One New Tee Box, Please: Augusta’s Unseen Maintenance

Augusta National’s secretive agronomic practices, with their extreme attention to detail, are a sight to behold at The Masters. The maintenance staff has access to the biggest budget, the most employees, and the newest technologies in the industry to maintain the course to the absolute highest standard, all while concealing any evidence of inordinate effort.

Tee-box maintenance is a point of differentiation between different levels of courses. At many public golf facilities, par-3 tee boxes are not completely flat and tend to get chewed up. High-end private clubs feature more level tees with sand-filled divots and probably a couple of deep gouges. At Augusta National, we see perfectly flat tees with uniform, monochromatic grass that looks untouched because… well, it essentially is untouched.

On Wednesday evening, Fried Egg Golf photographer Cameron Hurdus captured a fascinating sequence of events that showed me something new about Augusta National’s one-of-a-kind maintenance. I had seen photos and social media posts documenting the club’s use of grass plugs to restore the appearance of perfection to tee boxes after each round of The Masters, but I had never seen an entire portion of the tee box replaced. Now, thanks to Cameron’s sharp eye, I have:

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This process includes mapping out the area that needs to be replaced, cutting the existing sod out, prepping the undersoil, and carefully replacing it with brand-new rolls of ryegrass sod. The seams between each piece are then worked together by hand, the area cleaned of debris, and the sod compacted with a vibratory plate before finally getting a little drink of water. The final result is a seemingly new tee box. You can see below what the 12th tee looked like about 12 hours later as patrons began to file into Amen Corner.

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When you scratch your car, you just replace the entire door, right?

Jokes aside, it’s always entertaining to see the pains that Augusta National takes to present the most aesthetically perfect presentation of grass possible. It also makes me wonder what kind of things they are doing behind the scenes that we never get to see.

What’s an interesting “over-the-top” aspect of The Masters that comes to your mind?