The First Nine at Augusta: Hole-by-Hole Data From the Last 25 Years
Hello, friends. It's Masters week which means it's time to pull an absurd amount of data and see what kinds of crazy and interesting stuff we can find. This is the second article in our Masters series, the first goes into some of the wildest scorecards we found in 25 years of data.
Mike Barton
For this series of articles, we have pulled data from 2001 through 2025, so totals/averages reflect those years. Note that 2020 is not included in this dataset. Generally, when I say "in history" or something along those lines, I'm referring to this dataset unless I note otherwise.
Today, we'll be focusing on each hole on the first nine at Augusta National – difficulty, how scoring has trended over time, any interesting player-level stats for a given hole, and of course...any memorable blow-ups. I set out to cover all 18 holes but as you'll soon see, it started to get out of hand pretty quick.
To begin, we can view the entire course over time. In a separate article, we'll get into round-level scoring averages but I thought this was in interesting way to view trends by hole.
Hole 1 - Tea Olive, Par 4, 445 yards
Scoring average: +0.27
Difficulty: 2/18
Under Par: 7.1% | Over Par: 29.6%
Hardest year: 2007 (+0.47)
Easiest year: 2019 (+0.12)
Only one player has made an eagle: Retief Goosen in 2011. Ernie Els made a 9 in 2016 in what is genuinely one of my favorite Masters moments ever.
The hole-out eagle is an anomaly but Goosen actually played this hole better than anyone in our dataset (min. 20 rounds).
The first hole has gotten Ross Fisher's number. No birdies, 7 bogeys, three doubles. He probably wants to burn this hole to the ground.
Hole 2 - Pink Dogwood, Par 5, 585 yards
Scoring average: -0.29
Difficulty: 18/18
Birdie rate: 38.4% | Bogey rate: 9.5%
Hardest year: 2003 (-0.14)
Easiest year: 2021 (-0.45)
Number 2 earns the distinction of having the only albatross in our dataset, with Louis Oosthuizen holing out in 2012. There have only been four albatrosses in Masters history and they're spread perfectly across all four par 5s on the course. I like balance, so I'd prefer it stays this way forever, unless there can be four in one year.
- Oosthuizen, #2, 2011
- Jeff Maggert, #13, 1994
- Bruce Delvin, #8, 1967
- Gene Sarazen, #15, 1935 (no video, not sure this really happened tbh)
David Duval made a 10 on #2 in 2006 for the worst score in our dataset.
Up-and-comer Scottie Scheffler has dominated the second hole. Double checked and he went -4 in 2020 also which would have made his lead here even more. Hot take but this guy is pretty good.
It's consistently scored as one of the easier holes, and as driving distances on tour have increased over time, scoring has gotten even better.
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Hole 3 - Flowering Peach, Par 4, 350 yards
Scoring average: E
Difficulty: 14/18
Under par rate: 18.6% | Over par rate: 17%
Hardest year: 2017 (+0.19)
Easiest year: 2011 (-0.11)
Scoring-wise, the third hole has gone back and forth over the years, hovering almost exactly at E since 2001. It's one of the only holes that tends to go back and forth between over and under par in the scoring chart.
Unfortunately, not too many blow-ups on this hole, the highest score is a triple-bogey 7 made by a bunch of guys. There have been ten eagles, with three of them occurring in 2024 (Adam Scott, Jake Knapp, and Patrick Cantlay). I may just be bad at using the tool but I couldn't find the Adam Scott eagle in the Masters vault.
Redemption for Ross Fisher! He leads all players on the third hole with seven birdies and 13 pars.
Hole 4 - Flowering Crab Apple, Par 3, 240 yards
Scoring average: +0.26
Difficulty: 3/18
Under-par rate: 6.4% | Over-par rate: 29.7%
Hardest year: 2007 (+0.42)
Easiest year: 2001 (+0.12)
I grew a major appreciation for the difficulty of this hole seeing it in person for the first time last year and standing on the tee box and immediately thinking "what the hell would you even do here? I'm probably just hitting a 5 iron down there short and playing it as a par 3 from there."
No surprise that this hole hasn't sniffed even par at any point.
Only one hole-in-one ever on this hole in 1992 by Jeff Sluman. There are no hazards on this hole so while it's difficult, a true blow-up is relatively rare. Except for Henrik Stenson who made an 8 here on his way to a 45 on the front in 2011.
Xander Schauffele leads the pack with a perfect even par scoring average in our dataset.
I'm going to be honest and tell you that I do not know who Bernd Wiesberger is but he hated this hole. He made the cut five times though, so shout out to him!
