ONE OF the more curious aspects of Augusta National is that most of its terrors are nameless. The Old Course at St. Andrews has its Hell Bunker and Valley of Sin. Oakmont has its Church Pew Bunkers. Pine Valley boasts of a sandy waste called Hell's Half Acre. But with the exception of the all-encompassing Amen Corner, the most discouraging locales at Augusta carry either benign names, like Rae's Creek, or no names at all. When JosŽ Mar’a Olaz‡bal hit his second shot behind the 17th green in 1994's final round, television commentator Gary McCord couldn't say that Olazabal was in the Peach Pit or Satan's Sandwich. He had to make up a line about "body bags." As you no doubt know, McCord hasn't worked the Masters since.

This lack of nomenclature should lead no one to believe that Augusta National is a hazardless venue.

Eight pieces of its real estate come up so often in players' war stories that you wonder why no one has gotten beyond descriptions like "that swale, you know, at the foot of the green." Several of these no-go zones played a role in Nick Faldo's victory on Sunday as any player could have predicted last Thursday. In no particular order, then, here are the places you simply must not hit your ball at Augusta.

The back-right bunker on number 16

"There are lots of bad places to be on this golf course," Corey Pavin says, but the first one that pops into his mind is "the back- right bunker on 16." The only level hole at Augusta, the 16th is a 170-yard par-3 over a pond. The green, however, tilts right to left toward the water and is lightning fast, so a shot into that bunker is suicide.

"It's desperately difficult," says former CBS golf analyst Ben Wright, who covered the 16th for more than 20 years. "Billy Casper once flashed it into the water from that bunker. He had to drop another ball in the sand, and he then left his next shot in the bunker. I think he made 7."

This year, Mark Brooks hit his tee shot on Thursday a few inches into the sinister sand, nearly holed his delicate explosion and then trudged across the green to rendezvous with his ballÑ25 feet below the hole. Jack Nicklaus, on Friday, saw his bunker shot glide past the flagstick, turn left and migrate 40 feet to the far fringe. "It's death over there," said first-time Masters entrant Tim Herron after a first-round double bogey. "I knew that. On the tee, I said, ÔDon't go right.' And then I hit it right."

The water on number 12

The 12th is the back side's other par-3, and it, too, is over waterÑin this instance Rae's Creek. When asked to name the single worst place to hit a ball at Augusta National, Tom Fazio, a course architect, knit his brow in concentration before reaching a judgment. "I think I'd automatically say a water hazard, and a hole like number 12 would be the most frightening. If you go in, you know the best you're going to make is bogey."

The tee shot on 12 is bad enough, with the green looking as shallow as a windowsill and a grassy bank in front consigning most short shots to the creek. But the real shakes come when a player has to hit a soft wedge from the drop area down by the water. In 1980 thousands in Amen Corner watched in horror as Tom Weiskopf hit five balls into Rae's Creek and made 13, tying the Masters record for highest score on a hole.

"I didn't know this until after the fact," Weiskopf recalls, "but my wife, Jeanne, was back near the tee in tears. Just to pick her up a little, one of my best friends, Tom Culver, hugged her and said, ÔJeanne, you don't think Tom is using new balls, do you?'" Over the years the water at 12 has quashed the final-round aspirations of Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Dan Forsman and, last week, Greg Norman. Norman's bogey on Saturday and his double on Sunday contributed heavily to his titanic demise.

Short of the green on number 7

A tight driving hole, this little par-4 offers problems for the player who winds up short of the green in 2. From below the front bunkers, the golfer faces an uphill pitch, practically blind, over a dazzling wall of sand to a shallow green. The player's best hope is to pitch over the putting surface and hope backspin will walk the ball back out of the fringe. If his ball hangs up in the froghair, the fourth shot is a nasty chip that can either catch in the collar or run a furlong past the hole. In the second round last year, John Huston charged into a tie for the lead with a 66. But he almost came a cropper at number 7, where he made his only bogey of the dayÑand that was with a brilliant up and down from the back fringe.

The only thing worse than being short on number 7 is finding yourself in the back-right bunker when the pin is on the right. Reason: Sand shots run off the shelf below the hole and roll all the way into the bunkers or even between them down to the fairway. From there, well, see above.

The pond on number 11

Ray Floyd lost his 1990 playoff to Faldo when he pulled his approach shot into the water left of the 11th green. Since few players feel frisky standing over their fourth in the drop area, many bail out to the right and make double bogey. In 1968 Bruce Devlin found the water here and made 8. "He came up to the press room, threw down his card and said, ÔLet's talk about something positive first,'" recalls tournament statistician Bill Inglish. "Later he said, ÔAll right, you vultures, now we'll talk about number 11.'"

