You hit over the hotel, and then the green, like it is so small. “I’m going to go out there and have a good time just hitting all kinds of weird shots. I think that’s one of the special things about this golf course,” said the world No 1, Scottie Scheffler, during practice. Miguel Angel Jimenez executes a brilliant recover at the Road Hole Squashed up against the stone wall that lies beyond the road, in 2010 Miguel Ãngel Jimenez sensationally pitched a shot backwards against the wall, with the ball flopping beautifully up on to the green. Joaquín Niemann was forced to take his shot from the road on Friday, while Talor Gooch nearly holed his pitch from the fringe of the concrete.īeing creative in sticky situations is all part of links golf and the 17th is the quirkiest hole at St Andrews. Such is the worry of ending up on the road that Mickelson was seen practising a chip off the asphalt with a one-iron earlier this week. Fridayday’s flag placement was near the front, atop a steep ridge which is another obstacle to anyone thinking of laying up and putting on from the fairway.Īnything that rolls left is gobbled by the bunker, which is nicknamed the “Sands of Nakajima”, owing to Tommy Nakajima taking four shots to escape it in 1978, costing the Japanese the Open lead. If you are left-side of the fairway, the approach to the green becomes treacherous, especially if the flag is at the back, between the notorious bunker that guards the front left and the road which borders the back. The tee shot is, of course, just the first challenge. “A few of mine have ended up on the flat roof.” “I try to hit it over the hotel, some are successful, some are not!” says the 11-handicapper. Jamie Henderson, a marshal in the grandstand overlooking the 17th tee, is a local with a links ticket who regularly plays here. Phil Mickelson managed to hook his tee shot on to a balcony back in 2010 to give one of the guests a very nice souvenir.Īnd if you go for a safer shot further left of the hotel, the fairway is so narrow that there is a good chance you will end up in some very ugly rough, as Paul Casey and Sam Burns found to their peril on Friday, on their way to double-bogeys. There have been countless similar mishaps down the years. Brooks Koepka proved to be the victim on Friday, skewing awfully into the hotel grounds, which contributed to the LIV golfer missing the cut here. “I played good – I just had that one frickin’ tee shot on 17,” said The Big Easy, who double-bogeyed the hole.
Ernie Els came a cropper on Thursday: his excellent score of 70 would have been better still had he not sliced his drive out of bounds into the hotel’s lawned garden.
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