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The Secret History of Amen CornerGetty Images (2)
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If you’re watching the Masters this weekend, it’s likely you’ll hear a lot of discussion of “Amen Corner.” In fact, the Masters even has dedicated broadcast coverage of Amen Corner: “Inside Amen Corner” will stream on Prime Video from 10:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. eastern today, and 11:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. eastern on Saturday and Sunday.
But what is Amen Corner, exactly? And why is it called that? Here’s what you need to know about one of the most famous stretches of golf at Augusta National Golf Club:
What exactly is Amen Corner?
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Azaleas bloom around the No. 13 green in Amen Corner.Augusta National - Getty Images
Amen Corner refers to a three-hole stretch: White Dogwood (hole no. 11), Golden Bell (hole no. 12), and Azalea (hole no. 13). Originally “Amen Corner” referred to the second half of the 11th, the short 12th and the first half of the long 13th, but now it refers to all three holes in their entirety. According to Masters.com, the 11th is a par-4, the 12th a par-3 and the 13th is a par-5. “Water is an important feature on each of the three holes,” the site notes. “There is a pond that sits to the left of the green on No. 11. Rae’s Creek famously runs in front of the green at the 12th and tributary of it runs alongside the fairway and in front of the green at the 13th.”
Also at Amen Corner are two significant bridges, named after past champions: “The Hogan Bridge, named for two-time Masters champion Ben Hogan, takes players to the 12th green. The Nelson Bridge, named for Byron Nelson, another two-time winner, gets players from the tee to the fairway at the 13th.”
A Sports Illustrated writerfirst coined “Amen Corner” to describe three Masters holes in 1958.
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Herbert Warren Wind, right, and Bob Summers, left, at the 1983 US Open.John Kelly - Getty Images
Sportswriter Herbert Warren Wind first used the phrase to describe the holes in a 1958 issue of Sports Illustrated. “The first phrase that came to mind was ‘hot corner,’” Wind would later say, “but baseball owned that.”
In that April 21, 1958 issue of Sports Illustrated, Wind wrote: “On the afternoon before the start of the recent Masters golf tournament, a wonderfully evocative ceremony took place at the farthest reach of the Augusta National Course—down in the Amen Corner where Rae’s Creek intersects the 13th fairway near the tee, then parallels the front edge of the green on the short 12th and finally swirls alongside the 11th green.”
Wind says he didn’t coin the phrase, however, noting it came from a jazz song, “Shoutin’ in that Amen Corner,” recorded Mildred Bailey and Tinsley’s Washboard Band on the Bluebird Records label in 1933. Bailey, known as the “Queen of Swing,” was a jazz singer active in the ’30s and ’40s. She grew up on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation in Idaho, where her mother was an enrolled member of the tribe.
He later wrote in Golf Digest, “With plenty of time to think out the article, I felt that I should try to come up with some appropriate name for that far corner of the course where the critical action had taken place. The only phrase with the word ‘corner’ I could think of (outside of football’s ‘coffin corner’ and baseball’s ‘hot corner’) was the title of a song on an old Bluebird record.”
He added, “There was nothing unusual about the song, but apparently the title was catchy enough to stick in my mind. The more I thought about it, the more suitable I thought the Amen Corner was for that bend of the course where the decisive action in that Masters had taken place.”
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The lyrics on Bailey’s song are as follows: “You can shout with all your might, / But if you ain’t livin’ right, / There’s no use shoutin’ in that Amen Corner. / If your name ain’t on that roll, / All that noise won’t save your soul, / So stop your shoutin’ in that Amen Corner.”
The term “Amen Corner” has religious origins.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines amen corner as “a conspicuous corner in a church occupied by fervent worshippers.” Despite that definition, “Amen Corner” has been used to reference many things over the years, including, but not limited to:
- The spot where ‘Amen’ was said during a clergy procession
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“Amen Corner” in London circa 1935.Print Collector - Getty Images
- The garden at Amen Court in London (above), per Wonderful London, Volume 1: “17th-century houses built for the clergymen of St Paul's Cathedral in London. The buildings were so named because on the feastday of Corpus Christi, monks would recite the Lord’s Prayer in a procession to the Cathedral, reaching the final ‘amen’ as they turned the corner in Ave Maria Lane.”
