The Masters beast that’s ‘begging you’ to take it on is where dreams are made… and drowned

Firethorn is golf’s amphitheatre of drama, an Augusta classic that tests the mettles of the world’s best.

If Amen Corner is a trilogy of terror for Masters contenders, surviving that stretch intact provides only a brief reprieve for hopefuls given the hurdles to come include the exceptionally tricky par five sitting a couple of holes on.

FOX SPORTS, available on Kayo Sports, is streaming The 2026 PGA Tour including The Masters LIVE & Exclusive | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.

The perilous 15th hole at Augusta is home to some of golf’s most remembered shots, a par five where champions have made their move and the dreams of so many others have been dashed.

Gene Sarazen hit “the shot heard around the world” on route to his triumph in 1935. It has been 12 months since Rory McIlroy nailed “the shot of a lifetime” to revive his spluttering hopes.

Seve Ballesteros may still be weeping silent tears in Heaven after his disaster in 1986, while the image of Greg Norman falling to his knees on Firethorn in 1996 symbolises his collapse.

Fox Sports expert analyst Paul Gow likes to take friends to it so that they can see how stars deal with stress, while former Aussie major winner Geoff Ogilvy said its approach was akin to trying to land a pitch on the “bonnet of a Volkswagen”.

When shaping Augusta, co-founder Bobby Jones wanted golfers to have the chance to gamble to snare a shot or two, particularly on its par fives. But gambling on Firethorn exposes golfers to the ultimate flukes of fortune.

ALSO READ

– This meltdown still makes Aussies sick. 30 years on, a simmering feud just turned ‘really nasty’

– Inside Masters’ ‘cruel’ car crash: Brutal blunder that sealed it… and legend’s forgotten act of kindness

THE SHOT OF A LIFTIME

McIlroy is enjoying his return to Augusta as the defending champion, an honour earned via a rollercoaster final round in 2025 that culminated in him completing a career Grand Slam.

On the weekend he made the most of a tradition that enables past champions to share the experience with a guest when playing a round with his dad Gerry.

He has participated in a trophy presentation for the kids drive, chip and putt event and on Tuesday night hosted the annual Champions Dinner with a scrumptious menu on offer.

Those obligations aside, the 36-year-old sat down with Augusta National to go through every shot of his final round, which included his remarkable play on the 15th hole.

Firethorn, which is 503m long, was once a relatively straight forward test given the width on offer to those teeing off, but that all changed when trees were planted on both sides of the fairway to shape it into a bottleneck.

McIlroy, who lost his lead on the 14th in 2025 with a putt that stopped on the edge of the hole but refused to drop, realised he “needed to make something special happen” to win with four holes remaining starting with the 15th.

“I hit a good tee shot and, again, it is a difficult tee shot for the longer hitters because the further you hit the ball down that fairway, the narrower it gets,” he said.

“I was blocked out by the trees a little bit (and knew) I needed to do something with my second shot.”

McIlroy’s final round duel with Bryson DeChambeau has been explored in depth and the bold American did his rival a favour in their approach to the 15th green by going first.

To the American’s despair, an iron into what is a tricky green to keep the ball on got caught in the wind and dropped into the creek, giving the Northern Irishman a handy hint.

“That was big for me, because I did have an 8-iron in my hand and once I saw his ball, I switched back to a 7-iron,” McIlroy said.

“I don’t know if fortunate is the right word, but I was fortunate he was able to go ahead of me, so that I could see that.”

One almighty task still awaited him, namely drawing the ball back enough to find the green while ensuring he did not clip the trees when taking a tight line around them.

“But really, I am aiming at the right side green bunker and I know I need to turn it, but I know I can’t overturn it because it is not possible to hit that much of a hook with a 7-iron,” he said.

“So in my mind, it is like, ‘OK, if I don’t hit this as well as I want, it is in the right trap and I still have a good chance of making birdie, but if it does turn, hopefully it has a good chance of ending up where it ended up.’”

The rest, McIlroy said, is history, even if there were some nervous moments down the stretch leading into the playoff.

“That shot will go down as one of the greatest shots of my career,” he said.

“I will never forget when that ball landed on the green on 15 and it starts rolling towards the cup, the ovation and everyone standing on their feet. That was incredible. The ovation I got walking up on to the green was really cool. Really, really cool.”

WHICH SHOT WAS BETTER?

