AUGUSTA, Ga. — Fred Ridley shot down any notion that the world-famous 12th hole would be lengthened at any time, if ever.
“Well, forever is a long time. I would say with a hundred percent certainty that it would not be lengthened during my tenure,” the Augusta National Golf Club and Masters Tournament Chairman said on Wednesday.
In his annual pretournament “State of the Masters” news conference, Ridley addressed a suggestion made this week by former Masters champ Vijay Singh that at least 10 yards be added to the 155-yard par-3 hole because he thinks it’s playing too easy.
“That’s almost like asking, you know, can we touch up the Mona Lisa a little bit. I mean, I think that the 12th hole at Augusta is the most iconic par-3 in the world. It has been and I won’t say it always will be, but I think it always will be,” said Ridley, who played the hole as a participant three times in the late 1970s, which makes him the first chairman in club history to have played in the Masters.
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The 12th hole, called Golden Bell, is the signature hole at Augusta National Golf Club and is the lone one that has never been lengthened since the Masters debuted in 1934.
“There’s something about – I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about the topography, the trees, the wind, the beauty that just – it just captures your imagination,” Ridley said. “When you combine that with the history that’s been made there, I mean, the most recent being the tragedies and triumphs when Tiger Woods won in 2019.
“You know, Freddie Couples’ ball, you know, hanging up on the edge of Rae’s Creek, which is part of the – made part of the song ‘Augusta.’ And so I just think it is such an iconic hole that’s had so many important moments in the Masters that I’m not sure that another 10 yards would really make a difference. Players are hitting short irons, but doesn’t seem to matter, the hole is very difficult.”
Historically, the hole is the fourth-most difficult at Augusta National, playing an averge of .270 strokes over par.
That’s almost like asking, you know, can we touch up the Mona Lisa a little bit
In a wide-ranging news conference that included an update the Augusta National’s plans to take over the Augusta Municipal Golf Course with Augusta Tech, the biggest news centered around the breakaway LIV Golf tour, with Ridley saying there is a possibility some of its American players could receive a special invitation to play in the Masters in the future. Special invitations have only gone to international players in the past.
With no world ranking points for the players on that tour, some top players who left the PGA Tour for the money at LIV are not here this week, including Talor Gooch, the tour’s player of the year last season.
The top 50 players in the world at the end of each calendar year qualify for the Masters. Many of the LIV players have dropped out of the top 50 since jumping to the rebel circuit, which opened shop in June 2021. Thirteen LIV golfers are here this week and seven of them are former Masters champions who have lifetime invitations into the tournament.
“But I think in our case, we’re an invitational, and we can adjust as necessary … Now, historically, and as stated in our qualification criteria, we consider international players for special invitations,” he said.
That’s how LIV golfer Joaquin Niemann of Chile got into the field this year. After he concluded his LIV event commitments, he added tournaments like the Australian PGA and the Australian Open, which he won, to his schedule.
That caught the eye of Augusta National and helped him get the invite.
Familiar LIV members who have qualified for past Masters but not this year include Gooch, Louis Oosthuizen, Abraham Ancer, Mito Pereira, Harold Varner III, Paul Casey and Dean Burmester, a four-time DP World Tour winner before signing on the with LIV. He won last week’s LIV event in Doral, Florida.
“I will say that if we felt that there were a player or players, whether they played on the LIV Tour or any other tour, who were deserving of an invitation to the Masters, that we would exercise that discretion with regard to special invitations,” Ridley said.
Ridley discounted the idea of creating a qualification system for LIV golfers based on how they play on that tour.
“Yeah, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “I think it will be difficult to establish any type of point system that had any connection to the rest of the world of golf because they’re basically, not totally, but for the most part, a closed shop.”
This is the second year that the Masters – and golf in general – has dealt with the specter of LIV. Two LIV players – Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka – tied for second in the 2023 Masters, and winner Jon Rahm later jumped ship to LIV in December.
Since the 2023 Masters, the PGA Tour and LIV have agreed to a framework to possibly work together, but progress has been slow and an agreement might not be struck by the 2025 Masters.
