Augusta National Hole by Hole: Names, Pars and Yardages
Augusta National hole by hole, from Tea Olive to Holly: the name, par and Masters yardage of all 18 holes at the Georgia club, and what makes each one play.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished The Masters21 min read
- Par
- 72
- Masters yardage
- 7,555
- Holes with water
- 5
- Designed by
- Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones
Every hole at Augusta National is named for a plant, and every one of those names is printed on the Masters scorecard beside a par and a yardage that the club revises almost every few years. The course plays to par 72 and measured 7,555 yards for the 2024 and 2025 Masters, with two par 3s and two par 5s on each nine. It is in Augusta, Georgia, on Washington Road, and it was laid out by Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones on the grounds of an old plant nursery.
The holes run from Tea Olive, a 445-yard par 4 uphill from the clubhouse, to Holly, a 465-yard par 4 back up the hill to it. Between them are four par 5s that the best players reach in two, four par 3s, five holes with water and only one hole, the 14th, without a single bunker. Here is the full card first, then each hole in turn.
Augusta National hole by hole: the Masters scorecard
These are the names, pars and yardages from the scorecard the club used for the 2024 and 2025 tournaments. The yardages are the figures from the back tees used at the Masters. On any given day the club moves tee markers, so the measured length of a round can be a few dozen yards either side of the card.
| Hole | Name | Par | Yards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tea Olive | 4 | 445 |
| 2 | Pink Dogwood | 5 | 585 |
| 3 | Flowering Peach | 4 | 350 |
| 4 | Flowering Crab Apple | 3 | 240 |
| 5 | Magnolia | 4 | 495 |
| 6 | Juniper | 3 | 180 |
| 7 | Pampas | 4 | 450 |
| 8 | Yellow Jasmine | 5 | 570 |
| 9 | Carolina Cherry | 4 | 460 |
| Out | 36 | 3,775 | |
| 10 | Camellia | 4 | 495 |
| 11 | White Dogwood | 4 | 520 |
| 12 | Golden Bell | 3 | 155 |
| 13 | Azalea | 5 | 545 |
| 14 | Chinese Fir | 4 | 440 |
| 15 | Firethorn | 5 | 550 |
| 16 | Redbud | 3 | 170 |
| 17 | Nandina | 4 | 440 |
| 18 | Holly | 4 | 465 |
| In | 36 | 3,780 | |
| Total | 72 | 7,555 |
The two nines are almost identical in length and identical in par. Their character is completely different. The first nine is mostly an examination of driving and iron play on rolling ground, with no water at all. The second nine contains all five water holes, both reachable par 5s on that side and the stretch the world calls Amen Corner.
- Par 4s55.6%
- Par 3s22.2%
- Par 5s22.2%
Count of holes by par on the Masters scorecard. Each nine has two par 3s, two par 5s and five par 4s.
Show the numbers
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Par 4s | 10holes |
| Par 3s | 4holes |
| Par 5s | 4holes |
A bar chart of the yardages makes the shape of the round easier to see than the table does. The 3rd and the 12th stand out as the two short holes that refuse to get longer, and the long par 4s, the 5th, 10th and 11th, now run to 495 and beyond.
Why every hole carries the name of a plant
Before it was a golf course, the land on Washington Road was a nursery. In the 1850s a Belgian horticulturist, Louis Mathieu Edouard Berckmans, and his son Prosper Julius Alphonse Berckmans bought the property and ran it as Fruitland Nurseries, which became one of the best-known commercial nurseries in the South. The Berckmans imported and propagated trees and shrubs from around the world, and the family is credited with popularizing the azalea in the region. The double row of magnolias that lines the drive up to the clubhouse, Magnolia Lane, dates from their time.
By the late 1920s the nursery had closed. Bobby Jones, newly retired from competitive golf after his 1930 Grand Slam, and Clifford Roberts, a New York investment banker, bought the property in 1931 to build a private club with a championship course. The old manor house became the clubhouse, and the remnants of the nursery stock were all over the ground.