- Amen Corner inside the Fifth Avenue Hotel, “so called because ‘Tom’ Piatt, the Republican Boss, uttered his dicta here and the hearers always acquiesced. It was an outgrowth of conditions prevailing at the time,” notes Fifth Avenue Old and New. “Notable Republican chieftains would accidentally meet in the lobby and start a discussion of some kind. As the subject lengthened they would repair to a corner and sit down. In time the ‘corner’ began to be an appointed place for conferences, and, as many weighty decisions were reached at those meetings, the significance of the title became more and more manifest. For nearly a quarter of a century every prominent leader in the part y sooner or later sat in the ‘Amen Corner.’ It was here, according to the newspaper reports of that time, that Theodore Roosevelt was made the Vice Presidential nominee, despite his energetic protest.”
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The band Amen CornerIcon and Image - Getty Images
- A Welsh rock group band called “Amen Corner,” which was comprised of Andy Fairweather Low, Neil Jones, Allan Jones, Blue Weaver, Mike Smith, Clive Taylor, and Dennis Bryon. They named themselves after a night at Victorian Ballroom in Canton, Cardiff, Wales called “The Amen Corner” when the DJ played soul records from the U.S. They disbanded in 1969.
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- In 1965, James Baldwin wrote a play titledThe Amen Corner. It was his first work for theater, and concerned issues of faith and family—and a jazz musician. Per the synopsis, “For years Sister Margaret Alexander has moved her Harlem congregation with a mixture of personal charisma and ferocious piety. But when Margaret’s estranged husband, a scapegrace jazz musician, comes home to die, she is in danger of losing both her standing in the church and the son she has tried to keep on the godly path.”
The lore of Amen Corner at the Masters grew over the years.
In 1965, seven years after Wind used “Amen Corner” in his story, Augusta Chronicle—the local Augusta paper—uses “Amen Corner” in two stories ahead of that year’s Masters. “The wind swirls with devilish glee over Rae’s Creek,” Jim Martin, the sports editor, wrote, per Golf Digest. “It mangles the emotions. This is where a champion is made and where others are broken. The 12th green at the Augusta National Golf Club is the apex of the triangle of sorts they refer to as ‘Amen Corner.’”
According to Golf Digest, “Martin followed up in 1966 with a Masters Friday column about Amen Corner. Alfred Wright made several mentions of Amen Corner in his Sports Illustrated story the next week (the first time it appeared in the magazine since Wind’s 1958 mention), and the newsweekly Golf World used it for the first time as well. Golf Digest followed in its 1967 Masters preview.” The New York Times first used the phrase in 1975.
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Tony Lema at the 1966 Masters.Augusta National - Getty Images
Golfer Tom Watson, who won the Masters in 1977 and 1981, said the term had more colloquial origins. “You sure it wasn’t Tony Lema?” Watson said when asked about who popularized “Amen Corner.” He added, “They asked Tony, after you get through 13, what do you think when you get through there, and he said, ‘You say amen.’”
Amen Corner is where the Masters is won—or lost.
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Masters merch now features “Amen Corner” hats.Erick W. Rasco - Getty Images
As ESPN noted in its preview of the 2026 Masters, “After navigating through the front nine and the statistically hardest to play par four 10th, the players enter Amen Corner. It is the particularly tricky trio of holes between the 11th and 13th and is often where the Masters is won and lost. With water particularly prevalent and a narrow par four, backed up by arguably the most famous par three in golf due to the difficulty it poses, Amen Corner finishes with a par five that is not for the faint-hearted.”
As ESPN explains, there have been “a number of famous blow-ups at Amen Corner over the years,” including Jordan Speith in 2016, Rory McIlroy in 2011, and Max Homa, Collin Morikawa, and Ludvig Åberg in 2024.
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