It might also be appropriate, on this occasion, for me to relay one of the best Zokol stories (which is architecture-related):
Zokol's playing in the Dunhill Cup, at St. Andrews. He was matched against Mark O'Meara. Zokol gets to the Road hole with a three stroke lead. The hole is cut directly behind the Road bunker. Both men drive down the middle of the fairway, then hit their approach shots into Road bunker.
Zokol has the honour. He decides O'Meara has a more difficult bunker shot, so attempts to play boldly toward the hole (rather than safe). He wants to basically end the match, then and there. Zokol says he executed the shot perfectly. But, his ball hits the top edge of the bunker, deflects up into the air, then drops straight down, right up against the vertical sod wall. He has no backswing for the next attempt, so he banks the ball off the sod wall, back into the bunker.
This bank shot finishes in his heel print. Terrible lie. He fails to get the ball out of Road bunker again, with the ball coming to rest in a mess of footprints. His fourth try from the bunker fails. Then he blasts out to about 30 feet from the hole. O'Meara makes 5. Zokol makes 9, to go two strokes down with one hole to play. A couple pars later, O'Meara is victorious.
Later that evening, watching television, devastated, Zokol sees his ordeal at the Road hole as part of the day's highlights. The commentator is Peter Allis (oh no!). As they show Zokol exiting Road bunker, Allis says: "It looks as though a couple of Shetland ponies were mating in there".
Classic
