'Anyone With A Handicap Of 18 Should Be Ecstatic To Break 100' – Insights From Four Golf Monthly Staffers Who Have Played Augusta National

Playing Augusta National is something comfortably less than 0.1% of the golf-playing universe will ever get to experience.

However, if you're covering The Masters as a journalist or photographer, you're able to enter a ballot during tournament week. If your names come out of the hat – which sadly it didn't for me in 2017 – you're able to play the course the day after the event finishes.

I can only imagine how that feels, but four members of the Golf Monthly team can actually tell you. Below, Dan Parker, David Taylor, Tom Clarke and Joel Tadman take you through their rounds and share their thoughts...

'Impossible To Lose A Golf Ball'

Dan Parker, 2024

"Unless you dunk one in the water, I couldn’t really see an opportunity to lose the golf ball out on the course. There are no dense bushes alongside fairways or near greens, all of the bottoms of the trees are cut out, and there are barely any blind shots that might cause you to lose sight of a ball's trajectory.

"Everything is in front of you at Augusta National, and it meant I came home with the very ball I started with on the first tee.

"Perhaps it was the fact we had four excellent caddies in our four-ball who knew exactly how and where balls would end up when hit on certain lines, but I can’t think of any of us losing a ball that hadn’t found its way into some water.

"I hit some bad shots, some really bad shots, but we’d always find my ball somewhere amongst the pines."

'The 1st Hole Ended Up Being A Bit Of A Shocker'

David Taylor, 2019

"Amazing, I got a chance to tee it up on the Monday after Tiger Woods famously won his fifth Masters title.

"On the first, I found a greenside bunker in two, which I was happy with, took three more shots to reach the green and carded a nine. Thankfully the wide-open par-5 2nd came along just in time and I managed to find the green in regulation before three putting. This turned out to be a bit of a theme.

"The course is very playable for the average golfer. However, the greens are a different story. Even with Duncan, my caddie for the day, guiding me through every shot, I just couldn’t come to terms with the speed. It was a completely different game to the one I’m used to and my dodgy putting stroke was no match.

"I ended the day with nine bogeys, six doubles and a score of 105. I couldn’t have hoped to play much better from tee to green but the fact I registered no pars was all down to my putting.

"The highlight for me was a run of four bogeys from 10 through to 13, which included a career 5-iron to the heart of the 11th green."

'I Didn't Have A Clue What To Do Around The Greens'

Tom Clarke, 2018

"I bravely (or perhaps foolishly) stood up first, smashed one down the middle, and thought - yes I have made it. Amazingly, though, I actually got more and more nervous the more holes I played and I didn't have a clue what to do around the greens.

"You know this is likely to be your only chance to ever play a round on this hallowed turf, and you want to take it all in, and play well, and for some people that is obviously too much".

"Did I play my best? No. Did I make a par? No. Do I care? Not at all. This amateur shot 113 - which would have worked out as about 17 Stableford points. Not the best day at the office… but also the best day at the office".

'Anyone With A Handicap Of 18 Should Be Ecstatic To Break 100'

Joel Tadman, 2012

"I get annoyed when decent golfers say to me, 'I could break 80 around Augusta'.

"You probably could, but given the chance to play there you almost certainly won't, because you cannot appreciate the nerves you will feel on all the iconic holes (basically every hole) and they will inevitably get the better of you."

"With a medal card in your hand, disastrous doubles or worse are too easy to make. For the average golfer, they would be commonplace.

"Putting off the green would be a frequent occurrence, as would duffed iron shots because the fairways are mown back towards the tee.

"Errant drives are punished more than you think and most club golfers don't spin the ball enough on short game shots, or have the confidence to play high shots from tight lies to recover from a missed green.

"I would predict that single-figure players would shoot between 80-88 while mid handicappers would do well to break 90. Anyone with a handicap of 18 or more should be ecstatic to break 100."