Fall leaves won’t be only change at the 2020 Masters

Instead of being the annual rite of spring for golf in April, this year’s Masters Tournament will serve as an autumn awakening in November.

A different version of a Fall Classic, if you will.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Masters was postponed from its annual run in April to November 12-15. That seven-month alteration, in short, means it will be a Masters unlike any other when players arrive in Augusta in pursuit of a green jacket.

The course will play differently. There will be no patrons – or azaleas. It’s highly likely players will layer up, as cooler temperatures are expected. And you’ll be setting the DVR for altered times.

Photos: Scenic views of Augusta National Golf Club

“It’s going to be unusual but it will still be Augusta National and it will still be pure,” said 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson, who famously didn’t go for the green in two on any par 5 holes during that unusually cold week en route to his green jacket. “It will still be a major championship at Augusta National.

“It’s Augusta National. It’s going to be pure.”

Just a different type of pure.

A few basics:

- The average daily temperatures in April range from a low of 48 to a high of 77; in November the range is from a low of 47 to a high of 69. The sun will rise about the same time (around 7 a.m.) but will set in November two hours earlier (5:30 p.m.).

- Historical precipitation readings show that each month gets similar rainfall – 4.31 inches in April, 4.47 inches in November. But October annually gets around 6.3 inches of rain leading into November, so the course could be soft.

- Cooler, northerly winds are the norm in the fall, which means players would hit into the breeze on the first hole and on three of the four par-5s.

- As for the surface of the 7,475-yard course, in April, players play on rye grass and putt on bentgrass greens. In September this year, rye overseed was introduced while the Bermuda grass was shaved. That means a November Masters will play on a carpet of rye and Bermuda from tee to green.

- The club’s resources, including a SubAir system that controls the temperature and moisture of all the greens and many landing areas in the fairways, will be put to use as officials will try to make the course play as similar as possible as it would in April. But it will be a tall order.

“The greens are always pure there so they’ll be fast and true. But there would certainly be some Bermuda grass fighting with the overseed,” former world No. 1 Luke Donald said. “The fairways would be a little bit softer because you’re usually coming off a very warm summer in Georgia, which goes through September, so you’re just starting to cool off in October. With that heat you have to water the course a lot. I just think the course would play a bit longer.”

Kevin Kisner, who has played Augusta National nearly 10 times in November, predicts it will definitely play longer – a lot longer.

“It’s going to be so much longer and wetter. It’s going to be brutal,” Kisner said. “There’s no way you can get that rye grass to grow out and dried out in time. If they get an awesome month of weather in October, they’d have a chance to get it dry but that’s a longshot.

“So every year in November, I hit 4-iron into No. 1 because it plays into the wind and there’s no roll. And when it’s colder in November than in April, the ball doesn’t go as far. So if I hit it 285 in April, I hit it 270 in November. Now I’ve got 210 into No. 1 instead of hitting 8-iron into No. 1 in April.

“You’re going to have to hit a lot of long irons into greens.”

Patrick Reed, who won the 2017 Masters, said he’ll have to adjust his lines off the tee because of the weather conditions and the course conditions he expects.

“When it’s fast and firm, you can be more aggressive and try and use some of the slopes and get the ball farther down the fairways,” said Reed, who has played Augusta National many times in the fall. “But with it being colder and wetter, the ball’s just not going to go anywhere.

“That time of the year, I remember hitting hybrids consistently into 11. Not getting to any of the par-5s in two except 13, and that was with a hybrid or a 3-wood. It’s just going to play really long and it’s going to be soft and it’s going to be colder.”

It was so cold last November that Sebastian Munoz didn’t play.

“I booked for two days, so the first day it was gorgeous,” Munoz said. “I played like around noon or a little later. It was like 70, 65. And then the next morning I had an 8 a.m. tee time and I looked at the weather and it showed like 45 or 50, and I'm like, ugh, I'm not going to play since it's not going to be this cold at that time of the year so I didn't play because it was going to be too cold.”
But his one round gave him a clue of what to expect.

“It’s long,” Munoz said of the course. “It surprised me hitting 3-iron on 11 for my second shot. It surprised me when I hit 5-iron on 10. On 18, I didn't reach the first left bunker, which they told me was in play. It was just playing longer.”

And it will play on the quieter side, too.

“It’s going to make a big difference to all of us,” five-time Masters winner and defending champion Tiger Woods said at the BMW Championship earlier this year when asked about a patron-free Masters. “It has out here week in and week out. We just don’t have the same type of energy and the distractions.

“There at Augusta National, you just have all those roars that would go up if somebody did something, somewhere, and then scoreboard watching and trying to figure out what’s going on, there aren’t a lot of big leaderboards out there, so that will be very different.”

So, too, will be the visuals. The vibrant spring colors of the lush dogwoods and azaleas will be replaced by the autumn splendor of various shades of yellow, orange, red and brown.

“In the spring, all the color is popping and it’s very lush,” said 2008 Masters champion Trevor Immelman, who has played Augusta National more than 20 times in the fall. “Now, in the fall, you’ve got great color, too. It’s just different colors. You have that fall orangey, reddish thing going.

“But it’s still breathtaking.”

Finally, the Masters will air differently, too. To accommodate CBS’ slate of football broadcasts, the third round is scheduled to finish before 5:30 p.m. ET. On Sunday, the final round is scheduled to end around 2:30 p.m., just as it did last year when potential storms moved up the tee times.

“So much will be different,” Reed said. “But it’s still the Masters.”