The naming scheme
Each hole was given a plant, and that plant was planted along it. Some names match a hole's character neatly: Azalea, at the 13th, is lined with the shrubs that bloom so famously in April, and Magnolia, at the 5th, runs past the trees that give the drive its name. Others are less obvious to a television viewer, because the plant is one shrub among dozens. Chinese Fir at the 14th, Nandina at the 17th and Firethorn at the 15th are all present on their holes but rarely in shot.
The names are not decoration. Augusta National uses them as working labels, and players and caddies who have played the course for years use them interchangeably with the numbers. To anyone at the club, "Golden Bell" and "the 12th" mean the same patch of ground.
Alister MacKenzie, Bobby Jones and the nines that swapped in 1935
Jones chose Alister MacKenzie as his architect. MacKenzie, trained as a doctor and born in England to Scottish parents, had already designed Cypress Point in California and Royal Melbourne in Australia, and he shared Jones's admiration for the Old Course at St Andrews: wide fairways, few hazards in the obvious places, and strategy decided by the angle into the green. Augusta National was built on that idea. The fairways were enormous, the rough was all but absent, and the course was supposed to reward the player who placed his drive on the right side rather than the one who simply hit it furthest.
The course opened for play at the end of 1932. The first tournament, called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, was held in March 1934. The name "Masters" was adopted later, in 1939, after Roberts had used it informally for several years and Jones had finally relented.
MacKenzie never saw it. He died in California in January 1934, a couple of months before the first tournament.
The nine-hole swap
The 1934 tournament was played with the nines in the opposite order to today. What is now the 10th was the 1st, and the current 1st was the 10th. For 1935 the club swapped them permanently, and the reasons usually given are practical: the lower part of the course, around Rae's Creek, was slow to dry in the morning, and frost there was a problem in early spring, so starting at the top of the hill made sense. Whatever the motive, the effect was to put the dramatic holes around the creek at the end of the round instead of near the start. Every Masters since 1935 has finished with the second nine as we know it. It is hard to think of a single decision that has done more for golf on television, though nobody in 1935 could have known it.
How much of MacKenzie is left
Less than the brochure might suggest. Perry Maxwell rebuilt greens in the late 1930s, Robert Trent Jones remade the 16th in 1947 and altered the 11th, and George Fazio, Tom Fazio and others have lengthened, reshaped and re-bunkered nearly every hole. The routing is MacKenzie's, and so is the principle of a wide course defended by its greens. The details of almost every hole have changed.
The opening holes, 1 to 6: Tea Olive to Juniper
No. 1, Tea Olive, par 4, 445 yards
The round starts uphill. The tee shot climbs to a fairway that rises toward the green, with a large bunker on the right that has caught many first-round drives. The green slopes from back to front and has a ridge that makes a ball above the hole a difficult two-putt. It is not a hole that produces many birdies, and for nervous players it is not a gentle opening.
No. 2, Pink Dogwood, par 5, 585 yards
The first of the four par 5s. It plays downhill and bends left, so a long drive kept on the right side of the fairway runs a long way and leaves a second shot that can reach the green. The green is guarded by bunkers on both sides. Louis Oosthuizen holed his second shot here for an albatross in the final round in 2012, the only double eagle ever recorded on the 2nd. The 2nd is among the holes where a birdie is expected and a par feels like a dropped shot.
No. 3, Flowering Peach, par 4, 350 yards
The shortest par 4 on the course and one of the few holes the club has left alone. The listed length has been 350 yards for many years. The green is narrow, raised and severely sloped, and it falls away on the left. A tee shot that runs too close to the green leaves an awkward pitch to a surface that is hard to stop a ball on. Many players lay back with an iron to give themselves a full wedge. It is a hole that proves length is not the only defense.
No. 4, Flowering Crab Apple, par 3, 240 yards
The longest par 3 on the course. The green is wide but shallow, defended by a bunker front right, and it slopes from back to front. Depending on the wind and the tee used, the shot can be a long iron or a fairway wood. It has a reputation as one of the hardest par 3s at Augusta, a hole where par is a good score.
No. 5, Magnolia, par 4, 495 yards
Lengthened by about 40 yards for the 2019 Masters after the club acquired land behind the old tee. The drive has to carry or avoid two deep bunkers on the left side of the fairway; the uphill second shot then goes to a green with a steep slope and a fall-off at the back. Since the lengthening it has played among the more difficult holes on the course.