Renowned broadcaster Jim Nantz declared it the “shot of a lifetime” and Gow believes it is arguably better than Sarazen’s “shot heard round the world”.

The American’s famous deed in 1935 saw him hole a 4-wood from about 215 metres out for a double-eagle, which was enough to see him tie clubhouse leader Craig Wood.

Occurring in just the second year of the Masters, the shot reportedly witnessed by just 22 people including Jones, the co-founder, landed on the far bank and rolled into the club.

It was considered so inconceivable there were initially doubts as to its authenticity but it was soon celebrated as the Masters’ signature moment, the first of many including McIlroy’s, after Sarazen went on to win in a playoff.

“With McElroy’s shot, the radius at that stage, because the greens were so firm and fast, the radius of the spot that he had to land the ball was about a two foot spot and he landed it right in the middle of it. It was a ridiculous shot,” Gow told foxsports.com.au.

“Now back when Sarazen did it, the greens were softer and more receptive. When McElroy did it, when he hit that shot in, the greens weren’t receptive. You had to hit the best shot of your life.”

McIlroy, to his credit, had also nailed his approach into the 15th green a day earlier and, more recently during a practice round, managed to pull it off again to his great delight.

“For how bad that hole was to me at the start of the week, it made up for it on the weekend,” he said.

“The two iron shots I hit on the weekend, I will remember those for the rest of my life.”

Others have endured far less luck on a hole Ian Baker-Finch once described as a “tantalising” par 5 where “disaster awaits on any shot”.

The intricacies of the hole, from the drive to the approach to simply keeping the ball on the green, make it a task for golfers.

“The 15th is just this amphitheatre that is just full of drama and it requires you to be brave, very brave. It is called Firethorn for a reason,” Gow said.

“The fairway cambers from right to left but up the right-hand side there is a very narrow window to keep it on an upward lie. Then on the left hand side, there is just a clump of pine trees and that is where McElroy was for that big hook. And then you go off a downhill slope with stands on the left, stands on the right, and this very, very narrow green that sits at you from back right to front left.

“So it really sits back to front and it’s on this awkward angle where the actual depth of the green is not very deep, but the width is wide but everything is super fast.”

FIRETHORN’S GREATEST TRICK

McIlroy knew he had to make something happen. And, as Baker-Finch said, the lure of putting for eagle makes this a “tantalising” par five.

It is attackable. The hole played under par last year. As Cameron Smith told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2022, it is hard not to be lured by the promise of profit, but there is a devil in the detail.

“The way the green sits, it’s almost begging you to do it. (But) if you land it a foot short, it’s in the water, and a foot on, you’re begging for it to stay on the back of the green. It is quite tricky,” he said.

“When it is soft around there, those par-5s at 13 and 15 are quite gettable. At the same time, and we’ve seen it a million times, I feel (it is) a hole that can bite you on the arse pretty quick too.

“It’s a weird shot because it’s such a wide fairway and you know you have to hit it up the right-hand side to give yourself a good angle. It’s almost worth trying to tee it up a little bit lower and hit that nice bomb draw that lands on the right side of the fairway.”

True to Smith’s assessment, champions have had their hopes pricked by Firethorn.

The 30th anniversary of Norman’s infamous collapse has seen footage of the chip at 15, after everything had gone wrong, that skipped past the hole when an eagle might have resurrected the Australian.

Echoing the accuracy of Sarazen, Tiger Woods drilled the pin with his second shot in 2012 but instead of dropping for a double-eagle, it rebounded off the green and back into the water.

Sergio Garcia will always love Augusta courtesy of his success in 2017. But it is doubtful he looks on Firethorn with favour given what happened there a year later.

The Spaniard signed for 13, the equal-highest score on a single hole in Masters history, after watching five consecutive approaches pitch and then roll back off the steep green and into the water during his first round.

“I feel like … it’s the first time in my career where I make a 13 without missing a shot. It is as simple as that. I felt like I hit a lot of good shots,” he said.

It is the prospect of a great moment that draws Gow to the 15th every day, for the margin between triumph and despair is at its finest.

“What makes it so intriguing is that if you hit a little bit off centre of the club face with no spin, you’re in trouble and a lot of players there, they stand in the middle of the fairway and they’re indecisive as to what shot they’re going to hit,” he said.

“Their heart starts to beat and I’ve stood there that many times, and I’ve taken friends that have turned up to watch the shot into 15, because there’s so much drama and the only way to take drama out of play is actually to lay it up.”