Augusta National Golf Club is one the few places in golf where, when you arrive here for the first time, you know you’re standing on historic and hallowed land. It’s in the tall Georgia pines. It’s in the meticulously mowed rolling hills. It’s in the routing that we all know front to back before even arriving. When you walk the course, you can feel the history beneath your feet. It’s a powerful feeling that helps provide perspective for a place that has consistently produced iconic sporting moments for more than nine decades.
As I prepped to cover this year’s Masters tournament, I tried to think of a way to capture that “feeling.” How do you SHOW that visually? So I decided to make prints of a handful of Augusta National Archive images on 4×6 cardstock paper and attempt to re-create the historic images by standing in the exact spot that the photographer who took them stood all those years ago. I tried to choose photos that were captured from places I knew I could still access today. This process is often referred to as “Re-Photography” and, as a photographer myself, I find myself lingering on these types of images for just a bit longer than normal. Partially because I just simply find them visually interesting, but mostly because it’s fun to allow myself to imagine what it would have been like to be standing there years long ago, before Augusta was “Augusta,” and capture photographs that someone might find fascinating decades later.
Bobby Jones hits a tee shot on the 17th hole (now the eighth) during construction of Augusta National Golf Club in 1932.
Bobby Jones plays his tee shot on the first tee while Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen watch in front of patrons outside the clubhouse during the 1935 Masters.
The view from the tee box on the 12th hole in 1948.
Patrons watch play on the 10th hole during the 1948 Masters.
Patrons watch an unknown player hit his approach shot on the 13th hole during the 1965 Masters.
Patrons watch play from the hillside left of the 16th hole during the 1948 Masters.
Patrons watch tournament play from the back of the 16th hole during the 1957 Masters.
Patrons and press watch play on the 15th (right) and 16th (left) holes during the 1958 Masters.
Ben Hogan poses for Atlanta Journal photographer Marion Johnson during a Masters Tournament in the 1940s.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
