Phil Mickelson Offers Up Story About The Masters Ground Crew & How Fast They Removed A Fallen Georgia Pine: “Most Impressive Thing I Had Ever Seen”

If a tree falls down at Augusta National, and everyone’s around to see and hear it, does it get removed within a matter of hours?

We’ll have to turn to professional golfer (and notorious gambler) Phil Mickelson to hear the answer to that question. The 45-time PGA Tour winner – who was one of the golfers that made the move over to LIV Golf – has always been an incredible story teller. One of my favorites from “Lefty” is a story he told about stealing a sign from Augusta National Golf Club.

And speaking of Augusta National, we’re only 8 days away from the first round of The Masters. If you are a golf fan like myself, there’s nothing better than knowing that blossoming azaleas and Jim Nantz’ velvety voice are right around the corner. Around this time of the year, I’m always constantly taking in as much Masters adjacent information as I can, and Phil Mickelson recently offered up another great story about Augusta.

For those that don’t know, Augusta National Golf Club is viewed as golf heaven. Not a single blade of grass is out of place, and it’s every golfer’s dream course to play. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a practice round before the Masters (you typically have to get tickets through a lottery system), and I still can’t get over how vibrant everything was.

I had to bend down to touch the grass to make sure it was real at one point.

The beauty of the course is a testament to the grounds crew that prepares Augusta National to be in peak condition every year for The Masters. And Phil Mickelson offered up a wild story at a recent LIV Golf presser that affirmed just how hard the crew at Augusta works to keep the place pristine:

“Speaking of trees going down. I was playing a practice round there one year… it was two weeks prior to the tournament. Probably nobody knows that this happened. I’m playing the 11th hole. I’m back lining up my tee shot and I see this tree on the left fall over right in the middle of the fairway. Crashed down right by the group in front of us. They were probably 100 yards away from this massive Georgia pine coming down. Rips up the fairway.

From the time I had walked from my tee shot to the fairway, I could hear on (the staff’s) walkie talkies, ‘Get off of 2, get to 11. Get off of 4, get to 11.’ And a hundred workers – I don’t know how many – there were a number of workers. They pile in and race to this tree, firing up the chainsaws and started cutting this thing down.”

Talk about jumping into action.

And as Mickelson later explained, the crew worked tirelessly until the tree was no longer there. In fact, they apparently had most of the Georgia pine taken care of by the time Phil had finished up at the 11th hole. Depending on if the pro golfer took any practice shots, that means the grounds crew had responded to the scene and made significant progress in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes:

“By the time I walked off of 11 green, all of the limbs of the tree had been cut off and put on a truck. By the time I got to 15, they were cutting up the trunk and the entire tree was being brought away. By the time I got done and got back to 18 tee, I looked down and they were re-sodding the fairway.

Nobody knew. You couldn’t tell two days later that it had happened. I just thought that if it was my home course, that tree would still be there like three weeks later. It was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen – they’re ability to handle stuff like that.”

Phil Mickelson shared a fantastic story today about seeing a tree go down at Augusta National … and the club's frantic response to make it seem like it never happened. pic.twitter.com/xtkdsKXqXb

— Sean Zak (@Sean_Zak) April 2, 2025

So to officially answer the question that I posed to start this story, a tree that falls down at Augusta National Golf Club does make a sound… but hours after it thuds into the bright green grass of the beautiful track, it’s almost impossible to know that it ever even happened.

Nothing like a good tree story to get you fired up for THE MASTERS. In case you wanted more golf in this story, I’ll leave you with this memorable Phil Mickelson moment from the 2010 Masters:

Phil Mickelson’s second shot on the par 5 13th during the 2010 Masters is one of the greatest shots in Masters history.

Is this the best shot of his career?

pic.twitter.com/EWMLVrf3aN

— Tour Pro (@OfficialTourPro) December 31, 2024