No. 6, Juniper, par 3, 180 yards
The tee sits high above the green, and the shot plays downhill across a valley. The defining feature is a raised shelf in the back right part of the green. When the hole is cut on that shelf, a ball that does not finish on top tends to roll back down toward the front, leaving a long putt up a steep slope. When the hole is lower, the shot is far more inviting.
The middle of the round, 7 to 10: Pampas to Camellia
No. 7, Pampas, par 4, 450 yards
Narrow, tree-lined and uphill to a shallow green ringed by bunkers. It was once a short drive-and-pitch hole; repeated lengthening and tree planting have turned it into a demanding par 4 where accuracy off the tee is everything. Players who miss the fairway are usually chipping out.
No. 8, Yellow Jasmine, par 5, 570 yards
Uphill all the way. The second shot is partly blind, and the green has no bunkers beside it, only mounds and grass hollows. For a player who has hit a good drive, it is a birdie chance; for a player who has missed the fairway, it is a three-shot hole up a hill. Bruce Devlin made the course's second albatross here, in 1967.
No. 9, Carolina Cherry, par 4, 460 yards
The drive is downhill, the approach uphill to a green with a pronounced false front. The front of the green rejects shots that are a few feet short and sends them a long way back down the fairway. Experienced players take one more club than the yardage suggests to avoid that. It finishes the first nine back near the clubhouse.
No. 10, Camellia, par 4, 495 yards
The drop from the 10th tee is the most dramatic on the course: the fairway falls steeply downhill and turns to the left, so a drive hit with a draw can run a long way. The green sits on a plateau at the bottom. A large bunker short and right of the green is a remnant of an earlier green position, a reminder of how the hole once played.
The 10th is famous in Masters history as one of the hardest holes in tournament scoring. It was also, for many years, the first playoff hole, and Bubba Watson won the 2012 playoff there with a hooked wedge from the trees on the right.
Amen Corner, 11 to 13, in brief
These three holes are the most famous stretch in American golf, and they have their own guide, Amen Corner at Augusta National, where each is taken shot by shot. What a reader of a hole-by-hole guide needs is the place they occupy in the round.
The 11th, White Dogwood, is a par 4 of 520 yards, downhill to a green with a pond on its left. The 12th, Golden Bell, is a par 3 of 155 yards across Rae's Creek, the shortest hole on the course and probably the most feared. The 13th, Azalea, is a par 5 of 545 yards, a sharp dogleg left with a tributary of Rae's Creek running along the left side and across the front of the green.
What the stretch does to a scorecard
In sequence they make a hard par 4, a short par 3 where a bad shot can cost three or four strokes, and a par 5 that offers an eagle and threatens a seven. A player can arrive at the 11th tee leading the Masters and leave the 13th green out of contention, or the reverse. They are where the course stops testing the player's long game and starts testing his nerve.
Together with the 15th and 16th, they explain why the second nine produces such large swings in score. Three of the five water holes are in these three holes.
Holes 14 to 16: Chinese Fir to Redbud
No. 14, Chinese Fir, par 4, 440 yards
The only hole on the course without a bunker. It does not need one. The drive goes up a slight dogleg left, and the defense is the green, which has a steep false front and a ridge running through it. A ball that comes up short rolls back off the front; a ball that runs long leaves a putt down a slope that is very hard to stop near the hole. It is the clearest example on the course of MacKenzie's idea that the green is the strategic heart of the hole.
No. 15, Firethorn, par 5, 550 yards
The fourth par 5, and the second on the back nine that can be reached in two. A pond guards the front of the green, and the green slopes from back to front, toward the water. A player who goes for the green with a long iron or fairway wood has a real chance at eagle; a player who comes up short is wet.
The 15th is the site of the most famous shot in the tournament's early years. In the final round in 1935, Gene Sarazen holed a 4-wood from about 235 yards for an albatross, the double eagle that tied him with Craig Wood and set up a playoff he went on to win. The footbridge at the left of the pond carries his name.
