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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The land that Bobby Jones first fell in love with from the balcony of what would become the Augusta National clubhouse still looks much the same, though it's no longer possible to see down into Amen Corner.

Magnolia Lane is now paved, but the drive beneath the trees is as magnificent as ever.

Up the cramped stairway of the clubhouse, the members' dining room still serves sweet iced tea and peach cobbler in the cooling shade of the majestic oak tree outside.

On the course, the holes are longer, the bunkers are bigger and the greens are faster than Jones would have ever imagined.

The traditions that Jones established, though, still endure on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

On Tuesday night, champions young and old will gather once again at Augusta National Golf Club to swap Masters tales at their annual dinner. The next night, the amateur dinner that Jones loved will celebrate a part of the game so often ignored.

Indeed, there's a lot Jones would like about this week's Masters, which still stubbornly resists most change even as it accommodates golf's new world.

Augusta National has been tweaked -- too much, some grumble -- to meet the challenge of stronger players and better equipment. Yet players still risk disaster with second shots to the par-5 13th and 15th holes and walk away muttering about the undulations of the greens that seem to change from year to year.

As they have through the years, spectators eat pimento cheese sandwiches in green wrappers, and leave folding chairs around the 18th green with no fear they will be gone when they get back. The azaleas are almost always in full bloom, and the glistening white bunkers offer a startling contrast to the deep green grass.

Perhaps most importantly, the tournament is still revered by the very sort of competitors Jones wanted when he and 52 others teed off in the inaugural Masters in 1934.

"I think he'd be a proud papa," said Sidney L. Matthew, an Atlanta attorney and noted Jones historian. "He would think that this is a wonderful legacy that provides so much enjoyment to so many people."

Jones, who died in 1971 at the age of 69, saw The Masters as a place his contemporaries could compete at the highest level, yet still be free of some of the crassness that marred tournament golf of the time. It was also a way to sell desperately needed memberships to the club he and Clifford Roberts established in 1932.

Roberts wanted to call the event The Masters from the start. But for the first five years, it was called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament because Jones thought the other name might be presumptuous.

"It was really known as Bob's Invitational golf tournament," Matthew said. "People wanted to hang around with him. They wanted to know what made him tick and have the Jones persona rub off on them. They wanted to be like Jones. That's part of the magic he created."

That magic was enough to carry The Masters through its early lean years, while its reputation was built slowly with moments such as the double-eagle Gene Sarazen made on the 15th hole on his way to winning in 1935.

Today, its stewards carefully plot changes only after debating what Jones, the only president Augusta National ever had, would do.

"I think he'd be proud of it, I really do," said Hootie Johnson, Augusta National's chairman. "You must remember, he was a brilliant man."

Patrons who have come for years and tell stories about Jones and a place they celebrate for a week each April.

There's no longer a jug of corn whiskey on the first and 10th tees for Jones' friends and the writers who would cover the event on their way back north from spring training. Instead of playing poker and sharing cigars and drinks in the locker room, today's players are more likely to be working out somewhere.

The course has changed so much, yet its character remains the same. Magnolia Lane is now paved, but the trees form a canopy over it just as they did when Jones and Roberts first visited the former nursery in search of a place to build their new club.

Stepping out on the balcony of the main house, which later became the clubhouse, the two men immediately knew their search was over.

"It seemed that this land had been lying here for years just waiting for someone to lay a golf course on it," Jones wrote in "Golf is My Game," published in 1960. "Indeed it even looked as though it were already a golf course and I am sure that one standing today where I stood on this first visit on the terrace overlooking the practice putting green sees the property almost exactly as I saw it then."

Jones and architect Alister MacKenzie wanted a course that would be playable off the tee, but one that a player needed to think about where he wanted to put his ball if he wanted a shot at the pin.

That philosophy has prevailed through years of changes, none as severe as the ones made to nine holes this year.

"He would be flabbergasted at the alterations to the course but just in the way in which the stewards of Augusta have continually modified it to maintain the same shot values without compromising the beauty and objectives of the course," Matthew said. "He wanted Augusta to be a thinking man's golf course. I believe the alterations promote more imaginative thinking."

Jones, who was given a ticker tape parade in New York City after winning the Grand Slam in 1930, had been retired from tournament golf nearly four years when he played in the first Masters. He quit on top at the age of 28 to tend to his law practice and make some instructional movies that still appear on the Golf Channel.

In an announcement sent to the PGA, Roberts said his partner agreed to make the tournament the one exception to his rule about not playing tournament golf again. The Masters needed Jones as an attraction, and Augusta National needed The Masters to stay afloat.

"He does this with the thought of helping to establish a new golfing event that is hoped may assume the proportion of an important tournament," Roberts wrote.

Little did he know how important it would become. Jones finished 10 shots behind eventual winner Horton Smith and was never a factor. It was because of his presence, though, that everyone came.

"He was the host and expected to mix the martinis and entertain everybody and make sure everyone was happy," Matthew said. "It was ceremonial."

Jones is being remembered this year in centennial celebrations on both sides of the Atlantic. In front of the clubhouse, there is a simple plaque under the flagpole at the end of Magnolia Lane.

Jones would approve.

"He would marvel at the maturity of the golf course, that it still has the majesty about it, the awesome proportions, the gorgeous vistas are still there," Matthew said. "I don't think you'd get much more than a small smile. But he'd crease a smile and say, 'Job well done.' "

The world can say the same about Jones.

Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press