Augusta National Golf Club

Augusta National Golf Club

The 10th fairway and green in 2006
Club information
Location	Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Established	1933
Type	Private
Total holes	18
Tournaments hosted	Masters Tournament (1934–present) PGA Seniors' Championship 1937–38
Website	masters.com
Designed by	Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie
Par	72
Length	7,435 yd (6,799 m)
Course rating	78.1 (unofficial)
Slope rating	137 (unofficial)
Course record	63 - Nick Price (1986), Greg Norman (1996)

Augusta National Golf Club, located in Augusta, Georgia, is one of the most famous golf clubs in the world. Founded by Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts on the site of the former Fruitland (later Fruitlands) Nursery, the course was designed by Jones and Alister MacKenzie and opened for play in January 1933. Since 1934, it has played host to the annual Masters Tournament, one of the four major championships in professional golf, and the only major played each year at the same course. It was the number one ranked course in Golf Digest's 2009 list of America's 100 greatest courses and is currently the number ten ranked course on Golfweek Magazine's 2011 list of best classic courses in the United States, in terms of course architecture.

The golf club's exclusive membership policies have drawn criticism, particularly because there were no African-American members admitted until 1990, as well as a former policy requiring all caddies to be black, which was omitted from the club's bylaws in 1959. The club began granting membership to women in August 2012. Prior to the acceptance of female members, Augusta National defended its position by citing that in 2011, more than 15% of the non-tournament rounds were played by female players who were member guests or spouses of active members. In August 2012, it admitted its first two female members, Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore. The golf club has defended the membership policies, stressing that it is a private organization.

The course was formerly a plant nursery and each hole on the course is named after the tree or shrub with which it has become associated. Several of the holes on the first nine have been renamed, as well as hole #11.

Lengths of the course for the Masters at the start of each decade:

Unlike most other private or public golf courses in the United States, Augusta National has never been rated. During the 1990 Masters Tournament, a team of USGA raters, organized by Golf Digest, evaluated the course and gave it an unofficial rating of 76.2. It was re-evaluated in 2009 and given an unofficial rating of 78.1.