Hole 5 - Magnolia, Par 4
Scoring average: +0.23
Difficulty: 5/18
Under-par rate: 7.5% | Over-par rate: 28.2%
Hardest year: 2021 (+0.43)
Easiest year: 2001 (+0.06)
Rich Beem (2003) and Russell Henley (2017) are the only players to record a 2 here. Apparently, Russell Henley's second shot jacked up a piece of the hole on its way in so I'd love to be able to see video of that but I haven't been able to dig it up.
No true blow-ups here... a bunch of players have made triple, including Tiger Woods.
Chad Campbell is our leader for #5, including a stretch where he made 14 pars in a row! Then had to go mess it up with a birdie in 2009...
Fact: Every time Danny Willett makes the cut and plays the fifth hole at even par for the week, he wins the tournament. Something to watch out for.
Hole 6 - Juniper, Par 3, 180 yards
Scoring average: +0.13
Difficulty: 10/18
Under-par rate: 10.9% | Over-par rate: 22%
Hardest year: 2016 (+0.22)
Easiest year: 2019 (+0.00)
For reasons someone smarter than me could probably explain, we got really close to going under par in 2019 here at the sixth.
Three hole-in-ones here: Chris DiMarco (2004), Jamie Donaldson (2013), and Corey Conners (2021). The biggest blow-up was a 7 from Branden Grace in 2016. Woohoo! I finally have video evidence of one of these!
Scottie is our leader for #6, with a scoring average of 2.85.
Whew boy, that's a lot of squares for Ian Woosnam on this hole.
The coolest thing about this hole is that it was my national TV debut. In the below image, you can see me and my dad talking – surely about something super important, like when we were gonna go get our third peach ice cream sandwich of the day.
Hole 7 - Pampas, Par 4, 450 yards
Scoring average: +0.18
Difficulty: 8/18
Under-par rate: 13.1% | Over-par rate: 28.1%
Hardest year: 2021 (+0.30)
Easiest year: 2001 (-0.01)
I can't explain it but I read "Pampas" in Baby Billy's "Tennjus" voice. The seventh started with an under-par scoring average in 2001 and has been consistently above par ever since. And nothing too crazy on either end of the scoring spectrum so we'll keep this train rolling.
Chris Kirk is our leader, despite playing the hole +3 in his first five attempts. Since then, he has gone -5 in 14 holes.
Billy Horschel may have missed the cut last year, but he finally slayed his demon that is the 7th hole.
Hole 8 - Yellow Jasmine, Par 5, 570 yards
Scoring average: -0.24
Difficulty: 15/18
Under-par rate: 33.5% | Over-par rate: 9%
Hardest year: 2003 (-0.06)
Easiest year: 2025 (-0.38)
Similar to the trend we saw play out for #2, the other par 5 on this side, as driving distances have increased, scoring has continued to improve, with last year being the lowest scoring round recorded.
Still nothing worse than a triple-bogey on this hole, including Bubba Watson in 2011. Harrison Frazar in 2012 is the most recent to record a triple so I hope you'll all join me in rooting for someone to end the 13-year drought this year.
Brooks Koepka absolutely dominates the eighth hole with a 4.36 scoring average.
Ben Crenshaw struggled on this one in his later years, with a scoring average of 5.23.
Hole 9 - Carolina Cherry, Par 4, 460 yards
Scoring average: +0.11
Difficulty: 12/18
Under-par rate: 13.3% | Over-par rate: 22.1%
Hardest year: 2012 (+0.25)
Easiest year: 2025 (-0.04)
Number 9... number 9... number 9
After flirting with it in 2017 and 2022, we finally dipped into under-par territory on the 9th hole in 2025!
Three hole-outs for eagle here, including this one from Danny Willett last year.
The first thing I saw on Thursday after getting onto the course was Fred Couples rolling in a birdie on this hole, so I am choosing to believe that Freddie going -2 in 2025 is what finally got the field into negative territory.
Luke Donald made an 8 here in 2014, after pulling a Dustin Johnson and grounding his club in the sand and being assessed a two-stroke penalty after his round was over.
Tommy Fleetwood, newly-minted Blackstone brand ambassador, leads the pack on the ninth hole with just one bogey in his 2023 round.
Sandy Lyle's performance on the ninth was reminiscent of another rough Sandy Lyle sports outing. Sandy was letting it rain all over the damn 9th hole. That's a big hill though, too steep for an old dude to walk up.
Should we do the back nine? I kind of want to but I need to justify to my boss that it's worth me spending another five hours on the back – ahem, excuse me...second nine.
For a well-researched look into Augusta National, I highly recommend the excellent collection of articles by Fried Egg that go into more detail on each hole. Great stuff here from the Fried Egg folks. (yolks? I am sorry...)
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If you have gotten this far through the article, seek help. But also...thank you! Please share this with anyone you think might be interested.
-Mike
