A Caddie’s guide to Augusta

A Caddie's guide to Augusta 20161

Zach Johnson’s caddie Damon Green gives a fascinating insight into what you need to do to don a green jacket.

Take your pick – the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10… The 11th is just a bear now they’ve got the trees down the right side, making it a very demanding tee shot now. There’s water left but it’s a difficult up-and-down from the right of a green you’re trying to find with a 3, 4 or 5-iron. You’ve got to really hit a golf shot there. Then you’ve got 12, one of the hardest 9-irons in the game. They’re the ones that stick out.

The 4th and 5th are critical front-nine holes. I think they’ve lengthened five again this year and we’re likely to be going in with a 4 or 5-iron to a green where they’ve buried some elephants! Land it on top and it goes into the back bunker; come up short and it plummets down the valley. That’s one of the holes where people don’t realise how tough it is. As for the par-3 4th, we’re looking at hitting a 3-wood in there with a back left pin. You kinda play to the bunkers back right but we’re looking to miss it left or short left of the green, missing the right bunker. You can’t even keep it on the green from there so we shoot either in front or just around the left bunker, get par and get out!

Hole 2 – Pink Dogwood – Par 5, 575 yards

If you can hit it down the left side, you can pick up an extra 20 to 30 yards because it hits the slope and rolls out. It’s 3.5 per cent downhill, which equals about 10 yards. It’s 300 yards to the bunker. Don’t go left or it will run and run down into that creek on the left (a lot of people don’t even know this is here.) We basically hit it at the bunker, and if it turns over, fine.

Hole 5 – Magnolia – Par 4, 455 yards

This is a brute. You can’t hit it in the bunkers on the left – you can’t get to the green from there. So favour the right side. And then once you hit a great drive, this hole just gets harder! The mounding around the green is just incredible – those mounds must be five feet tall. If you’re the least bit short it rolls all the way off the green. We try to carry it 18 on, to cover the mounds – that’s all we want to do.

Hole 11 – White Dogwood – Par 4, 505 yards

The hardest hole on the course by some distance. Since they planted more trees down the right it’s just brutal. We are hitting about 210 into the green with all that water left and behind. You can bail out right, but it’s no bargain getting up and down from there. The water is staring you right in the face, so you always try to favour the right edge of the green, because there are some big slopes that feed the ball down. It’s a theme of this course – always aim to use the slopes to your advantage. The drop zone is 40 yards from the front of the green, coming in over water. Take your par and run!

Hole 12 – Golden Bell – Par 3, 155 yards

You start thinking about 12 after you’ve hit your second dry on 11. You look around to get a feel for the wind. We’ve decided on the strategy that no matter where the pin was, we just hit over the middle of the bunker. We want to get it on that skinny-ass green and take our chances. The only place you can’t hit it is right, because it can hit that bank and go in the water – unless you’re Fred Couples. That bank is as fast as your greens back home, and once it gets going it’s ‘see you later’. On the green you can’t hear anything because the crowds are so far back.

Hole 13 – Azalea – Par 5, 510 yards

This hole is a pretty good fit for Zach’s eye as he turns the ball over. In 2007 we hit it into the pine straw on a couple of days, so just laid up, but he hit a great drive on the last day and had 203 to the front. It was accessible club-wise, but you’re standing on your head trying to hit a 3-iron – the ball is way above your feet usually. If you block it you’re in Rae’s Creek. If you turn it over too much, you’re either in the bunker or chipping back towards the creek. When the pin’s back left, I don’t know what to do!

Hole 15 – Firethorn – Par 5, 530 yards

There are different strategies on laying up here. Some people favour the left side of the fairway for a right pin, and the right side for a left pin, but we felt like it was better to lay up left on all the pins, because it gives you a good angle to the back right pin, and for the back left pin there’s a ridge that you can feed the ball off. Also, it’s a little flatter on the left side of the fairway.

Hole 16 – Redbud – Par 3, 170 yards

This is a very accessible pin on Sunday as long as you use the bank to bring the ball back down to the hole. If you get unlucky and the ball stays up on the top, you’re kind of screwed. The hardest pin on 16 is the one we almost made a hole-in-one on in 2007, at the top of the ridge on the right. It’s so tight that we’d never go for it – he basically pushed his shot, and then three-putted!