Out: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th

In: 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 18th

17th, Road, 461 yards, Par 4, SI 5

2005 Open difficulty ranking 1, stroke average 4.63

2000 Open difficulty ranking 1, stroke average 4.71

The most famous par four in the world of golf. The Road hole never ceases to amaze with the drama that unfolds upon it, no matter the standard of golfer.

It is a long Par 4 and the tee shot has you driving over replicas of the dark green "drying sheds" that jut out from the famous Old Course Hotel & Golf Spa. Your caddie will point out a line, dependant on your shape of shot, over the advertisement for the hotel using one of the letters from the hotel logo or perhaps a safer line towards the church spire that points prominently above the left side of the green sheds.

The attacking line from the tee is to take the ball on the last letters of the word "HOTEL" from the logo or even right of this if you have a big drive. With a carry of 180 - 220 yards, depending on your bravery, the desired landing area is on the right side of the fairway. This does bring into play the Out of Bounds wall that separates the green shed, the hotel garden and the Jigger Inn Pub from the fairway, but your aggressive play will reward you with a simpler approach shot to the raised, thin sliver of a green that has the protection of the Road bunker at the front left and the notorious road behind it. A tough decision is required. It is a blind tee shot and you are aiming at an old green wooden building. This can be a little disconcerting for the first time player. Trust your swing?!

I personally like to play a fade from the tee, taking my line on the left side of the dark green sheds and left of the logo then let the ball gently turn the corner. With the majority of the ordinary mortal golfers playing with a fade it is a proposal that I give my players when we reach the tee, "...play your natural shot sir on the left side of the shed in front of you and we'll find ourselves in the middle of the fairway".

A good solid 'safe' drive should leave you with approximately 190 - 170 yards to the front edge of this green, though an aggressive drive to the desired right side of the fairway will shorten that to 160 -150 front edge.

The approach shot brings your next major decision on this demanding par 4. One must remember that the previous sixteen golf holes, on this greatest of the Championship courses, may have taken its’ toll on your golf brain and shot making ability. Many of the local golfers recognise this and will play to the front right of the green, taking the Road bunker out of play and then go for a straightforward up and down, chip and putt. Simple, really.

If you do land on the left side of the fairway or in the light rough, and arguably 75% percent of drives do, going for the flag let alone the top of the green is not really on. There is a still an aggressive option to make a par which I have used in the past and that is to take an extra club and hit left of the Road bunker towards the 18th tee. It is a reasonably flat landing area and a solid chip or even an approach putt can bring about the desired par four. I watched Ernie Els adopt this strategy, I think it was during 2005 Dunhill Links, when he had landed in the left rough from the tee, his second landed on the eighteenth tee and electing to putt he made a very nice birdie, naturally.

Golfers do not always take the caddies advice, their perogative of course, but on this golf hole I would suggest that it might be wise to at least give it due consideration. Those that go for the grandstanding shot to the thin 17th green generally fly through the back, down the three foot slope and come to rest on the tarmac of the road. It is a tough shot from there to save par, bogey is a great outcome, double bogey, triple even and your beginning to shake your head and wonder where it all went wrong. The caddie will also be shaking his head....knowing where it all went wrong!

Then there is the famous Road bunker which also takes its’ toll on the aggressive shot to the green and has even managed to hurt a golfer when he is on the green. The most famous example of this was during the 1978 Open Championship when the Japanese player Tommy Nakijima, who was in contention, attempted a putt from the front right of the green but misjudged the line, catching the devilish slope that generally gathers the approach shots, and watched his ball disappear into the bunker. It took four strikes to extricate the ball and his Open was over. A very expensive nine. The bunker is still referred to locally as "The Sands of Nakijima".

David Duval was another who found the bunker, during the 2000 Open Championship, though in his defence he was forced to go for the flag with his approach from the fairway as Tiger Woods had a couple of shots on him. Duval also took four to get out of this little bunker and Tiger won his first Open at St. Andrews. Credit must go to David Duval because he bounced back in 2001 and won the Claret Jug at Lytham St. Annes in England.

Once on this thin green it is by no means a certainty that regulation putting will prevail. A really deceptive green to read, the golfer tends to 'under' read the break on the putt resulting in a tricky four or five footer back. It does look relatively flat to the first time player but to those who are fortunate to be on this green regulary there is a pronounced down slope from the road side of the green.

It is accepted amongst the local players and caddies that there are just not that many birdies on this par 4. It is difficult. This can be seen from the statistics of the last two Open Championships played here in 2000 and 2005: the hardest hole on the course both years with a stroke average of 4.71 and 4.63 respectively. John Daly, when he won at St. Andrews in 1995 actually managed a double bogey and bogey on the final two days before scoring an elusive par during the play-off with Constantina Rocca.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this little piece there is always "drama" on the Road hole and the great R.T. Jones was no exception in finding himself immersed in this most tortuous of closing holes. Jones describes this hole as the scene of one of the most terrifying bits of golf he ever experienced:-

"Watts Gunn and I collaborated in the Walker Cup matches in 1926, and we were playing Tolley and Jamieson in the Scotch foursomes, which means that each partner plays alternate strokes on the same ball. Watts and Jamieson were driving. The drive here is supposed to go straight over the middle of a barn, which is out of bounds. Watts just got over, while Jamieson hit the building plump in the middle, and Tolley had to play three off the tee. Cyril (Tolley) made cautious by his partner's mistake, pulled his drive into the second fairway.
It was now my turn , and I played a conservative spoon shot short of and in front of the green Jamieson topped the fourth for his team, and Tolley in an heroic effort to reach the green went over into the road. That was five for our opponents, and being in the road they would do well to go down in eight. Watts and I looked certain to win the hole, but nothing is ever certain on the 17th in St. Andrews. Watts had to play a run-up to the very narrow green between the bunker on one side and the road on the other. He shanked into the road.
Now we were in the road in three, they in five. Jamieson played a beautiful shot up to 12 feet from the hole. That looked bad for us for our ball was lying in the hard road. The hole was only 15 or 20 feet away. The green was dry, and the terrible bunker was just beyond the flag. Watts and I put our heads together, and indulged in a little mental arithmatic. We finally decided that if I should play down towards the brook behind the green (towards the Swilken Bridge), Watts could pitch back on so that two putts would give us a seven and a half if Tolley holed out his putt. We felt that we would be thankful for anything now. We did our seven. Tolley rimmed the long one, and we won the hole, but not until we had used up all our shots and most of the little brains we had".

I hope you all get the opportunity to experience the Road experience in the not too distant future

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