No. 16, Redbud, par 3, 170 yards
Originally a short hole over a stream, rebuilt by Robert Trent Jones in 1947 with the stream turned into a pond that runs along the left side of the hole. The green slopes steeply from right to left, toward the water.
On Sunday the hole is traditionally cut on the left side of the green, low on the slope. A ball hit to the right side of the green rolls down the slope toward the hole, and that is why the 16th has produced so many holes-in-one in the final round, often several in a single afternoon. The best-known shot on the 16th is not an ace. It was Tiger Woods's chip in the final round in 2005, which ran down the slope, stopped at the edge of the hole and then dropped in.
| Player | Year | Hole | Hole name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gene Sarazen | 1935 | 15th | Firethorn |
| Bruce Devlin | 1967 | 8th | Yellow Jasmine |
| Jeff Maggert | 1994 | 13th | Azalea |
| Louis Oosthuizen | 2012 | 2nd | Pink Dogwood |
Those four are the only albatrosses in Masters history through 2025, all on the par 5s, and the list can grow in any year one of the four is reached in two.
The finish, 17 and 18: Nandina and Holly
No. 17, Nandina, par 4, 440 yards
For decades the 17th was defined by a tree. A loblolly pine stood on the left side of the fairway around 200 yards from the tee, and it caught so many of his drives that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a member, proposed at a club meeting in 1956 that it be cut down. Clifford Roberts adjourned the meeting. The tree became known as the Eisenhower Tree and stayed until an ice storm in February 2014 damaged it so badly that it had to be removed. Without it, the hole is more open off the tee, and the challenge has moved to the green, which is narrow and sloped.
No. 18, Holly, par 4, 465 yards
The last hole runs uphill through a chute of trees back toward the clubhouse. The tee shot has to be straight, and a pair of fairway bunkers on the left side, added in the 1960s, catch drives that try to cut the corner. The green is two-tiered and guarded by bunkers front left and right.
Sandy Lyle's 7-iron from the left fairway bunker in 1988, which finished above the hole and rolled back to set up the winning birdie, is the shot most often associated with the 18th. Many tournaments have been decided there; every one finishes there, with the patrons packed around the green and up the hill.
Which holes play hardest and easiest at the Masters
The club keeps cumulative stroke averages for every hole across every tournament, and the pattern in them has been stable for decades even as the course has changed. This page describes the pattern rather than quoting the averages.
The hardest holes, relative to par, have historically been the long par 4s and the long par 3: the 10th, the 11th, the 4th, the 18th and, since its lengthening, the 5th. The 12th belongs with them in a way that is hard to capture with an average, because its typical score is a par but its damaging scores are very damaging. Of all the holes on the course, the 10th has the strongest claim to be the hardest across Masters history, though the 11th has rivaled it since its own lengthening.
The easiest holes are the par 5s, and by a long way. The 13th and 15th, reachable in two by almost everyone in the modern field, play well under par, and the 2nd and 8th do too. Birdies and eagles on those four holes are a large part of any winning score.
Why the gap is so large
On most courses the hardest and easiest holes are a few tenths of a stroke apart. At Augusta the gap between the 10th and the 13th is much larger, because the course was designed with two types of hole: long par 4s and par 3s where par is a good score, and reachable par 5s where par is a missed chance. A player's tournament comes down to how he plays the two types. Our explainer on strokes gained explains how analysts now measure exactly that kind of difference.
What television flattens at Augusta National
Viewers who visit Augusta for the first time almost always say the same thing: the course is far hillier than it looks on television.
The camera compresses elevation. The fall from the clubhouse down to Rae's Creek at the bottom of the property is large, and a player who walks the course climbs and descends steeply all day. The 10th tee looks down on a fairway that falls away like a ski slope, and the 18th rises steeply back to the clubhouse. On the screen, those changes appear as gentle undulations.
The greens
The same goes for the greens. The slopes are severe, and they are kept extremely fast during the Masters. A putt that looks straightforward on television can be impossible to stop near the hole. Players often say the greens are the hardest part of Augusta, harder than the length or the trees.
