finishes off the again of the inexperienced, it takes three extra photographs from there to ultimately put a six on the cardboard.

There’s disappointment realising that at each of the outstanding par fives on the second 9, I robbed myself of the possibility of taking over the problem of hitting the greens in two.

The bogey additionally means I’m again to three over par for the spherical, and it’s unlikely that lightning will strike twice to reel off one other hat-trick of birdies on the best way up the hill to the clubhouse.

Gap 16, Par 3 – Did someone say lightning? I imagine they did.

Everyone knows the Sunday pin on the left facet of the inexperienced at Sixteen, with balls funnelling in direction of the opening to arrange very makable birdie putts.

Besides this yr, the flag is pushed means up on the appropriate hand facet of the inexperienced on a shelf within the rear nook, commemorating the 50 years since Jack Nicklaus made birdie to the identical pin on his option to profitable the 1975 Masters.

I don’t know which membership Jack hit, however I’ve one other 7-iron, and identical to the Twelfth it’s a rifle straight tee-shot, besides this time I used to be really aiming on the flag.

I’m unsure what I’d have carried out had the ball gone into the opening, however it’s a good guess that a whole wall of the longe room at dwelling would have been wallpapered with images of the second inside days of touchdown.

It’s a relative tap-in from two toes for birdie quantity 4 on the day.

4!

I do know, it’s ridiculous, proper? Birdie, 2 over par.

Gap 17, Par 4 – I’d like to let you know that I stepped up, ripped a drive, caught a wedge and made one other birdie on the Seventeenth, however the actuality is a missed fairway into the appropriate tough, a missed inexperienced, and three putts from off the again of a inexperienced so nuanced it’s arduous to be assured about something your eyes let you know.

You’d swear your putt will break left to proper, however it goes the opposite means down the hill in direction of Rae’s Creek. Bogey, 3 over par.

Gap 18, Par 4 – What a day it’s been. From the thrill of arriving on the entry gate, driving down Magnolia Lane, breakfast within the clubhouse, and following within the footsteps of the sport’s legends round this beautiful structure, our group hasn’t stopped smiling for one minute of it.

It’s a humbling expertise, and regardless of the anxiety-inducing rush of a spread session that was low on high quality strikes, I’ve performed as nicely, if not higher, than I ever may have anticipated.

The drive at Eighteen from the members tee doesn’t have the identical feeling of navigating a chute that you simply’re accustomed to from years of TV protection, however it will be good to hit one final good one.

Mission completed.

The method from beside the bunkers on the left facet of the green flies slightly too far and finishes on prime of the slope that runs throughout the center of the inexperienced, and two putts later it’s carried out.

Par on the final. 75 photographs to navigate Augusta Nationwide.

May I do it once more? I don’t know, however I’d like to strive.

Is there a tee-time accessible tomorrow?