Editor’s Note: This story originally published April 7, 2022
Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Watching the Masters and wondering why holes 11 through 13 are called “Amen Corner” and the origin story behind it? We’ve got you covered.
That’s right, Augusta National has so much history and traditions that we see year to year. And that includes calling the stretch of the course from holes No. 11 to 13 “Amen Corner.”
Where did that all come from? Here’s the story that’s been told countless times, but to me, it never gets old (probably because it’s connected to sports journalism!):
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Yeah, why is it called that?
Let’s go back to 1958. It was at Augusta that Sports Illustrated writer Herbert Warren Wind watched Arnold Palmer win.
In writing about that year’s Masters that he wrote this (via Masters.com):
“On the afternoon before the start of the recent Masters golf tournament,” Wind wrote, “a wonderfully evocative ceremony took place at the farthest reach of the Augusta National course – down in the Amen Corner where Rae’s Creek intersects the 13th fairway near the tee, then parallels the front edge of the green on the short 12th and finally swirls alongside the 11th green.”
"Down in the Amen Corner?" What?
It’ll make sense in a sec.
Shoutin’ in That Amen Corner was a jazz tune from the 1930s that was sung most famously by Mildred Bailey:
OK fine, but what does that have to do with golf?
I guess Augusta is the church of golf? And that the triangle of 11, 12 and 13 — where many golfers either thrive or fail there contending for a green jacket — is a corner of sorts. More from that Masters.com article:
As the late Atlanta sportswriter Furman Bisher, who grew up in rural North Carolina, explained to Golf Digest a decade ago: “Amen Corner is a common church term in the South. In our church in the old men sat there and said ‘Amen’ after the preacher said something they liked.” In 19th century New York City, a location near a bible manufacturer that attracted preachers was termed Amen Corner.
