“Brothers and sisters, we’ve got hypocrites in this crowd. Brothers and sisters, some of you is shouting too loud. You’ll find out on judgment day, that you can’t fool the lord that way. You can shout with all your might, but if you ain’t livin’ right, there’s no use shoutin’ in that Amen Corner.”
So sang Mildred Bailey, on an RCA recording back in 1935, the very same year that Gene Sarazen hit his double eagle on the 15th, The Shot Heard Round The World, and won the second Masters. The year too, that Augusta National decided to switch around its front and back nines, giving the course the shape it has had ever since.
Bailey’s song wasn’t a hit, but a B side for a ‘Mezz’ Mezzrow number, 35th and Calumet. Still, the phrase stuck in the mind of Sports Illustrated’s golf writer Herbert Warren Wind. And when, 33 years later, he was trying to coin a name for the spot on the course where the ’58 Masters was won and lost, that was what he came back to. Amen Corner.
It was in 1958 that Arnold Palmer plugged his tee-shot into the bank at the 12th, made a double bogey, and then decided to play an “alternate” ball because he was convinced the officials had made the wrong ruling on his first. He got that one down in par.
By the time he got to 14, the committee had ruled that Palmer was right second time. The par stood, he picked up two shots, and went on to win his first major by one.
Wind, who had an entire week to write up the tournament, said he was just trying to find “some colourful tag” for that little patch of Augusta. “Like those Grantland Rice and his contemporaries loved to devise: the Four Horsemen, the Manassa Mauler, the House that Ruth Built, the Georgia Peach.”
Whatever Wind’s thinking, he chose well. The name stuck, and Amen Corner is now one of the most famous spots in all of sport. It covers the second half of the 11th, White Dogwood, the entirety of the 12th, Golden Bell, the famous little par-three over Rae’s Creek, and the first half of the 13th, Azalea. It’s a vicious place to play, because as often as not the wind whips the flags in opposite directions so you can never tell which way it’s blowing. Plenty of great golfers have made fools of themselves down at the Corner.
Sam Snead, who won seven majors, once took eight at the 12th. So did Billy Casper, who won the Masters and two US Opens. The pick of the bunch, though, will always be Tom Weiskopf, who finished second here four times. He took a full 13 at the 12th in 1980, still the record. He put the ball in the water off the tee, then took five goes at pitching it from 60 yards. The first four went in the water. He bounced back with a seven on the same hole the very next day. Yup.
The 12th is so tricky because it offers a reward to anyone willing to take a risk. India’s Anirban Lahiri did exactly that on Sunday morning. He landed in the water. Undeterred he took a drop, and struck his third straight at the flag. So straight that he hit the stick and his ball rebounded right back down the slope to the edge of the water.
At least the 12th allows you hope. The 11th is plain cruel. At 505 yards, it’s the longest par-four on the course. This year, just like last year, it’s been playing the hardest hole on the course. There were 16 birdies in the first three rounds, and 91 bogeys or worse. Since the club moved the tee back 15 yards and added more trees to the right side of the fairway in 2006, the hole has been every bit as unforgiving as the Lord picking out the hypocrites Bailey was singing about in ’35. The only reliable way to play it in par, says John Cook, is to look to miss the green to the back right, so you can catch on the little hill that will, if you’re lucky, roll your ball back around on to the green. Cook should know. On the Sunday in ’81 he was tied in the lead with Tom Watson at one under. Till he put his ball in the Creek and made a triple bogey at the 11th.
Of course it’s one thing to be told that, another to learn it. Just ask Brooks Koepka, the richly gifted 24-year-old who won the Phoenix Open this year. He has played his first three rounds at the 11th in 18, taking seven on the first day, five on the next, and six on the third. If he had only managed to play the 11th in par he’d have been lying fourth overall on Sunday morning. Odd thing is Koepka has a natural draw that should suit the hole perfectly. Though he managed a par in the fourth round he had played it poorly once, and he has had the terrors ever since. He wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last either.
“If your name on that roll all that noise won’t save your soul. So stop your shoutin’ in that Amen Corner. Just because you’ve paid your dues doesn’t mean you’re saved. You can’t win them golden shoes if you haven’t behaved.”