The rough that is not there
There is no conventional rough at Augusta. What the club calls the second cut is a band of slightly longer grass beside the fairways, introduced in 1999. It is cut much shorter than the rough at a U.S. Open; a ball in it can usually be played to the green, though with less spin and less control. The real hazard off the fairway is the pine straw under the trees, from which players often have to chip out. The way the USGA sets up its own championship with thick rough is a different philosophy entirely, as our guide to Pinehurst No. 2 shows from the other side.
How the course has changed since 1999
Augusta National has been altered constantly since the 1930s, but the changes since the late 1990s have been on a different scale. Driven by longer hitting and the obvious ease with which the leading players were overpowering the course, the club has lengthened, narrowed and reshaped holes in several rounds of work. The 1999 introduction of the second cut and new trees began it; Tom Fazio's work for 2002, which added roughly 300 yards over nine holes, and another round in 2006, which added around 150 more, were the biggest single changes.
| Year | Hole | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Course-wide | The second cut introduced beside the fairways, with new trees planted |
| 2002 | Nine holes | New tees and reshaping added roughly 300 yards in total |
| 2006 | Six holes | A further round of lengthening added around 150 yards |
| 2019 | 5th | New tee about 40 yards back, to 495 yards |
| 2022 | 11th and 15th | Tees moved back, to 520 and 550 yards |
| 2023 | 13th | New tee about 35 yards back, to 545 yards |
| 2024 | 2nd | Lengthened to 585 yards |
The members' course
The Masters tees are the back tees, used during the tournament and rarely otherwise. Members play the course from forward tees, at a length a club golfer can manage, and the members' scorecard is a different document from the tournament one. The same distinction applies at any American club, as our page on what golf tee box colors mean explains. Some of the newest Masters tees sit on ground the club has bought from neighbors, which is a measure of how far it is prepared to go to keep the course testing.
The ceiling
Room is running out. Several holes now sit hard against the property line, and the next stage of the distance debate may be fought over equipment rather than land; our explainer on golf ball and driver rules covers the rollback the governing bodies have announced. Augusta National's pattern so far has been to lengthen where it can buy or build the ground.
The second nine on Sunday, and why it swings so much
The back nine at Augusta on Sunday afternoon is the most watched stretch of golf in the United States, and the reason is the design. Inside six holes, from the 11th to the 16th, the player faces two par 5s that can be reached in two and two par 3s over water. No other major championship course puts that many scoring opportunities and that many disasters so close together.
- 10 CamelliaA long, downhill par 4 where par is a good score and a bogey is common.
- 11 White DogwoodAnother long par 4 with water left of the green; players aim right.
- 12 Golden BellA short par 3 over Rae's Creek where club selection in a swirling wind decides everything.
- 13 AzaleaA reachable par 5 with water in front; eagle and double bogey are both in play.
- 14 Chinese FirNo bunker, but a green with a false front and fierce slopes.
- 15 FirethornA second reachable par 5, the pond in front of the green deciding whether to go for it.
- 16 RedbudA par 3 over water with a Sunday hole location that can produce an ace or a lost ball.
- 17 NandinaA straight par 4 to a narrow green, where a player protecting a lead tries to make a quiet par.
- 18 HollyAn uphill finishing par 4 through the trees to a crowded green.
How the closing holes alternate between holes to survive and holes to attack. It describes the design, not any particular year's results.
Why the swings are so large
A player two strokes behind on the 13th tee can make eagle there and on the 15th, and pick up four shots in three holes. A player two strokes ahead can find water on 12, 13, 15 or 16 and lose four or five. That combination has made the last nine holes of the Masters the setting for most of the tournament's best remembered finishes: Jack Nicklaus's 30 in 1986, Tiger Woods holding on in 2005 and 2019, Phil Mickelson's shot from the trees in 2010. The leader cannot simply play safe and win, because the par 5s give the chasers too many chances.
It is a judgment worth stating plainly. Augusta National's back nine was not designed for television, since nobody in 1935 was thinking about it. It is the accident of a frost problem in the mornings, a swap of the nines and a course architect who believed in risk and reward. Every April it delivers the sort of finish that few other courses can, which is why many golf fans in the United States who never watch another tournament make an exception for this one. More on the tournament's week is in our golf section and on the United States sports hub.