The new demands of an ever-changing Augusta National

It was once given as gospel that in order to win the Masters, a player had to hit it a country mile -- and not very straight. Not anymore. These days, accuracy off the tee and a deft touch around the greens are among the keys to taming Augusta National.

By Craig Dolch, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent

So you want to win a Green Jacket and have an eternal tee time at the Masters? Until recently, for that to happen, a professional golfer had to fall into two categories: 1) Either he was longer than a gingivitis convention or 2) He had the touch of a heart surgeon.
       
Being able to hit the ball a long way has always been one of the premier commodities to be able to take apart Augusta National. Hit it as far as you can, find it and whale away again.
     
That's how Jack Nicklaus won six times -- the last one coming amazingly at 46 -- how Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer each won four times and how Phil Mickelson captured two of the last six championships. Nicklaus would routinely play Augusta's four par 5s in, say, 12 or 14 under for the week, then play Jack Par golf on the other 14 holes to win another Green Jacket.
       
The other type of perennial winner at Augusta relied on a surgical touch around the confounding greens, choosing precision over power.
    
That's how Gary Player and Nick Faldo won three times, and why tacticians such as Ben Hogan, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Ben Crenshaw and Jose Maria Olazabal won twice.
     
Of course, there were golfers who combined both of those elements, being long enough to reach the par 5s in two and steady enough to avoid the inevitable three-putts. We're referring to three-time champions Jimmy Demaret and Sam Snead and two-time winners Byron Nelson and Tom Watson.
      
Combined, these 15 Hall of Famers won 42 of the first 70 Masters, a 60 percent success rate that shows without question there are certainly horses for this famed course.
       
But while the Masters remains golf's lone major championship to be held at the same venue every year, there's a reason why most veteran caddies use last year's Masters yardage book like yesterday's newspaper.
     
The information may not only be that old, but often it's likely no longer relevant. That's because Masters officials never stop tinkering with their course; in fact, they've been very busy during the last decade to try and keep their layout ahead of the curve against the never-ending technological advances in equipment. When it comes to lengthening Augusta National -- the yardage has gone from 6,985 yards in 2001 to 7,435 -- they've done just about everything but move the first tee to Washington Road.
     
The non-stop changes have altered the characteristics of the prototypical Masters winner. With a second-cut instituted in 1998, mature trees continually added to narrow fairways and some of the course's famous "speed bumps" (at No. 15) removed, power no longer remains supreme at Augusta National. That partly explains why Woods is in his longest current victory drought at the Masters (four years).
      
For instance, Woods' driving distance numbers the last four years have been -- for him -- a paltry 290.1 yards in 2006, 280.4 in '07, 283.9 in '08 and 280.5 last year. We can say paltry because they are compared to the eye-popping 323.1-yard average he had when he won his first Masters by 12 shots in 1997.
     
The clear defining line of the new-look Masters came in 2007 when Zach Johnson, one of the game's shorter hitters, won his first Masters with an unusual strategy: He didn't go for a par 5 all week. Not a single one.
     
And that was by design. Johnson and his long-time caddie and mini-tour veteran Damon Green, devised a strategy before the first round on how they would attack the par 5s,
     
"I had my limitations, if you will, on what clubs I had to have in," Johnson said. "I felt like (No.) 8, I could not get home. (No.) 2, I could get home if I hit a good drive, but I never really had the opportunity to. (No.) 13, I had an opportunity to get there fairly easily, but I didn't have the proper club. I wanted a 4-iron or less and just couldn't draw it around the corner enough so I laid up. (No.) 15, I really never had the opportunity.

"So I had good lay-up numbers. I had good game plan, I know how to approach every pin, and I think that's what's most important on the par 5s. I don't have many wedges into many of these holes out here and I was fortunate to get some good numbers with the wedges on the par 5s and I took advantage of them."
   
And how.
     
Johnson made a rock-solid 11 birdies on the par 5s despite laying up each time, and that was how he finished two shots ahead of power players such as Woods, Retief Goosen and Rory Sabbatini.
    
Johnson's unusual strategy has become the face of the new-look Masters. What the changes have done is put more of a premium on shot-making and less on the two staples -- length and putting.
    
To wit: Only three times in the last decade has the winner finished outside the top 22 in driving accuracy, and only twice have they finished out of the top 10 in greens in regulation.
    
Fairways and greens -- long the mantra of the U.S. Open -- has become the calling card in the recent Masters. While putting is viewed at as the most critical element at Augusta, only three times this decade has the winner ranked inside the top 10 in putting average for the week.
      
What these changes have done, in essence, is widen the number of players who are capable of winning the Masters. That explains why five of the last seven champions were first-time winners in Augusta.
    
So if you want to guess who might challenge the usual suspects of Woods, Mickelson, Goosen and a rejuvenated Ernie Els this year, look at the most accurate ball-strikers on the PGA TOUR in 2010. The names that come to mind are D.J. Trahan (seventh in GIR), Stephen Ames (eighth), Paul Casey (10th), K.J. Choi (12th), Johnson (T18), Bubba Watson (T18) and Geoff Ogilvy (T24).
    
As for the straightest drivers, names like Brian Gay (third), Heath Slocum (fifth), Tim Clark (10th), Jim Furyk (11th), 2009 runner-up Kenny Perry (18th) and, once again, Johnson (21st).
       
Perhaps the best way to solve Augusta National greens -- and grab yourself some a piece of green wardrobe -- is to hit the fairways and then the correct side of the greens. May not be the most dramatic approach, but, lately, it has proven to be the most efficient.