Tropicana Magazine Mar-Apr 2018 #117: Edge Of Excitement

THE SWING
laying golf is like being in a relationship. If
you commit time and energy to it, it can be
rewarding and the outcome satisfying. But
some people love the drama. In which case,
playing these courses, and specifically these
holes is like having a relationship status that
reads: complicated.
P1
1. Cliff House Hotel - garden
Not a traditional starting point for our
Mephistophelean course, but will give the player
a taster for what awaits. At the five-star hotel in
Ardmore, Waterford you drive from the tee box at
the top of the cliffs towards an artificial green on a
floating pontoon out at sea with environmentally
friendly golf balls made of fish food that dissolve
after they land in the briny. It’s a hole in one or
nothing.
2. Pebble Beach – 8th par 4, 428 yards
You have to tee off blind at the first of a trio of
holes known as ‘The Cliffs of Doom’ at ‘America’s St
Andrews’ and make sure the drive stays short of the
abyss that drops on to the beach and Pacific Ocean
below. The second shot is, if anything, even more
difficult, a 200-yard five iron across Stillwater Cove
to a green protected by five bunkers that slopes at a
devilish gradient from back to front and a fairway
that tilts the ball towards the sea.
3. TPC Sawgrass - 17th par 3, 137 yards
More terrifying than the Island of Doctor Moreau,
the three-par monstrosity designed by Pete Dye tests
the best players’ nerve, setting them the challenge
of chipping on to the Island Green (actually a
peninsula, with a narrow path to access it) across the
lake. You either land it safely or play your third shot
from the tee and though it’s technically well within
a professional’s capabilities, the position of the trees
creates an unpredictably hazardous, swirling wind
over the hole. More than 100,000 balls a year hit the
drink.
4. Royal Portrush - 14th par 3, 210 yards
Uphill holes are usually challenging but none more
so that ‘Calamity Corner’ whose green is protected
by vicious winds whipping off the Atlantic, thick
punitive rough on the left and a 75ft deep ravine on
the right with dense rough. Precision and an iron
psyche are key - once you have managed to cross the
‘yawning chasm’, the green itself is positioned on a
precipice with a 100ft drop.
55. Carnoustie - 18th par 4, 444 yards
In Angus 444 is the number of the beast. The Barry
Burn snakes through the fairway to punish hookers
and slicers then venomously curls back again to
present a nasty obstacle for the second shot as Jean
van der Velde found out when it cost him his dry feet
and the Claret Jug. Add in the fairway bunkers on the
right and a regular hoolie blowing off the North Sea
and most amateus would be grateful to get down
in eight.
66.
PGA National - 15th par 3, 179 yards
Kicks off a trifecta of demanding holes known as ‘The
Bear Trap’, named in tribute to the course’s designer,
Jack Nicklaus. Looks relatively straightforward on a
still day but the winds rarely relent. If it blows right
to left the chances are that your tee shot will end
up in the bunker at the back of the green. If it’s a
headwind off the tee the likelihood is that you will
end up rinsing your ball in the lake which surrounds
the green on three sides just as Raymond Floyd did
twice to blow a four-stroke lead in the 1994 Senior
PGA Championship with four holes to play.
TM | MARCH/APRIL 2018
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