There’s no detail too small at the Masters Tournament – for either the Augusta National Golf Club to release or for golf fans to show interest.
For example, when patrons arrived Monday, they were given free solar eclipse glasses donning the official Masters Tournament logo and featuring the Masters green color.
It’s the attention to detail that doesn’t go unnoticed.
Almost every year, like clockwork, the first press release during Masters week by the club is one that describes the various heights of the grass on the golf course.
The club notes that mowing “is subject to weather conditions and growth.”
Here goes, as posted by the club on Monday morning:
Grass on the teeing grounds will be 5/16 of an inch
Fairways will be ⅜ of an inch
Second cut (the rough – which is a no-no word within the gates of the club) is 1 ⅜ inches
Collars will be ¼ of an inch
“Green surrounds” will be 5/16 of an inch
Greens will be ⅛ of an inch
What about the Augusta National green speeds?
Oddly enough, the one detail the club steadfastly refuses to release is how fast the greens roll on a device called a Stimpmeter, used by golf course superintendents to measure green speed.
The fast greens on the PGA Tour are generally 13 on the Stimpmeter. Your favorite public course likely is around 9 or 10.
There are players who claim Augusta National’s famously tricky greens approach 14 but we’ll never know.
