Chinese Fir is a dogleg left par 4 and is the only hole at Augusta without a bunker. The tee shot plays left, but the fairway slopes right, which can cause shots that aren’t moving leftward off the tee to run out to the right side.
The approach shot is plays uphill and the green has quite a bit of unfriendly variation that can make this a difficult hole to birdie.
“You’d rather hit it over the green than hit it short and deal with that six-foot rise. It’s like a three-tiered green running from left to right. The danger pin is left because then you’ll have a really gnarly chip. But every other pin is a bit of a feeder.”
“Out of that 13-14-15 stretch, that’s the one you have to play from the fairway because of how long and sloping that green is. You have to be playing from the short grass so you can control the iron shot. Even if you hit the fairway, if you don’t hit the correct iron shot and put it on the right tier, you can easily be looking at a three-putt. On paper or when you look at a yardage book, you think this is nothing. Then all of a sudden, you get on the green and you’re like, ‘Oh, man,’ because of the false front and all the tiers on that green.”
Formerly named Spanish Dagger.