[Doug Siebert]

The average for the 18th was 4.6, so if a player adopted KJ's strategy and was only able to get up and down once in four days he would end up with a 4.75 average, pretty much the same as the field.  I suspect there are many pros good enough with their wedge and putter to get up and down from their favorite distance better than once in four days.

Seems to me that might be worth it, even if only to relieve yourself of that extra stress with so many potential disasters awaiting you on that hole.

[Jim Nugent]

I wonder what the average score on 18 was in 1999?  Weren't weather and conditions a lot worse then?  If so, wouldn't surprise me if they averaged even higher.  

Also, does hitting iron off the tee really eliminate all trouble?  From the diagrams and from TV looks like you can still hit in the burn without much trouble.  

Finally, here is the reaction from a USGA official who also worked the British Open:

"Working the event as a visiting rules official, the USGA's Mike Davis said he couldn't think of another links hole with so much going on at the end: O.B. left, grandstands, the burn, all at the end of 500 yards of major-championship pressure. It might not be a classic hole in the true sense but, as McGinley said, it does create drama, and it made anything Davis set up at Oakmont for the U.S. Open look tame. "It strikes again," Davis said, almost enviously, "doesn't it?"

[Brad Klein]

Jim

that "almost enviously" twist was the writer's own interpretation, not Mike Davis'.

[Phil McDade]

Brad:

How does the terrain at 18 differ from what golfers previously encountered at Carnoustie?

[JohnV]

I reserve the right to answer this question after next year's US Open at Torrey, South.

PS:  Or, are they going to make it another long schlog par 4? And, to further clarify, I do mean wait to see.  I can't figure if it is going to be a snooze fest, or become more players like Devlin's billibong.

The USGA has announced that it will play as a par 5 during the US Open next year.  I think they said they might even play it on one of the forward tees some days to give more players opportunity to go for it.  They also also said they probably will shave the bank in front of the green so that short shots will roll back into the water.

[Brad Klein]

Phil;

18th fairway is extremely flat, you can't see the first burn, and the R&A had the club build up mounding along the sides to create lateral contour that is artificial. Plus the o.b. stakes left are closest there to any putting surface on the course, and the alternative landing area for bail-out is shut down by stands. It's the only hole that's flat and hemmed in on every side for every shot (as well as short and long) with unrecoverable hazards.

That makes it hard, and certainly dramatic, memorable, terrifying and theatrical, but not "great."l

[Phil McDade]

Brad:

I don't recall the terrain there being all that different than the visuals golfers encounter at 17 or 16 -- perhaps the rest of the course, but the three finishing holes all looked pretty much the same to me in terms of terrain (part of their difficulty, I'd argue, is that they all are so flat, and -- absent artificial structures like grandstands -- there is little definition to them.)

18 right on the drive is no more hemmed in than 17 right -- VdV proved you could bail out right with a driver on 18! Both are OB left. And OB at TOC 18 (and at Lytham) I believe is closer to the green than at Carnoustie's 18 -- maybe those are not great holes by your definition (Lytham's strikes me as pretty good), but there is precedent for having fairly close OB to the green at rota courses. And isn't that large bunker right of the green at Carnoustie (the one VdV plunked his 5th shot in in '99) a semi-decent bail-out area? Plus the free-drop from the right grandstands (where only a French golfer would see his ball land in and bounce back out of...)

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