What is Amen Corner? Get to know Augusta’s iconic Masters holes

It’s one of the vital iconic nicknames in all of sports activities, to not point out one of many coolest spots on earth — no less than for golf followers. As for professional golfers competing within the Masters? It may be slightly extra treacherous.

Briefly, Amen Nook is a well-known stretch of holes at Augusta National Golf Club, residence of the Masters. This 2024 version would be the 88th enjoying of golf’s greatest event — and Amen Nook is a reputation golf followers will hear typically.

So, what’s it? Don’t fret. Now we have you lined.

What’s Amen Nook?

Amen Nook basically refers back to the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth holes at Augusta Nationwide, that are additionally a few of the most well-known holes in all of golf. Collectively, they make up golf’s most well-known trio.

Extra preciously, Amen Nook is the second shot of the par-4 eleventh gap, your complete par-3 twelfth gap and the primary half of the par-5 thirteenth gap. Nonetheless, for those who consult with Amen Nook because the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth of their entirety, it’s not like many individuals will right you.

The time period was coined by legendary sportswriter Herbert Warren Wind, who used it in a 1958 Sports Illustrated piece when looking for essentially the most appropriate title for the world of the golf course through which an important second of the event occurred. He was impressed by the jazz music “Shoutin’ in that Amen Nook” by Mildred Bailey, and he was additionally influenced by different key “corners” within the sports activities world, like baseball’s “sizzling nook” and soccer’s “coffin nook.” The title caught.

In 1958, heavy rain made for a soggy ultimate spherical, and an area rule was put in place to permit gamers who discovered their balls embedded to raise and drop with out penalty. Arnold Palmer bumped into this case on the twelfth gap, when his ball embedded in a financial institution behind the inexperienced.

Though on this occasion, the principles official was unsure in regards to the applicability of the rule, so Palmer performed the embedded ball and a second ball. He made a double-bogey 5 with the unique ball and a 3 with the second. In the meantime, the Masters committee selected a ruling. On the fifteenth, Palmer was knowledgeable the three would depend. He went on to win by one, claiming the primary of his 4 Masters titles.

“On the afternoon earlier than the beginning of the current Masters golf event, a splendidly evocative ceremony happened on the farthest attain of the Augusta Nationwide course — down within the Amen Nook the place Rae’s Creek intersects the thirteenth fairway close to the tee, then parallels the entrance fringe of the inexperienced on the quick twelfth and at last swirls alongside the eleventh inexperienced,” Wind wrote.

Within the historical past of the Masters, the eleventh ranks as the toughest gap on the course (4.303 scoring common), with the twelfth because the fourth-hardest (3.270). The thirteenth ranks as the best gap at Augusta Nationwide (4.775 common).

Whereas the eleventh often is the most tough at Augusta Nationwide, the 155-yard twelfth — known as “Golden Bell” — is what generates a lot of the headlines. Set in opposition to a stunning backdrop of azaleas, it’s often a brief iron for execs right into a inexperienced the place no patrons are allowed close to. However swirling winds and a small touchdown space — the inexperienced isn’t any deeper than about 14 yards at any level — name for precision. Three bunkers guard the inexperienced, and Rae’s Creek gobbles up something quick.

Professionals passing by way of additionally know the horror tales of this place: Tom Weiskopf’s 13 in 1980, Jordan Spieth’s 7 in 2016, and Francesco Molinari’s 5 in 2019.

“I all the time approached that space with nice trepidation,” two-time Masters champ Ben Crenshaw advised Masters.com in 2023. “All all through the primary 9, the gamers are attempting to get a number of strokes to cushion themselves earlier than they go into the Nook. They know what can occur there, and so they know what has occurred there. Anyone stated a very long time in the past that the one factor you hear over there may be the participant’s heartbeat and the caddie’s heartbeat.”

Josh Berhow

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of many sport’s most-read information and repair web sites. He spends most of his days writing, enhancing, planning and questioning if he’ll ever break 80. Earlier than becoming a member of GOLF.com in 2015, he labored at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State College in Mankato, Minn., he resides within the Twin Cities along with his spouse and two youngsters. You possibly can attain him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.