A nature lover’s field guide to Augusta National

When Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie built Augusta National, they did more than turn a fruit nursery into a golf course. They transformed a swath of orchards into one of the game’s most varied ecosystems. That heritage lives on in the names of the championship holes, each christened for a flower, shrub or tree, and in the trill of birdsong and the ripples of life in the property’s ponds and creeks.

The big springtime tournament gets all the attention. But Augusta National belongs to more than golfers, patrons, camera crews and club members. Here’s a field guide to the flora and fauna that call it home.

FLORA

Tea Olive — Hole No. 1 Osmanthus fragrans

Augusta National opens with a long par 4 named for a small evergreen shrub whose tiny white flowers open with one of sweetest fragrances in the plant kingdom. The catch is that the tea olive blooms in fall. By Masters week, it still cuts a handsome figure, but without its distinctive scent.

Pink Dogwood — Hole No. 2 Cornus florida

This dogleg-left par 5 gives players every reason to reach for the driver, and every reason to be wary of what waits in the trees. The dogwood thrives in the understory, in the partial shade of taller pines. Its pink bracts — often mistaken for petals — arrive right on schedule for the tournament, but it’s the dogwood’s sturdy trunk that no one wants to find their ball behind.

Flowering Peach — Hole No. 3 Prunus persica

The peach tree on this short par 4 was bred for its blossoms, not its fruit. It’s ornamental, unlike its agricultural Georgia cousin. Which is fitting, really.  The flowering peach is lovely decoration, better suited to the property’s current purpose than to its commercial nursery past.

Flowering Crab Apple — Hole No. 4 Malus floribunda

The sour fruit of a crab apple typically measures less than two inches in diameter, roughly the size of a golf ball. Technically, it’s edible, but it doesn’t taste much better than a Titleist. The tree itself, though, is a feast for the eyes, blooming in showy clusters of pink and white.

Magnolia — Hole No. 5 Magnolia grandiflora

Before they reach the 5th hole, competitors have already driven beneath them. Magnolia Lane, the club’s famous entrance, is canopied by towering Southern magnolias that were planted in the 1850s. The species itself dates back some 20 million years, with waxy, almost artificial-looking leaves that appear prepared to endure for all of time.

Juniper — Hole No. 6 Juniperus virginiana

The Eastern red cedar — which is what this “juniper” actually is, the common name being something of a misnomer — thrives where many other trees won’t, drought tolerant and indifferent to stingy soil. A pond that once fronted this par 3 was removed in 1959, but the junipers on this hole were presumably unbothered, drinking their fill through deep roots.

Pampas — Hole No. 7 Cortaderia selloana

Native to Argentina, like 2009 Masters champion Ángel Cabrera, this tall, fast-growing grass is considered invasive in New Zealand and Australia, where land managers wage ongoing battles to contain it. It enjoyed a different kind of notoriety in the United Kingdom, where pampas grass planted in the front garden was reputed — perhaps apocryphally — to signal an openness to swinging. Augusta National was not asked to comment.

Yellow Jasmine — Hole No. 8 Gelsemium sempervirens

Centuries ago, this attractive, twisting vine was deemed a folk remedy for assorted maladies. Alas, there’s no evidence that it prevents golfers from choking under pressure. It can, however, cause skin irritations. Its sector, on the other hand, appears to be perfectly fine for bumblebees.

Carolina Cherry — Hole No. 9 Prunus caroliniana

When damaged, the leaves of this mid-sized flowering tree decompose into hydrogen cyanide, making them unappetizing to livestock. Deer find them distasteful. Golfers have other reasons not to like them, as they have been known to impede approach shots. The tree’s fruit, by contrast, has all kinds of fans, including songbirds, quail and raccoons.

Camellia — Hole No. 10 Camellia japonica

In the 1935 Masters, Frank Walsh made a 12 here, the highest score ever recorded on this hole in the event. What’s unknown is which type of camellia he encountered along the way. The 10th hole is thick with both the japonica and sasanqua varieties, which can be tricky to tell apart; they differ mostly in bloom time, sun tolerance and flower size, distinctions that Walsh probably didn’t notice.

White Dogwood — Hole No. 11 Cornus florida

The 11th was a 415-yard par 4 when Augusta National opened in 1933. It has since been stretched to 520 yards from the championship tees. The white dogwoods that frame the hole have grown, too, but not to the same extent. The species generally tops out around 40 feet, and is often wider than it is tall.

