The R&A’s thinking coming into The Open was that Royal Liverpool might lack a bit of drama down the closing stretch. So we all fixated on the new kid in the class, the par-3 17th, and seemingly took our eyes off its big brother.
The 18th at Hoylake is neatly named ‘Dun’ and many of the field will have felt like they have been after seeing decent rounds turned into ordinary ones and ordinary ones into horror shows.
Ahead of the 151st Open this closing brute has seen the tee moved round to the right and pushed back 50 yards to 609 yards. To make matters worse there’s a bit of a walk from the 17th back down to the final tee, a stroll where you might easily cast your eye towards the two fairway bunkers and, more likely, the internal out of bounds. Up ahead there are three bunkers protecting the left half of the green (more on them later) and two on the right.
If you can avoid all the hazards off the tee then your second will be played over the corner of the OOB. Then you can throw in that you might well have a 3-wood in your hand, grandstands on either side and the small matter of some strong winds. And it’s final Major of the year.
Our record so far is a 10 by Taichi Kho of Hong Kong. He had done much of the hard work, sitting in a greenside bunker in two. Then this happened where even some shot-by-shot commentary barely makes sense of the mess.
- Shot 1: 313yds to Fairway, 282yds to pin
- Shot 2: 279yds to Greenside Bunker, 9yds to pin
- Shot 3: 1yd to Greenside Bunker, 9yds to pin
- Shot 4: 0yds to Greenside Bunker, 9yds to pin
- Shot 5: 11yds to Native Area, 19yds to pin
- Shot 6: 12yds to Greenside Bunker, 8yds to pin
- Shot 7: Drops ball to Native Area, 29yds to pin
- Shot 7: 23yds to Native Area, 25yds to pin
- Shot 8: 31yds to Green, 9ft. to pin
- Shot 9: 9ft. 9in. to Green, 10in. to pin
- Shot 10: Ball Holed: Double Bogey or Worse
Taichi Kho hit double figures on Thursday
(Image credit: Getty Images )
If ever there was a cryptic golfing puzzle then it was this. We think that he left two shots in the bunker, then found the rough, then returned to the bunker, then back to the rough where he got a free drop, chipped on and two-putted.
Tyrrell Hatton was inside the top 10 when he…
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