The par-5 16th at Royal Liverpool has a strange claim to fame in that it was the only hole where Tiger Woods hit his driver when he won the 2006 Open.
It happened in the opening round and, even then, it wasn’t the plan to get out the biggest piece of timber.
“I really wasn’t supposed to do that, either. I was trying to hit 2-iron, 3-wood off that tee the entire week. But with the wind being down, I could fly the bunkers. It felt like it took the bunkers completely out of play, and it did.”
He actually pulled it way left but still managed a birdie, something that he achieved all week. He would then eagle the last for an opening 67. And that’s all we saw of the Woods driver that week, even the 3-wood was a bit-part player as he weaved his way to a two-shot victory over Chris DiMarco at 18 under.
The plan to hit iron after iron came during his practice rounds as he calculated that he could reach the four par 5s with a couple of well-struck irons and that this was a course, brown and running, that would have to be picked apart.
After the victory Woods finally let us into his thinking.
“As I was playing the golf course, I would hit a couple of drives, and the driver would go 350, 370 yards. How can you control that out here? You can’t control that. The fairways are hard enough to hit as it is, and you add driver and they go that far, now how hard is it to hit? So I just felt in the end if you stayed out of the bunkers this entire week and had just a decent week on the greens, I felt that I would be in contention on the back nine.
“I felt that my strategy was sound. It was going to keep me out of trouble. Guys who were trying to hit the ball over the bunkers, they’re going to have shorter clubs on the greens, no doubt about that, but a lot of these flags you can’t attack with wedges. On 4 I’m aiming 30 feet left of the hole, and I couldn’t keep it on the greens. That’s the nature of the golf course and the way it was playing this week.
Woods put on a ball striking masterclass with the long irons at Hoylake in 2006
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“I felt the conservative approach was the way to go, especially with four par 5s. And you figure if you just handle the par 5s, that’s 16 under par right there. You sprinkle in a few more here and there around the course and you’re looking pretty good.”
Other than Woods’ incredible golfing nous it’s often under appreciated quite how well Woods struck the ball that week. He hadn’t had the 2-iron, which now resides in the clubhouse…
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