Green speed

It's the speed of the greens that makes Augusta a challenge - the putting surfaces are lightning-fast. The greens are skillfully contoured and demand extremely accurate putting. A player hoping to birdie has to place his shot precisely to avoid a downhill putt.

The Masters competitor must go for the greens with his second shot on the par 5s, where many a round is made or ruined.

Augusta was the brainchild of Robert Tyre Jones Jnr, better known as the great Bobby Jones. After winning the Grand Slam, he retired early from competitive golf.

Bobby Jones was still only 28 years old and had two ambitions: to design a perfect set of clubs, which he did, and to give his home state of Georgia - and the South as a whole - a course of championship quality. The result is Augusta.