The 12th

Reason: "Look, this is...."

Madness: "Just shut the hell up."

He hit another one in the creek, his seventh surly contribution to the Augusta waterway system in two days. He teed it up again. This was now becoming a scientific quest: Could a lofted metal club send a spheroid over an active body of water? This one he knocked on and two-putted for a 7. He finished with a 79. His two-day average for the 12th: 10. If they ever build a memorial to Weiskopf, it had better be waterproof.

If there was one man who allowed himself a slight grin at Weiskopf's 13, it was Dow Finsterwald, who made 11 there in 1951 and has been walking around having to answer for it ever since. Finsterwald was 21 when he washed four balls in Rae's Creek. His playing partner that day, the late Denny Shute, made a birdie 2. As they were walking off the green, Shute said to Finsterwald, "Well, son, we had a good best ball, anyway."

What's to be ashamed of? This hole has taken a mouthful out of some of the most famous hindquarters in golf. Consider: Deane Beman (two 7s), Billy Casper (8), Ray Floyd (two 7s), Bob Murphy (8), Sam Snead (8), Royal and Ancient secretary Michael Bonallack (a 6 and a 7), David Graham (7), Charles Coody (two 7s), Bruce Crampton (7), Ben Crenshaw (7), Lon Hinkle (7), Craig Wood (8), Al Mengert (8), David Edwards (8) and Graham Marsh (8). And you thought you would never see a snowman in Georgia.

Payne Stewart is the latest famous notch 12 has cut in the Hogan bridge. It was 1985, the final round, and Stewart was in contention to win the tournament. He hit an eight-iron on nothing but the sweet spot, and the ball flew into the right back bunker. His bunker shot rolled just past the pin. And just past the green. And just past the fringe, just past the rough, just past the bank and down into Weiskopf's Creek.

Having dropped another ball on the tee side of the creek, Stewart hit a pitch that landed right next to the hole, then spun back into a liquid home. Now he was hitting 6. It was not a good time to ask him if he still felt he had a chance to win the tournament.

"All I could see was that green jacket getting ripped right out of my closet," Stewart remembers. What to do but try it again? This time Stewart was too conscious of the water, and he hit the ball right back to square one—the bunker. He chopped it out of there like a man might chop at a radioactive weed, with more fear than hope. The ball trickled onto the green and stayed, and he two-putted for a 9, more than enough to cost him the championship.

A chip out of that bunker can give you a facial tic. If you don't hit it just tenderly enough, you can easily watch your Titleist do a little 23 skiddoo over the green and into the water. In 1966, Player hit a Thursday tee shot that slammed down so deep into the bank behind the back bunkers that you could barely see the ball. Player considered taking a drop and hitting 3, and he probably should have, but he was no doubt overcome by the madness secretions. He decided to try to slap it out. let it run feebly into the bunker below and hit it again. But Player goofed. He hit too hard, and the ball scooted across the bunker, over the fringe, onto the green and into the cup for a 2. "One hundred percent luck," says Player.

But there have been a whole lot more tears at 12 than laughs. Take what happened to Bobby Mitchell. He lost more than a few balls and a tournament at 12. He might have lost a career.