Taking over Augusta Municipal
As for Augusta National’s plans for the Augusta Municipal Golf Course, the club will take over the lease in January 2025. It will be for $1 a year for up to 50 years. Ridley said work will start in January with a projected April 2026 completion date.
“We have reached an agreement with the City of Augusta to lease this facility, and over the past year we have had multiple community input sessions with the many stakeholders who frequent The Patch,” Ridley said. “With the insightful feedback we received, we are on a great path to make significant improvements to The Patch and to the First Tee facilities. In that regard, we have retained two of golf’s most respected course designers, Tom Fazio and Beau Welling, to lead the renovation of this historic municipal course. So, while planning is still in process, we’ll have more details next year, I think it’s just going to be fantastic.”
Ridley praised the success of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which just completed its fifth edition, but doesn’t think women professionals will ever have a tournament or team competition at Augusta National.
“There are some fundamental difficulties in that,” Ridley said. “We happily were able to find a way to have a competition for juniors and a competition for women amateurs sort of wrapped around the Masters Tournament, and it just seems to fit really well. To have another tournament of any kind would be very difficult based on our season, based on the fact that this is essentially a winter and spring golf course.
“It’s not open in the summer. It doesn’t play the way we want it to play in the fall for a major tournament,” he said.
Dustin Johnson set the tournament record of 20-under 268 in the 2020 Masters, which was played in November because of COVID-19.
A first look at the new tee on No. 2 — Pink Dogwood. #themasters pic.twitter.com/luDhBQX0VM
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 5, 2024
Ridley noted that the only hole that was lengthened on the course this year was No. 2, where 10 yards were added to the tee. The course has constantly added yardage – including 35 last year to No. 13 – in an effort to stay ahead of golf equipment technology and stronger athletes. He’s hoping that a proposed rollback of the distance the golf ball can travel will be approved in January 2028.
“Adding distance to the Augusta National golf course has become standard operation over the past two decades,” Ridley said. “For almost 70 years, the Masters was played at just over 6,900 yards. Today the course measures 7,550 yards from the markers, and we may well play one of the tournament rounds this year at more than 7,600 yards. I’ve said in the past that I hope we will not play the Masters at 8,000 yards. But that is likely to happen in the not too distant future under current standards. Accordingly, we support the decisions that have been made by the R&A and the USGA as they have addressed the impact of distance.”
Referring to what he called the 8,000 yard “red line,” Ridley said “We have some more room, but we don’t have a lot. So I’m holding to that 8,000-yard red line, and I just hope we never get there.”
There was much talk last year that the added distance to the 13th hole – the second-most famous hole at Augusta National after No. 12 – would take some excitement out of the tournament because fewer players would go for the green in two shots, making it a “three shot” par 5.
The club found that on the two dry days in the 2023 Masters that wasn’t the case.
“But one thing I do know for certain is that, in the two days we had data, that more players went for the green in two on their second shot, that went for the green in two, than did the previous year,” Ridley said. “Now, there’s a real simple reason for that. If you look at the scatter chart from the year before there were a lot of balls up in the trees. Last year those same drives didn’t reach the trees and they were a little bit further to the right, the perfect drive. They were further from the green, but they were in the fairway; 250 yards is not a problem for most of these guys. So, it kind of brought back, in a way, that momentous (risk-reward) decision that Bobby Jones talked about and really, in sort of a counterintuitive way, made the hole a more exciting hole. The concern by many was that by making it longer we were going to take the excitement out of it.
“So, I was really happy to see that data, because it really showed that more players are pulling out their hybrids or even three metals or five metals and going for the green and that was established by that data last year.”
Surprisingly, since Augusta National rarely announces club changes off the course, Ridley revealed what he called a “two-phase project that will significantly elevate the experience of all Masters competitors.”
He said Phase 1 will include underground parking and will be operational next year. The second phase, he said, will be finished by the 2026 Masters and “will feature a three-level state-of-the-art facility, designed to anticipate every need for players, their families, and support teams.”
