Tiger Woods' 2019 Augusta National "Masters" Class
It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since we saw a sight we thought we would never see again. It was an overcast Sunday in Augusta, Georgia when Tiger Woods completed one of the biggest comebacks in all of sports; winning the 2019 Masters in improbable fashion. Never before had he come from behind on the final day to win a major.
When he teed off at 9:20 AM on number one (the field went off on split tees, because weather was expected to worsen later in the day) he trailed leader Francesco Molinari by two shots, tied with Tony Finau who would be joining Woods and Molinari in the final group.
Tiger would go on to shoot a pedestrian 2-under 70, to win by one shot over Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Xander Shauffele. What was most impressive about the final round wasn’t a series of SportsCenter-esque highlights, but rather a demonstration of course management that ensured he wouldn’t play himself OUT of a green jacket.
As the round went on, player after player shot themselves out of the tournament by making strategic mistakes, all the while Woods went about his business. His intimate knowledge of the course was the ace up his sleeve and it paid in dividends.
I’ll go through Tiger’s final round hole-by-hole, charting how he worked his way around the course. His approach this day won him a fifth green jacket and can help you play some of the best golf of your own life.
Before we get started, let me explain the core concept that I’ll be using in this article. I’ll focus solely on Tiger’s approach shots; the shots he hits into the greens.
Popularized by Scott Fawcett, creator of the DECADE Golf course management system, viewing the green in two halves has been a revolutionary way to approach different pin locations. In the image below, I’ve divided the green into two halves, a short side and a long side. Being “short-sided” means you have missed on the aggressive side of the pin, which normally requires a more difficult next shot than if you missed on the long side of the green.
Fawcett is teaching golfers to look at different pin locations, with their typical shot dispersion in mind. Below, I’ve taken the above image and laid a random ten shot pattern over the green.
Notice the shot dispersion pattern is shaped like an ellipse, not a perfect circle. This is because when you miss to the left, your club face is more closed. When you close the club face, there is less loft presented to the ball, creating higher ball speed. The opposite is true for misses to the right. The more open club face presents more loft to the ball, creating slower ball speeds.
Another factor to take into account here is that the longer the club you are hitting, the wider the ellipse will be. So a 4-iron has the potential to travel more off-line than a 9-iron. The better the player, the tighter the ellipse will be all other things being equal.
The key to the science of course management, when it comes to approach play, is to get as much of your ellipse on the green as possible. This will leave you an easier next shot and a lower potential score. Putting is easier than chipping!
I’ve broken down the round hole-by-hole using the pin sheet published by The Masters. The green dot denotes the hole location, the numbers on the horizontal and vertical lines provide the hole location in paces from the side and front or back of the green. I have used the “Frank the Tiger” logo to show where Tiger’s ball finished.
hole 1
Tiger chose 3-wood on the first hole, leaving himself 174 yards to the hole. He hit a high towering draw that landed short of the flagstick and in the middle of the green. He failed to reach the top of the ridge and the ball rolled back just slightly. This left him a routine, 25-foot putt up the slope, which he managed to get down in two.
Long side counter: 1/1
Round 4 score: E
hole 2
Tiger hit driver off the second tee, pulling his shot to the left and landing in the pine straw. He was forced to pitch out back into the fairway, not having a clear shot to the green. His recovery shot left him 217 yards to the hole from the middle of the fairway. From there he hit a mid-iron to the front middle of the green. “Safety first,” as they say. Two putts later and it’s a second straight par.
Long side counter: 2/2
Round 4 score: E
hole 3
Tiger laid up with an iron off the tee on this short par 4 hole, leaving him just a wedge in to the green from 126 yards. He hit a beautiful shot that landed about 7 feet right of the hole and spun a little to the left. This left him a short right-to-left breaking putt that he hit with perfect pace. Birdie.
Long side counter: 3/3
Round 4 score: -1
hole 4
The par 3 fourth hole was playing 247 yards, to a downhill green with bunkers flanking the peninsula of the green. Tiger hit a 4-iron that landed 12 feet onto the green and rolled back off the false front. The wind played a major factor on this tee shot and, in many cases, the difference between success and failure on this hole is timing the wind gusts just right. After his chip on to the green he was left with about 13 feet for his par putt. It lipped out giving Tiger his first bogey on the card for the day.
Long side counter: 4/4 (I count this as a longside shot, as he had a good amount of green to work with for his second shot).
Round 4 score: E
hole 5
Tiger hit a fairway wood off the tee, laying up short of the large fairway bunkers that flank the left side of the fairway. This left him 218 yards, to which he hit an iron to the right side of the green. Another iron shot, another safe landing on the larger portion of the green.
The fifth hole had Tiger’s number all week and he played the hole at +4 for the tournament, making bogeys every round. This bogey came from a 3-putt.
Long side counter: 5/5
Round 4 score: +1
hole 6
This was the first time in the round I felt like Tiger really got away with something. He pushed his tee shot on this par 3 hole a little too much, but it bounced off the slope to the left and rolled towards the pin, finishing seven feet below the hole.
Tiger lipped out the putt and tapped in for par.
Long side counter: 5/6
Round 4 score: +1
hole 7
Tiger again hit a fairway wood off the tee, leaving him 146 yards to the hole from the middle of the fairway. He hit a perfect shot that curved left to right about four yards, landed on the left side of the flag, and rolled down the hill to about a foot from the hole. Picture perfect. Birdie.
Long side counter: 6/7 (I’m counting this one, as his ball landed roughly 6 feet left of the flag then rolled to the right 1 foot right of the hole).
