To those of us watching from the bleachers or our recliners, the 155-yard, par-3 12th hole at Augusta National is one of the most gorgeous spots on the iconic Masters course.
To Jordan Spieth and a host of other major champions before him (and, no doubt, after him), the lovely Golden Bell — the second hole of the three-hole, hit-and-pray-to-the-golf-gods stretch known as Amen Corner — is one of the most dangerous spots on the course.
Sure, the sand fore and aft, trees surrounding the skinny green, and a bikini wax-quick false front sloping down toward Rae’s Creek can mess with golfers’ heads. The wind gusts may be the most difficult part of the hole, however, billowing above golfer and green and leaving players stumped about club selection.
“You get on your hands and knees and pray,” Patrick Reed told USA Today last year when asked about No. 12, traditionally the third-hardest hole on the course with an average score of 3.28. “It’s so deceiving there, because the clouds can go one way, the flag will go the opposite way, and the trees are going another way.
“Then you throw up grass, and that’s going in a different direction, so it just confuses you,” added Reed, who has posted one bogey and nine pars on No. 12 in 10 career rounds at Augusta. “Basically all you can do is step up and try and be confident in what you’ve decided to do, and then swing away.”
Which Spieth did, three times, on his way to a chunky and soggy, tourney-ending quadruple bogey-7 during last year’s final round. Then he put one in the drink during Sunday’s final round at 12 as well.
Deja vu... @jordanspieth in the water on 12. Yep, you read the right #TheMasters https://t.co/GQEhMQUmbF
— 7Golf (@7golf) April 9, 2017
“No matter what happens at this year’s Masters, whether I can grab the jacket back or I miss the cut or I finish 30th, it will be nice having this Masters go by,” Spieth said last month. “The Masters lives on for a year. It brings a non-golf audience into golf. And it will be nice once this year’s finished, from my point of view, to be brutally honest with you.”
Spieth was hardly the first to have such sentiments. Golf legends such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus have been victims of the 12th hole. Like Spieth’s five-shot edge with nine to play, four-time Masters winner Palmer had the same advantage in the 1959 tournament and, eventually, a two-stroke loss to Art Wall.
Tom Weiskopf came in second four times at the Masters, but his Augusta stints may be best known for the historic mess he made of the 12th hole in the first round in 1980. The 1973 Open Championship winner watched his tee shot with a 7-iron spin off the green and into Rae’s Creek. After four more water shots from the drop area, he walked off with a 13, the highest score the snug little hole has ever yielded.
Sandwiched between his 2012 and 2015 Masters wins, Bubba Watson became the second player of the day, after Kevin Na, to card a 10 in 2014’s final round.
Watson’s misadventure began when he dunked a 9-iron from the tee. After a wedge shot from the drop area suffered the same fate, Bubba sent his fifth shot into the back bunker, then proceeded to blade his next attempt over the green and back into the water. When he finally found the green, Watson one-putted his way into double digits.
Phil Mickelson might have four Masters wins already if his 9-iron hadn’t failed to get the ball to the green in the final round in 2009. A double-bogey killed his chances of coming from behind after he shot a record-tying 30 on the front nine. He finished three shots back of a three-way playoff among eventual winner Angel Cabrera, Kenny Perry, and Chad Campbell.
Rory McIlroy knows the agony of defeat at No. 12, as well. His four-shot lead entering the final round in 2011 was essentially gone after he hooked his tee shot on No. 10 close to Butler Cabin and took a triple bogey-7 to start his back nine. The four-putt double-bogey on 12, though, sealed the fate of the four-time major champion, who still needs one green jacket to complete a career grand slam.
Even the owner of six Masters titles (among his all-time best 18 major championships) had an uh-oh moment on No. 12. In 1964, Nicklaus actually hit his tee shot short of Rae’s Creek, bogeyed the hole, and lost to Palmer by two shots.
As all these champion golfers have learned the hard way, looks can be deceiving, especially when it comes to Augusta National’s exquisitely mystifying Golden Bell.
“It's the one hole I've played that demands absolute commitment mentally,” three-time major winner Nick Price has said. “Wind or not, if you don't have that, you will pay serious consequences.”
Just ask Jordan Spieth.