Understanding What Sarazen Did

The land area that was once Fruitland Nurseries outside Augusta, Georgia had become the Augusta National Golf Club, by 1933. In 1934, the first Invitational Tournament there was held, this event soon became known as The Masters. The winner, that first year was a man named Horton Smith. The following year, Gene Sarazen helped make Augusta famous.

Sarazen, one of the era’s most successful golfers, didn’t think much of Augusta National when he first played it. Speaking about the sixteenth hole, he said it “was a terrible hole, one hundred yards over a ditch.” At the time, sixteen did play at 145…