Golden Bell — Hole No. 12 Forsythia suspense

This deciduous shrub, which grows nicely along stream banks (and does pretty nicely along Rae’s Creek) gives rise to yellow flowers in spring that make a happy sight, unless you’re in them. Golden bell is also known as weeping forsythia. But feel free to refer to it as crying Spiethia, tortured Molinariensis, or stricken Sharkus — a genus of suffering with no shortage of new species. The hole seems to breed more every year.

Azalea — Hole No. 13 Rhododendron specie

According to the official Masters website, this renown par 5 is flanked by some 1,600 azaleas, which flower right around tournament time. To the average golf fan, no bloom is more directly linked to Augusta. But the plant is prevalent in many places, including Valdosta, Georgia, aka the Azalea City, roughly four hours to the south.

Chinese fir — Hole No. 14 Cunninghamia lanceolota

Lanceolota is Latin for “spear-shaped,” an apt description of the Chinese fir’s coniferous leaves. As for its wood, it is soft and scented, traits that make it prized by woodworkers in Asia but which do no good for golfers who find the trees on this par 4.

Firethorn — Hole No. 15 Firethorn Pyracantha

In the first round of the 2017 Masters, two-time champion Bubba Watson became the first player to use a pink ball in the tournament. Pink is easy to spot against green grass, but tougher to distinguish amid the flame-red berries of the evergreen shrubs that line this par 5. Not that Watson had to worry about that. He parred the 15th with his pink ball before switching to a white ball in his second round.

Redbud — Hole No. 16 Cercis canadensis

Legend holds that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from a redbud after betraying Jesus, causing the tree such shame that its flowers turned a reddish pink. The scientific explanation for the color is a high concentration of anthocyanin pigments. At any rate, there’s lots of other lore around this hole, thanks to the Sunday exploits of such players as Ben Crenshaw, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

Nandina — Hole No. 17 Nandina domestica

In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower unsuccessfully lobbied to have a loblolly pine removed from this par 4. But to our knowledge, he never complained about the hole’s namesake nandina, a flowering plant that’s also known as common bamboo, though it isn’t bamboo at all. As for the famous Eisenhower Tree, disease finally accomplished what the president couldn’t. The stricken pine was removed in 2014.

Holly — Hole No. 18 Ilex opaca

The holly is a mid-sized evergreen and several varieties stand along the finishing hole. But as every player and ardent fan knows, it’s the taller loblollies that pose the most serious piney trouble, forming a chute that makes the playing corridor off the tee look no wider than a sidewalk.

Fauna

Smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieu

Augusta National stories can be like fish stories: hard to confirm. But combine the two genres, and you get some good yarns. One involves Sam Snead, who was known for casting lines on the course. According to an oft-repeated anecdote, Snead once snagged a doozy of a smallmouth bass and sneaked the fish into the kitchen for preparation at the Champions Dinner. We can’t confirm that. But we can certify the following from Andy Bean, who told golf.com that he used to fish Augusta National regularly during tournament week and claimed that he once landed a seven-and-a-half pound bass. That’s a biggie. But at Augusta National, there’s been ample time for fish to grow. The ponds were stocked during the reign of Clifford Roberts.

Brown water snake, Nerodia taxispilota

True to its name, this non-venomous snake loves the water, and there’s plenty of that surging through Rae’s Creek, which extends beyond the borders of Augusta National. Unlike people, though, snakes don’t have to pass through security to get onto the property, which they do. According to reliable reports from guests who’ve played Augusta National just prior to the Masters, workers have been seen removing snakes from the creek along the 13th hole.

Lesser goldfinch, Spinus psaltria

According to Merlin Bird ID, a great ornithological resource developed by Cornell Lab, the Augusta area is habitat for dozens of bird species, including the song sparrow, the American robin, the Bewick’s wren and the oak titmouse. Among the more prolific is the lesser goldfinch, a yellow-breasted bird with a distinctive trill. Cup your ear to the TV, and you might hear it on the CBS broadcast. Whether it’s live or piped in by the network, we wouldn’t want to guess. But it’s a soothing sound, quieter than an eagle roar.

Common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina

Over the course of the Masters, competitors often take aggressive angles. But there’s one thing on one wants to cut off: a finger. A snapping turtle can do that for you. Especially the giant that is said to lurk beneath the Nelson Bridge on the par-3 12th hole. It’s reportedly the size of a manhole cover.

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