Good luck trying to bump and run it over the swale from out right... and good luck trying to fly it in & stay on the surface when the green's hard and fast...
The left hand side of the green holds the ball more than the centre or right. Also, along the front half of the left hand side of the green, the surface slopes down from the bunker edge toward the centre of the green. I've had some success flying approach shots to the front left of the green, playing in from anywhere left of the centre of the fairway. Not a big target, but if you go a bit further left than you intend (without landing in the sand) the ball can kick a little and finish up close to a central flag position. That said, if you are going to miss and finish in a bunker, the one on the right tends to be a much, much nicer spot than those on the left.
I've seen a couple of highly skilled players successfully bump and run little approach shot from the left hand rough, but trying to do this gives you a very narrow target (a flat but thin neck leading into the green).
Three significant things have changed on this hole:
- In the sixties the swale was reshaped: in order to make mowing easier, the ridge atop the swale was lowered.
- Over the decades the rough on the rhs of the fairway has encroached further and further. Where now there is a pair of drive bunkers, originally there were four in a row forming a diagonal hazard. (Walk into the tea-tree beside the remaining bunkers and the remnants are obvious.) Further down the fairway, there used to be much more room to drive out to the right.
- The sand hazard at the back right of the green disappeared long ago.
Another historical aspect of the hole is that it is quite different to the hole designed during MacKenzie's visit. When additional land was subsequently purchased, allowing a second 18-hole course, this hole was shortened to make room for the fairway of what's now 17E. The redesign reduced the length of 3W by more than 60 yards and brought the green further west, repositioning it from a flattish spot to the current sloped one. This time-line raises the probability that Mackenzie's Australian partner, Alex Russell, was the primary designer of the aspects of this hole that make it great (including the green complex).
To me, the hole incorporates characteristics of Russell's design work on the East course. There he uses diagonal hazards (swales & bunkers); has a number of sublime little par-4s (most with very wide fairways, giving you lots of driving options); has a few greens that slope down from front to back; has a number of greens that require precision approach shots just to get your ball onto the green (whereas for most greens on the West its' easy to get your ball onto the green but hard to approach to the preferred positions on the greens)...