[Bill Gayne]

It's been a couple of weeks since we last looked at the 20 hazards so I thought I would get it going again.

The third hazard is the Road bunker. Last Summer I spent a good part of two days at the Open watching about 135 of the Worlds best players struggle and excel at the Road Hole. I came away thinking that it was one of the most exciting golf holes that I've ever seen.

From the bunker, I saw players go all kinds of directions. One player putted in the bunker so that he could set up his bunker shot to get out.

The green is diabolical . It appears to have minimal slope and movement to the eye. However, I would guess that less than a third of the putts were made from the 5-10 foot range by the world's greatest players.

From on the road, there is no way to control the shot back on to the green. I saw all kinds of clubs used: three wood, long irons, wedges, and putters. None were really any better than the other.

This is a hazard and green complex that tests the imagination and moxie of the player and I think is on the short list of greatest golf holes in championship golf.

[Forrest Richardson]

Bill — The Road Hole is one of the most puzzling holes in all of golf. (For the record, it is the "Road Bunker"...no "hole")

It, quite litrerally, is a left-over from the days when golf was played through streets and with obstacles other than the natural land forms. When the green was built it was a by-product that we got a road, a wall, some buildings and an O.B....but, a terrific by-product it was! It remains today — truly — one-of-a-kind.

[peter_p]

  Through my infinite caution I am 0/7 playing the hole and hitting the bunker. Can't say that about the road.
  When playing the course in the original direction the bunker really directs the strategy of the drive, you are much better off hitting as close as possible to the road for the best angle.
 

[Doug Siebert]

Peter,

I'm 0/2 hitting the bunker, but both times I aimed right at the flag.  I figure that I'm not playing TOC for some score that if its good enough I'm going to laminate the scorecard and put it on my wall.  I'm playing it to enjoy and challenge myself, so screw this "caution" idea!  Last time I hit a 7 iron right over the bunker at a back left pin position from the wispy rough on the left.  Hit it perfectly, just couldn't spin it enough and it trickled off the back onto the road, ending up only 20 ft from the hole.  But I chipped a 4i off the road a foot away for an easy par.

Now that I've got to play off the road, I'm even more determined to challenge that bunker each and every time I play because that's part of the fun of the hole.  Yeah, "infinite caution" might result in a lower score over the long run on 17, to say nothing of over a given round.  I guess it depends on why one is there.  I have decided next time I'm going to listen to Nicklaus and not play right of Principal's Nose on #16, no matter how tempting it may look from the tee

I'd hate to have to tee off #1 tee playing to #17 green.  I think the bunker would be FAR worse playing from that side, the angles just don't work in the player's favor at all.  In the normal direction if you aim at the hole over the bunker you are aiming away from the wall and have more room the further left you go, and less on the right where you don't need as much.  For the reverse layout, off the tee you either do like you say and aim it over at the road and hope you don't pull it an inch, or play it safe down the middle and then have a unimaginably difficult task where missing it left is bad, missing it right is worse, and missing it long left is worst of all.  Sounds like fun....when do they play that reversed course again?

Thinking about my normal vs. reverse thoughts on the angles, I realized I'm thinking from the perspective of a righty.  I gotta think the 17th (normal direction) is tougher for a lefty than a righty, just mentally mirror-reversing that hole's layout scares me!

[John Chilver-Stainer]

A true GCA fan would aim for the pot bunker in front of the 17th Road Hole Green.
At my last outing I was proud to not only find the bunker with my second shot but get out at the second attempt with the added thrill of having to play my fifth shot from the road surface. With pride I got up and down with a « slapped » sand wedge for a deserved double bogey.

[TEPaul]

"Yeah, "infinite caution" might result in a lower score over the long run on 17, to say nothing of over a given round.  I guess it depends on why one is there."

Doug:

Truer words could not be spoken. It sure does depend on why one is there. When it comes to the potential dangers of the 17th at TOC I'll never forget Tiger Woods' assessment of the way he played the 17th in the 2000 Open when he blew the entire field away. My recollection is that he made three fives and one four on that hole and proclaimed himself most satisfied with that result.

PeterP:

On thing I've never considered about #17 is that it is considered to be the very first example of truly man-made design and architecture in that Alan Robertson is reputed to have made the Road Hole bunker and apparently the green. Are you saying that in the day he made that green and bunker the golf course was only played in the reverse direction it is now? If so that surely would be an interesting fact when one thinks of potential and various intended designed strategies to do with any famous golf hole.  

I guess the question would be, when was TOC first played and regularly played in the direction it is now? Was it before or AFTER Robertson made the Road Hole green and bunker?

[Bill Gayne]

I would think that the Road bunker and green would be very difficult to duplicate. Below is a picture from CBM's version at NGLA (Ran's from Courses by Country).



Where else has the Road bunker and green been attempted to be duplicated and how successful has it been?

[peter_p]

I am by nature cautious. I am not recommending infinite caution for the rest of GCA. I try to hit the green at CP 16 even though it is unlikely I can carry the rocks. Since I usually are coming into TOC 17 with a long iron or a fairway wood with a distance ball I can't carry the bunker and stop the ball on the green. Also, I am trying to win a beer or whatever bet my match has.

Reminiscences on Golf on St Andrews Links by James Balfour
(1887) has this paragraph on page 6:
"Let us now consider the changs that have taken place on each o the holes individually, and we shall do so by following the medal round,taking the course out by the right.
1. The first hole used always to be on the green beside the road. Its hazards were the road across the Links, the burn, the bunker on the right side of the putting-green, as well as the turnpike road on the other, making thuss a limited gren with a narrow approach to it flanked by several hazards.
  The first hole on the medal course is now quite different. It is placed just beyond the burn, on a flat, smooth broad green to the right of the course..."

That reading certainly sounds like the present 17th green to me and I've thought so for some time. Today I read Herbert Warren Wind's Forward to the book and find that the original first green was situated short of the Swilcan Burn, close by the seventeen green. Mea culpa.

[Doug Siebert]

Bill Gayne,

At the risk of having a new one ripped by Patrick Mucci for commenting on a place i've never been, from what I can see in that picture you posted I don't see much evidence of the land around it sloping into it to increase its effective size.  And it sure doesn't have that build up in the front, though TOC's Road Bunker and I'm sure NGLA's are getting rebuilt from time to time so how prominent the upthrust of the front lip is depends on how recently and aggressively that maintenance was done.

It occurs to me that the answer to your "how successful it has been" depends on which version of TOC's Road Bunker you are talking about.  Its a moving target that's evolving through the years, so one's evaluation of success in that endeavor would depend on what version at TOC and what version of a given imitation you are comparing.

I think that the way the land surrounding the Road Bunker at TOC sucks balls in (either on approach shots or temporarily successful attempts at escape) is really its most defining characteristic, even if it isn't the thing most people notice about it when playing the hole.  But if you stand behind that green for a couple hours and just watch people play in as I did on a couple days last time I was there, you see that bunker is far larger than it appears to be.

That's a quality of many pot bunkers in Scotland and Ireland that is almost always lacking from pot bunkers one may find in the US, not least of which is that most US courses collar them with rough so even if the ground did slope into them the ball would stop.  Not that this is always a good thing since playing a shot where your ball is hanging on the edge of a deep bunker and you can't stand outside it is much worse than being in it!  Of course NGLA's maintenance staff and membership are among the few in the US who know better and it doesn't look like there are any worries of a ball getting caught up on the edge of its pot bunkers!

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