Round 4 score: E
hole 8
Tiger hit a driver to the right of the fairway, finishing in the second cut. This left him 258 yards to the hole. His 5 wood came off low and fast, hitting the green and racing past the hole, to which he remarked “that’ll be on the next tee box”.
His wedge shot back to the green was played perfectly, leaving him a relatively straight uphill putt of about 7 feet. Tiger rolled the subsequent putt with perfect pace for a birdie.
Long side counter: 7/8
Round 4 score: -1
hole 9
Tiger was left with 168 yards for his second shot here. He hit his 7-iron to the very back of the green, leaving himself a difficult two-putt from 50 feet. In what felt like an eternity, his ball finished just six inches right of the hole on his first putt, leaving him a tap-in for par.
Long side counter: 8 /9
Round 4 score: -1
hole 10
This is one of the first signs of danger for Woods, as he hit his tee shot right of the fairway, forcing a punch back into the fairway from the tree line. This left him a short iron to the green, which he pulled slightly. The ball just barely finished on the fringe, where he would two-putt from for bogey.
Long side counter: 8/10
Round 4 score: E
hole 11
It was here on 11 that I began to think we might see Tiger win major number 15. After hitting his drive way right into the trees, he was left with a small window to the green, and 182 yards to the flag. He hit a perfect draw that danced along the tree line, landing 25 feet right of the hole. A routine two-putt gave him a par after what was sure to be a bogey or worse following the tee shot.
Long side counter: 9/11
Round 4 score: E
hole 12
This is where the tournament shifted, as Ian Poulter, Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau and Francesco Molinari all found the water on this short par three. Tiger hit his 9-iron to the dead middle of the green, not taking on the flag to the extreme right of the green, which also forces a player to carry more of the creek short of the green. After a two-putt par, Woods found himself in a 3-way tie for the lead at 11-under par.
Long side counter: 10/12
Round 4 score: E
hole 13
From 161 yards in the middle of the fairway, Tiger hit his approach shot left of the flag, playing away from Rae’s Creek. His eagle putt finished about three feet short of the cup, which he cleaned up quickly. Birdie.
Long side counter: 11/13
Round 4 score: -1
hole 14
After a terrific tee shot, Tiger was left with 157 yards to the green from the right center of the fairway. He hit an iron perfectly pin-high, 20 feet left of the flag. Two putts, easy par.
Long side counter: 12/14
Round 4 score: -1
hole 15
After one of his most confident tee shots of the round, Tiger was left with 227 yards to the flag. One of the best displays of Master’s experience ensued here. The flag was on the extreme left of the green, just five paces on from the left edge. You can see in the image below the green also has the least amount of depth at that location. Tiger hit his long iron approach shot to the middle of the green with a high draw, that spun to the left with the slope of the green. He was left with a putt of roughly 35 feet, which he got down in two. His birdie gave him the solo lead with three holes to play.
Long side counter: 13/15
Round 4 score: -2
hole 16
After taking the outright lead, Tiger put the pedal to the floor here hitting his tee shot on the par 3 sixteenth hole to about two feet. It landed about 20 feet right of the hole, then took the slope down, finishing just a foot from the hole. Birdie.
Long side counter: 14/16 (Ball landed right of the flag)
Round 4 score: -3
hole 17
From the middle of the fairway, he hit a 143-yard approach shot just 10 feet left of the flag, pin high. A routine par after his two-putt.
Long side counter: 15/17 (It’s getting ridiculous at this point!)
Round 4 score: -3
hole 18
Tiger’s tee shot finished on the right side of the fairway, partially blocked by some trees, 167 yards from the pin. Knowing he just needed to make a bogey to win the tournament, he hit a high slice around the trees, leaving no chance that it would leave the ball in the trees. The ball finished 30 yards short of the green, leaving an easy pitch up to the pin with lots of green to work with. Had he hit a straighter shot to the left of the green, Tiger would have been left with a short-sided pitch over a bunker to the flag.
After hitting the ball on the green, he was left with 15 feet to the cup and two putts to get it done. His first attempt just lipped out, and, after tapping in the remaining 6-inch putt, Tiger celebrated in grand style, an incredible 11 years after his last major championship.
Long side counter: 16/18
Round 4 score: -2
conclusion
No matter the field, I’m a firm believer that success leaves clues. Tiger Woods wasn’t the longest driver of the ball this week, he didn’t have the fewest putts, and he didn’t have the best short game. The edge he had over the field is two-fold; he’s the best iron-player in the modern era, and he has an approach to the game that lets him have easier first putts or shots around the green.
The premise of being on the long side of the hole was on full display in this final round and it won Tiger Woods his fifth green jacket. Tiger was on the long side of the hole an astonishing 16 times out of 18 holes!
Many thanks to Scott Fawcett and his DECADE Golf program that has been revolutionizing the game for golfers all over the world. The concepts I discussed above are the cornerstone of his program.
How can YOU take advantage of the lessons Tiger gave us all five years ago? I think the first step is understanding that you don’t need to hit the ball perfectly to score well. If you choose safe targets, you can get away with your average shots and still make decent scores. This will be different for every golfer depending on their level of control of the ball with their scoring clubs.
The second step, is understanding that there is such a thing as a “good bogey.” Keeping the momentum of the round going is something Tiger has always talked about after great rounds. Not letting the round get away from you with a double bogey or worse can make all the difference.
The best part of learning course management is that it’s one of the few areas where you can get better at the game without making a trip to the driving range!
references
www.decade.golf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqYbG8Zhoag
Images courtesy of Golf Digest
Pin sheet courtesy of The Masters on X.