No. 18 | Holly | Par 4 | 465 Yards

Hit it towards the fairway bunkers with a baby fade. Hit it again up 45 feet to the green. Two putt par. Bob is your uncle.

Pfff, so easy. Augusta's 18th hole seems pretty straightforward, it has tee boxes, a fairway, four bunkers, and one green (as per usual).

Let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers:

• Elevation change: 75 feet (that's about 5 stories all uphill)
• Driving chute: roughly 70 feet wide (wasn’t always this way)
• Green is: roughly 5,346 sqft (it used to be way bigger)
• Green has: 6 feet of drop from back to front

The historical scoring average is 4.23.

It’s not the toughest closing hole nor is it the toughest hole at Augusta. That credit goes to holes 10 & 11, respectively, at a 4.3 scoring average.

In 1934, the 18th was the 9th. In 1935 it became and stayed the 18th. (Golf Digest)

1934: It had a fairway cross bunker 100 yards short of the green. It didn’t have the fairway bunkers at the elbow of the dogleg.

1938: A large tongue was eliminated from the front of the green.

1967: The fairway bunkers at the elbow were built

2001: Tom Fazio moved the tees as far back as he could—45 yards.

When Augusta was first built our pull-going-hard-left-dear-god duck-hook gentle draw would’ve played fine but in 1975 the club planted trees down the left-hand side. In fact, a lot of trees have been added to both the right and left side creating what looks like a narrow chute to tee off into. (above graphic compared to below)

Not the toughest but definitely one of the most memorable closing holes.

It didn't start out this way. It's taken 87 years to get to where it is today. And knowing how Augusta likes to tweak it's design, it's probably not done.