Augusta
— — azaleas the week the tournament begins.
Not only on a wall.
“The second-oldest city in Georgia, on the south bank of the Savannah River where it crosses the fall line. Founded in 1736 by James Oglethorpe, it has been a river town, a textile town, and for one week each April, the centre of golf. Augusta National opens its gates and the azaleas at Amen Corner come into bloom on cue.
Augusta, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Augusta sits on the south bank of the Savannah River in east-central Georgia, where the river crosses the fall line between the Piedmont and the coastal plain. It was founded in 1736 by James Oglethorpe as the second town of the Georgia colony, after Savannah. The Augusta-Richmond County consolidated city holds about 200,000 residents. The Riverwalk runs along the old levee through downtown; the river itself forms the state line with South Carolina across from North Augusta on the opposite bank. Fort Gordon and the U.S. Army Cyber Center sit just west of the city.
The Masters Tournament has been played at Augusta National Golf Club since 1934, the first full week of April. The course was designed by Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones on the grounds of the former Fruitland Nurseries, run by the Berckmans family in the nineteenth century. The thirteenth, twelfth, and eleventh holes form Amen Corner along Rae's Creek, a name coined by sportswriter Herbert Warren Wind in 1958. Club membership is private and small; the gates open to the public during the tournament and during a few practice rounds. Television coverage has used the same Dave Loggins piano theme since 1981.
Spring arrives early in the Central Savannah River Area. Azaleas, dogwoods, and Yoshino cherries are reliably in bloom by the first week of April. Augusta National plants its course with thousands of azaleas, and each hole is named for the cultivar that flowers there. The city itself fills during Masters week, with hotel rates rising sharply and the airport handling charter traffic. Outside tournament week the river bottoms cool quickly through October and into early November, when the surrounding hardwoods turn. Summers are hot and humid; winters are short and mild.