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Mastering the 9th at Augusta: Smylie Kaufman's Tips & Insights
SportsGrid
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4/8/2025
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🥇
Sports
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
Okay, let's go to the ninth hole, Carolina Cherry.
00:03
Number nine's a hole where when you hit it in the fairway, the fairway looks really wide
00:07
because the ball typically chases down into that low area, but the tee shot plays a lot
00:11
narrower than it looks, just with the overhanging trees on the left and the fairway slopes
00:15
left to right and kind of pushes you down into the trees on the right.
00:19
Once again, it's another hole where it's essential to get the ball in play and then
00:21
trying to get the ball in the right tier going into the green.
00:24
This is one of those holes where you're hitting from so low to such an elevated green and
00:29
the tiers there are really, really small.
00:30
And so it can be very tough to judge the distance and it's a hole where you cannot miss it short.
00:35
So again, themes that are recurring here, the impact of elevation change, trying to get
00:41
those numbers right, but also something he said off the top that you just noted about
00:45
everything at Augusta National Golf Club being very intentional and just the way that Alistair
00:51
McKenzie's design is set up to look at a visual and think that this place on the golf course
00:58
is safe when in reality it is not.
01:00
And it's playing mind games with you off the tee where you're trying to take a certain
01:03
line, but your brain wants you to bail out away from that and that gets you into trouble.
01:08
And this, to Scotty's point, looks like it'd be a pretty straightforward tee shot, but when
01:13
you look at the way the ground moves down the landing area and things like that, it becomes
01:16
more complicated.
01:18
Yeah, totally.
01:19
And this tee shot, it's so important to not miss a left.
01:21
Left is jail.
01:22
You got those bunkers that guard the left side of the screen.
01:25
So you never have a chance to run anything up.
01:27
Even if you have a shot, you don't have a shot because you need to play short and to
01:32
the right unless somehow in the world you hook it far enough to where you're in the first
01:39
fairway.
01:39
And if you're in the first fairway, that's still even a really hard shot because the angle
01:43
is so shallow from that spot.
01:46
But important to definitely hit this fairway, of course.
01:50
You could play from the right pine straw.
01:52
We've seen plenty of people hit shots on the green from the right pine straw and make
01:55
birdies.
01:56
So not the end of the world if you push that tee shot.
01:59
But he's exactly right talking about hitting from a low area.
02:02
And sometimes when it's not firm enough, the ball doesn't get all the way down the hill.
02:06
And when it doesn't, I found that it was really, really difficult to hit it high enough with
02:12
the firm greens, especially to the front pin.
02:15
That front pin to me is really difficult to get close to that hole.
02:18
And the further you get down the hill to the flat, the easier that shot is.
02:23
But when you're still on that side slope and down slope hitting that shot, I wasn't somebody
02:29
that could hit it high enough to where I was able to really hold that section of the green.
02:34
Now, Scotty Scheffler, he hits it really high and probably can hit it soft enough with a high
02:40
landing apex where he might be OK.
02:43
And that that's where the the topics of, you know, what does it take to compete out at
02:48
Augusta National?
02:50
And sometimes people undervalue that just the ability to hit it high and to be able to get
02:57
to pins that other guys couldn't get to.
02:59
I played well that week and there were a hole locations that I couldn't get to that other
03:03
guys could.
03:04
So, let's see.
03:05
So, let's see.
03:06
So, let's see.
03:07
So, let's see.
03:08
So, let's see.
03:09
So, let's see.
03:10
So, let's see.
03:11
So, let's see.
03:12
So, let's see.
03:13
So, let's see.
03:14
So, let's see.
03:15
So, let's see.
03:16
So, let's see.
03:17
So, let's see.
03:18
So, let's see.
03:19
So, let's see.
03:20
So, let's see.
03:21
So, let's see.
03:22
So, let's see.
03:23
So, let's see.
03:24
So, let's see.
03:25
So, let's see.
03:26
So, let's see.
03:27
So, let's see.
03:28
So, let's see.
03:29
So, let's see.
03:30
So, let's see.
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