In defending the Old Course, I often like to point out that the course as a whole offers something for everyone, and I do mean everyone: professionals, high handicappers and everyone in between. Too often, in my opinion, the quality of a golf course is analyzed exclusively in terms of the challenges and difficulties it presents for those at the professional end of the scale. The tough holes on the Old Course can be played to a finish by anyone (well, not counting an older/weaker player who lacks the strength/technique to escape some of the deeper bunkers), whereas the easy holes still require some thought and execution from the professional. And the easy holes give the higher handicapper, who almost always is only worried about finding the fairway and not losing golf balls, a chance to actually consider and employ different strategies. Each of 8/9/10 works in this regard:
#8: When the pin is near the gaping front bunker and the wind is blowing from behind - as it often is - there's a very real dilemma: play to the right, go long, or take on the difficult challenge of just clearing the bunker and its downslope to give yourself a birdie chance? With the pin elsewhere on the green, this challenge largely recedes for the pro; the amateur, however, is easily suckered in to thinking that anywhere on the green will do, whereas the green itself is packed with subtle complexity, and two-putting from 40 feet is never a given for anyone.
#9: The challenge for the pro is to make 3. The driving area is wide, and the green relatively flat, but when you're hitting a wood and there's gorse and heather to worry about on both sides, nothing is a given. My favorite pin for the pros is on the left edge of the green, next to the lone bunker and almost on a line with the right edge of the left-sided heather, because that's when it really becomes a great risk/reward hole for anyone. For the amateurs, however, the bunkers in the middle of the 9th/10th fairway make for a very interesting driving decision: do you try to carry the bunkers with a driver? Play out to the right of them, thereby lengthening the hole? Take on the more difficult avenue down the left? Hit an iron off the tee to lay up and leave a longer second? Are any of these decisions made more preferable by the pin position? Very few golfers are so good or so bad as to not have to face these choices; I find it refreshing that strategy caters to exactly the sorts of golfers who have never made a strategic decision in their lives!
#10: Definitely tougher than the preceding two holes for the pro, as the driving area is narrower and the green more difficult (especially when needing to hit a bump-and-run into the green over the difficult contours at its front). Iron off the tee for safety, or try to thread the needle through bunkers right and vegetation left? The same choice is there for the amateur; the big Kruger bunker (I think that's its name, off the top of my head) on the right is within range of a decent poke, to the point that I've hit iron off the tee a number of times just to be absolutely sure of staying short, but in so doing sometimes I mishit the iron and leave myself a 6- or 7-iron into the green, which is always a bummer on such a short hole. Wherever the drive finishes, the second shot requires a good deal of finesse to generate a good birdie chance, because 20-footers on that green are not easy.
If these holes had narrow fairways and flattish, small-to-medium-sized greens, you'd be right - they'd mostly be bland, boring holes we'd have seen a thousand times. But width and contour are two great blessings: the former allows for decision-making, and the latter keeps things interesting. They're not my favorite holes on the course by any stretch, but to call them "weak" misses a fundamental point about golf in St. Andrews - it's supposed to be for everyone.
Cheers,
Darren