Masters -- Soft Greens at Augusta April 4, 2012, 10:38 pm AUGUSTA, Ga. - The mysteries that make Augusta National hard for the uninitiated golfer to solve are less puzzling when the greens are spongy from rain, as they were in this week's practice rounds. "As soft as the golf course is, you can fire at a lot of the pins," Phil Mickelson, a three-time champion, said. The greens are soft. I don't want to say they are slow, but it's just not the same Augusta. It's wet around the greens, and there's no fear of the course. You've got to attack it this week. Unless something changes, and I know they have SubAir and hopefully they will be able to use it, but unless they change it, it's going to be a birdie-fest. SubAir is an aeration and moisture removal system. Fred Ridley, Augusta National's chairman of the competition committee, said: "Clearly the golf course will not be as firm and fast as it would otherwise be. We are very confident that we will have comparable tournament-speed greens with our SubAir system. Admittedly we won't have the firmness, but we think that we have looked at a setup that takes all of that into consideration, as we always do with weather considerations. There are 18 past champions and 15 first-time participants in this year's field. Mickelson said that if the conditions remained the same, the veterans would not have much of an advantage over the newcomers. I think that if it plays like this, that there won't be the big mistakes made by any of the young players. I think that it will be a crowded leader board," he said. If there's some firmness that comes out, and the green speeds get a little bit quicker and get a little bit firmer, I think we will see some of the young players make some mistakes that will cost them the tournament and the experienced players who position the ball properly and vary their risk/reward shot-making, I think they will have an easier time staying on top of the leader board.