Augusta National has some of the hardest greens tour pros will face all year. Because of their speed and slope, it’s lag putting in particular that’s most challenging at Augusta—they’ve ranked as the hardest among PGA Tour/major venues every year since 2022, and were 2nd in 2021 behind Winged Foot (where the shot data was questionable).

Here are the five hardest pin locations at Augusta National to lag putt to (30+ feet) since 2021:

Hole 16, Middle Left: -0.25 SG per putt (location used 4 times since 2021).

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Not surprising, as almost all lag putts to this pin have to come from the right shelf and are impossible to stop.

Hole 1, Back Left: -0.15 SG (6)

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It wasn’t due to his lag putting, but this is the hole location that introduced Ernie’s yips to a global audience.

Hole 6, Right: -0.15 SG (8)

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Many a lag putt up to this shelf has come up short and slowly rolled back towards players’ feet.

Hole 17, Back Left: -0.14 (5)

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I’m not really sure why this pin location is so difficult to putt to. Like most elements of the 17th, the back-left of this green is a bit fuzzy in my mind. (Update from my dad: “everything runs away back left”.)

Hole 5, Left: -0.14 (7).

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There are lots of putts coming up the slope to this pin from the front of the green. The shelf this pin sits on is one of the larger flat(ish) portions of any green at Augusta, but it’s not very deep.

A few more observations:

Middle-right pin on 16 ranked 7th-most difficult; back-left on 16 was 15th. So lag putting on 16 is just impossible all-around.

Front-left on 9 ranked 11th. Putting it off the front of the green and down the slope is a distinct possibility here.

The easiest pin locations for lag putting were middle-right on 7, right on 12, and front-left on 18.

After revisiting a lot of these pin positions, it’s making a bit more sense why putting skill has basically been uncorrelated with lag putting success at Augusta. There are a lot of spots on greens where stopping the ball near the hole simply isn’t an option. And a few others are just hit-and-hope situations (putting up the big slope on 6).