Special Places - Augusta National

Augusta National Golf Club is arguably the most famous golf course in the world, as it’s the only permanent host of a Major. Every year since 1934, the year after Alister Mackenzie’s masterpiece opened for play, the golfing world makes the pilgrimage to the brainchild of Grand Slam Great, Bobby Jones. Located just outside Augusta, Georgia on the site of a former indigo plantation, this private golf club has a membership liberally sprinkled with the Great and the Good, including politicians, captains of industry, sporting heroes and the two richest men in the world, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Currently stretching to 6800 metres this par 72 layout has undergone a vast number of changes over the years. Iconic golf architect Robert Trent Jones was the first to rework the layout, and his view was that the ultimate defence of par on the course should lay in the subtle contours of the greens. Over the years since then, many tweaks and additions in length have created a course that retains few of MacKenzie’s features other than his original routing. But what remains is a stunning picture postcard with history, memories and magic at every turn. Magnolia Lane, Rae’s Creek, The Sarazen Bridge, the Eisenhower Cabin and Amen Corner are names to conjure images with that tell just a part of the story.

Immaculate and unparalleled conditioning, an all-pervasive sense of awe and majesty and a feeling of reverence add to the mix. Augusta National is one of those rarities, a place where the sum of the individual parts – great as they are – is gloriously exceeded by the whole. We can all enjoy the spectacle on American golf’s Most Hallowed Ground when an in-form Phil Mickelson, coming off a comfortable victory at the Shell Houston Open, tries to equal Tiger Woods on two counts – winning back to back Masters (Tiger did it in 2001 and 2002) and securing his fourth Green Jacket.