Even the harshest critic would be hard-pressed to call a round at Augusta National “a good trip spoiled,” but the truth is, a round at the home of the Masters is definitely a good trip – a good, long one. If you’ve only seen the course on TV, it’s almost impossible to imagine how hilly and variable (and we’re not talking greens here) the terrain can be.
Combine that with four straight days of intense, pressure-filled golf, and it’s easy to see why — at least in terms of physical activity — the Masters is “a culture unlike any other.” It also highlights how impressive a Masters win is for players like Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Sam Snead, Mark O’Meara and Ben Hogan, all of whom won the tournament in their forties.
Full disclosure: To fully display the elevation changes, we mapped the elevations of various locations in the ANGC using the elevation calculator displayed on Google Maps. The math used to calculate distances has gone beyond course yardage jibes with results from a rare test conducted at Royal County Down in 2018, where a group of average golfers equipped with tracking devices played the course.
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As it turned out, members of the test group walked an average of 6.6 miles, 69 percent farther than the school card distance. The pros at Augusta, according to our calculations, can only expect a 29 percent swing, which makes sense when you consider how efficiently a Tour pro (along with a Tour caddy) plays a round compared to the average weekend golfer.
Of course, this figure does not take into account the steep climbs that the calves have to do at various points in the center.
The roller coaster begins immediately with a dramatic drop from the first tee to the first fairway, followed by a trip back to the first green, the highest point on the course. The second hole descends about 90 feet from tee to green, while the eighth hole goes in the opposite direction, rising 72 feet from tee to green.
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Players then continue their walk up the ninth green and onto the tenth, where they stop briefly to tip their skis: A dizzying descent from No. 10 tee to the 10th green is about 110 feet. The back nine has character, but it still features significant ups and downs, including a walk up to the 11th tee, a steep drop to the 15th green and a scary climb on the approach.
The pros can skip a leg day during Masters week. And how many steps can a fitness-conscious Tour professional hope to get out of each of his (hopefully) four rounds? By our calculations, we arrived at a healthy 11,451 steps, which is very close to what 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett logged in his final round, as noted by writer Rex Hoggard.
