Augusta hit head-on by Hurricane Helene, damage to Augusta National Golf Club still unclear

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In the early hours of Friday morning (local time), tropical storm Helene – which made landfall as a category 4 hurricane in Florida’s Big Bend region late on Thursday – barrelled into Georgia, felling trees, flooding rivers and knocking out power to tens of thousands. One of the state’s hardest hit towns was the small hamlet of Augusta, the home of Augusta National Golf Club and site of the Masters.

At 5:37am on September 27th, National Weather Service equipment at Augusta Regional Airport, which sees a vast influx of private jets for the Masters each April, recorded a hurricane-force wind gust of 82mph. A short while later, observations from the location ceased, suggesting the monitoring equipment had been rendered inoperable by the storm.

When the sun rose a few hours later, the scope of the damage to Augusta, located near the South Carolina border about 230 kilometres east of Atlanta, became devastatingly clear. Residents took to social media to share images of the destruction, many of which may be hard to fathom for golf fans who usually see the area during its springtime splendour.

https://twitter.com/BobbyEllisonKY/status/1839644165568659841

The scenes on Friday morning were horrifying, a reminder of the raw power of a hurricane even hundreds of kilometres inland. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the residents of Augusta, Georgia, first and foremost. There is no data currently available on injuries or a death toll, but early estimates suggest more than 150,000 are already without power in the area. The images and video show torrential rain, collapsed buildings, downed power lines and an almost unimaginable loss of vegetation due to a disastrous combination of hurricane-force winds and saturated root systems.

As golf journalists and fans, we also extend our best wishes to the employees and patrons of Augusta National. The extent of the damage to arguably the most sacred golf course on earth remains unclear. ANGC is famously tight-lipped, so there is a very real possibility we may never know how badly the course was hit.

We did get a glimpse of the possibilities last year, however, when strong winds toppled multiple trees at the 2023 Masters, nearly striking patrons on the 17th hole. Play was suspended for the remainder of the second round as the grounds crew made quick work of the debris, but it was a reminder just how fragile (and dangerous) Augusta National’s famous flora can be.