Off the back on number 17

Spectators looking for the bogeyman behind this green are invariably disappointed; there's nothing but close-cropped grass. Nonetheless, McCord wasn't far off when he used his morbid metaphorÑeveryone describes a shot hit here as death. It's the most extreme example of a common Augusta challenge: chipping or pitching up a steep bank from behind a green that runs back toward the fairway. And the slope of this bank is so severe that neither golfers nor spectators can see over the mound. For Olaz‡bal, in 1994's final round, it was only a near-death experience. He got down in 3 for bogey and parred the final hole to win. Last year eventual winner Ben Crenshaw maintained his share of the third-round lead by getting up and down from halfway over the mound in back.

Left off the tee on number 2

This dogleg par-5 often rearranges names on the leader board, yielding birdies and even eagles to players seeking momentum. As on many of Augusta's long holes, the strategic tee ball is a right-to-left shot that gains distance on the downslope and leaves a clear approach to the green. Try to bite off too much of the dogleg, and you wind up either in a rocky brook or on a bed of pine needles surrounded by azalea bushes and tall pines. "We used to call that area the Pan Am Ticket Office," says former Tour player Gary Koch, "because if you hit it there, you might as well buy a ticket home."

The ticket office has been cleaned out and prettied up since Koch's time, when balls were sometimes lost in dense underbrush. But a ball hit there still produces despair. On Sunday, David Duval hooked his tee shot into the brook, took a drop, and ricocheted his third off a tree and back into the fairway. He double-bogeyed the hole and wasn't heard from again. In 1992, the year he won the Masters, Fred Couples stumbled out of the gate on Sunday by hooking into the creek, dropping from an unplayable lie and making bogey. And, yes, this is the exception that proves the no-name rule. Only now, caddies call it the Delta Ticket Office.

Above the hole on number 6

Augusta's par-3s are wicked. On this hilltop-to-valley specimen, all sorts of trouble greet the player on or near the back of the green. Anything above the hole is dog meat, and anything off the back edge or right of the green is dog meat with no fork. Jim McGovern, who in 1994 finished fifth playing in his first Masters, can't discuss the hole without a sardonic note creeping into his voice.

"That year I hit it right over the pin, and I thought I made a 1," he says. "But it was five yards behind the green. Then I thought I made a 2 because I got a piece of the hole with my chipÑbut it ran down the green. My first putt almost made it to the top but rolled back down to my feet. My second putt I hit to two feet. Then I missed that and made 6." McGovern lowers one eyebrow in mock menace. "I got a little chuckle from the crowd, and that didn't help. I was steaming." This year, Mark O'Meara arrived at number 6 on Thursday in a reasonably good frame of mind. From a little mound, 30 feet right of the hole, he hit a chip that snagged in the fringe and stopped halfway. He then hit a putt from the fringe that nearly went in the hole but slid four feet past and wobbled at the precipice, with fans yelling, "Whoa!" He took two putts for a 5. On Friday, Fred Funk watched from the tee as former U.S. Open champion Ernie Els four-putted the 6th from about 12 feet. Funk, after successfully hitting to below the hole, gave the greenside ghouls a thrill by calling a one-stroke penalty on himself when his ball rolled back into his putter before he had a chance to hit it.

In the fairway bunkers on number 18

The uphill 18th was a relatively nonlethal par-4 in the days when players could avoid the trees on the right by playing safely left off the tee. That changed in 1966, when two steep-faced bunkers were installed at the outside corner of the dogleg. Since then, driving into either patch of sand has practically guaranteed a bogey finish. "I'd personally rather be in the woods off the tee than in the bunkers," Palmer once said. Among those who would probably agree is Olaz‡bal, who drove into the more distant of these bunkers in the final round in 1991, bogeyed the hole and lost to Ian Woosnam by a stroke. In fact, the only player to save victory from this hot spot is Sandy Lyle, who hit a superlative seven-iron to the middle of the 18th green and birdied the hole at the end of the 1988 Masters.

A few other Augusta booby traps are almost nameworthy: the treelined left side of the downhill, dogleg-left 10th hole, which started Couples on his way to a triple bogey last year; the swale-and-mound gateway to the 14th green, where chips and putts swoop like migratory fowl; the same sort of topography beyond the 2nd green, where Tiger Woods turned a potential eagle into a bogey this year; the wall of trees and shrubs separating the 4th green from traffic on Berckmanns Road. What they have in common with the other eight is the ability to intimidate even world-class players. And in championship golf, that's the name of the game.