Postage Stamp delivers ‘carnage’ in a special way
Par-3 hole promises danger, nightmares.
“It’s drama. If you do happen to miss the green, well, game on, you know?” Colin Montgomerie, on the eighth hole at Royal Troon
At the heart of Royal Troon’s ancient land is a petite patch of ground that has stood the test of time, weathered the harshest elements blowing in off the Firth of Clyde and delivered a history rich in tales of triumph and tragedy.
In these parts, many a local has called this terrain the “wee beastie,” for its mere 123 yards can make one’s skin crawl. Playing from an elevated tee box over a gully to a tiny green carved out of a sand hill and surrounded by five cavernous, deep-faced bunkers, it is short in size but massively tall in stature.
On the scorecard it’s the eighth hole. In the hearts and minds of golfers the world over, it is the Postage Stamp hole, so deemed by William Park Jr., the British Open champion in 1887 and 1889, who, while working for Golf Illus-
trated, wrote of the green having “a pitching surface skimmed down to the size of a postage stamp.”
While it’s the shortest hole in the British Open rotation, this storied, wind-swept par-3 will create plenty of consternation for the players in the 145th edition of the oldest championship in golf beginning Thursday.
“There will be carnage, plenty
of carnage. Count on it,” Graeme McDowell said. “You can chip a 6-iron to get there; you can hit a wedge. If the wind is howling, all sorts of numbers are going to be recorded on that hole. “It’s brilliant. And it’s dangerous.” Four-time major champion and 2014 Open winner Rory McIlroy won’t argue with his fellow Northern Irishman after playing the Postage Stamp on Tuesday. McIlroy’s tee shot found the bunker appropriately called the Coffin.
“I took an 8 or a 9, so that didn’t go too well,” he said. “Took me five or six goes to get out of (the bunker). There is a lot of sand in the bunker. So when the ball just trickles into the bunkers, it doesn’t go into the middle. That lip there is basically vertical, so it sort of just stayed there. And every time I tried to get it out, it would go back into the same spot. ... If you make four threes there this week, you’re probably going to gain a bit of ground on the field.”
The Postage Stamp as much as any hole on the course plays to Royal Troon’s motto of “Tam Arte Quam Mar
te,” Latin for “As much by skill as by strength.” Here at the course’s signature hole, brains trump brawn as players are at the mercy of the wind, the bunkers and the minute putting surface that narrows severely in the back of the green.
“In a day where every player tries to hit it long and far, it tends to be the holes where you have to hit it short and straight that provide the undoing,” said Golf Channel analyst Frank Nobilo, who finished 10th in the Open at Troon in 1997.
No. 8 was the ruin of Tiger Woods in 1997. After a brilliant 64 in the third round, Woods’ quest for the Claret Jug collapsed in a bunker en route to a 6.
In 1950, German amateur Hermann Tissies wrecked his scorecard with a 15.
There has been brilliance, as well. In 1973, at the age of 71, World Golf Hall of Fame member Gene Sarazen, playing in his 50th Open, aced the hole using a 5-iron. In 2004, Ernie Els made one using a pitching wedge.
Just as you often do at the famous seventh hole at Pebble Beach or the 12th hole at Augusta National — where Jordan Spieth’s pursuit of a second consecutive green jacket ended when he hit two balls into Rae’s Creek in the final round this year — many players hit tee shot on the Postage Stamp and pray.
“The hardest thing about the eighth is you can’t get the ball on the ground,” three-time Open champ Nick Faldo said. “You can’t run it in. It’s an air shot played downhill, and if it’s playing into that real blustery right-to-left wind, the golf ball can just go anywhere. “So it is a scary little shot.” No one in this week’s field has hit the scary little shot more than Colin Mont- gomerie, whose World Golf Hall of Fame career took root at age 6 on the children’s course at Royal Troon. One of the special qualities of the hole, he said, is the yardage, which directly impacts the 6 inches between your ears.
“At 123 yards, you are on that tee and you are a professional golfer. It’s your job and you’re expected to hit this green at 123 yards,” Montgomerie said. “You could throw it on, really. I wish I could. And that’s why it’s difficult.
“Whenever you’re expected to win something or do something, it’s always more difficult to achieve. Always. And that’s why that hole is fabulous, because you are expected to hit the green, and everyone knows you are. ...
“It’s drama. If you do happen to miss the green, well, game on, you know? Drama unfolds from then on, depending where and what lie you’re in.”
Now add the wind. The first eight holes go out away from the clubhouse, and players have the prevailing wind at their backs, providing the best chances to score. The next 10 holes come back toward the clubhouse and into the wind, forcing the players to hold on for dear life.
“It’s the first shot you’ve got into a wind,” Montgomerie said. “It doesn’t matter what standard of golf you are, it’s different. It’s a change. You haven’t done this for two hours. Then you suddenly have this shot into the wind, and it becomes, yeah, you’re thinking and you’re of two minds, and self-doubt comes in and hesitation. It’s just a great hole, a great hole.”