Jack Nicklaus on Augusta Course Strategy

Jack Nicklaus has a short article at Golf Digest called What Augusta Teaches You About Your Course. By all means, read it to get some neat coaching on how to recognize and play tough shots on your course. (If you right-click on the image in the article and choose 'View Image', you'll get a much larger version of this drawing so you can read Jack's notes.)



But since the Masters starts today, I wanted to point out this little gem about the main trouble spots at Augusta. It should help you anticipate when the players have made a bad mistake:

Strong, fair golf courses have only so many highly penal areas. By my accounting, Augusta National has six shots you can't take off. The tee shot on the par-5 second hole (illustrated above), the second shot on No. 11, the tee shot on No. 12, the tee shot and approach on No. 13, and the approach on No. 15. Miss almost anywhere else out there, and you can recover.

Of course, if the wind is as bad as predicted, there may be a few more trouble spots than these six. But if Jack is correct -- and why shouldn't he be? -- these will cause major problems regardless of the wind.