TROON, SCOTLAND | At the end of a draining and thoroughly dispiriting Saturday, one in which his hopes of lifting a second Claret Jug had suffered an ultimately mortal blow, Shane Lowry said it best.
“They keep trying to make holes longer,” he sighed, the drizzle still dripping from his beard. “Yet the best hole on this course is about 100 yards.”
The Irishman was talking of Royal Troon’s eighth hole, the famous par-3 otherwise known as the Postage Stamp.
It played to only 118 yards on Thursday, 120 on Friday, 130 on Saturday, and a mere 108-yard flick on Sunday, yet it loomed large in the minds of the field for the seven holes before it, and it is entirely possible it cast an inky black shadow across the breakfast room of every final-round contender on Sunday morning.
Lowry knew all too much about the hole’s potential for those two impostors, triumph and disaster. He made birdie 2 at the hole in the opening two rounds on his way to assuming the halfway lead, and he maintained that advantage through seven holes of the third round. Whereupon his tee shot at 8 found the famous Coffin Bunker on the left of the putting green. With the ball tight to the back wall of the trap, Lowry had no option but to escape sideways, and he failed to hold the green.
His third shot from tangly rough was a fine one, but he could only two-putt for a double bogey. The fact he had played the hole in level par to that point in the week was absolutely zero consolation. If his hopes weren’t quite stamped on, his head felt like it: It was the first of six blemishes – five bogeys on his final eight holes – that he made on his journey back to the clubhouse.
“It’s refreshing. Most of the par-3s we play are 255 yards. It’s cool to have a hole that’s super scary and so short.”
Xander Schauffele
Brian Huggett, who finished third behind Arnold Palmer in the Troon Open of 1962, called the hole “vicious,” and Bryson DeChambeau used the word “diabolical” last week.
My GGP colleague John Hopkins spoke to the great Gene Sarazen ahead of the 1982 Troon Open. “There are more tragedies on that hole than on the seventh at Pebble Beach,” he said. “Hit the green there and the ball will roll towards the pin. When the wind blows at Troon and you stand up there on the tee, anything can happen. Believe me, I’m telling you it’s frightening.”
It’s worth noting these words were uttered by a seven-time major champion who, at age 71, didn’t need one single putt at the Postage Stamp when competing in the 1973 Open: He made a hole-in-one in the first round and holed a bunker shot for a birdie 2 in the second.
His notions of the hole’s perils hold true today. The tiny putting surface is pear-shaped, with the wider area at the front. Bobby Locke, the 1950 Troon Open winner, took aim at that region, and the apron short of it, in every round regardless of the pin position and conceded: “I was playing for a 4.” The reason? He knew the green is effectively even smaller than it appears because the edges repel even a slightly errant tee shot.
“The punishment for lack of concentration or a slightly bad shot is severe,” said England’s Tommy Fleetwood, astutely adding that: “There’s a huge amount of acceptance that goes into not trying to stiff a 100-yard shot. Like the 12th hole at Augusta, it’s a mental test because you feel like you probably should be able to do better, but a 3 is a good score.”
Phil Mickelson understands Royal Troon better than most. He finished third there in 2004 and second in 2016. Throughout those two Opens, he went bogey-free through the entire front nine which means, of course, that he passed the Postage Stamp test eight times.
“It is one of the greats,” he said. “I’m trying to make par; I’m not trying to make 2, and if I make 4, I’m not that upset. It’s a hole that you’ve seen dismantle a bunch of opportunities for players to win, and you just don’t want to make the big number.”
Chile’s Joaquín Niemann did make a big number there last week – an 8 in the second round – and he elaborated, almost in list form, on the fiendish nature of the test from the tee. “It’s just so hard to trust the wind,” he said. “You’ve got to hit a wedge shot where you’ve got to take some off. You’ve got to hit a draw because the wind is pretty strong from the left, and also you don’t want to be in that left bunker. I’m not used to hit draws with a wedge when I take some off.”
In his case, the trial had only just begun. He visited three bunkers before he found the putting surface and, his mind was so mangled when he finally did, he needed four putts to find the bottom of the hole.
If the fear factor remains in 2024, the spectacle of the Postage Stamp has been transformed in recent years. The contrast between YouTube footage of Sarazen’s cosy hole-in-one and the L-shaped stadium that now sits behind the tee and stretches to just short of the green is astounding.
Where much of the jeopardy of the past lay with a tiny target sat in a barren landscape battered by nature, today there is extra menace: so many eyes, in person and around the world, are on the player’s back as he takes cautious aim.
Moreover, a media centre colleague returned from a recce to the site early in the first round and marvelled at the extent to which “television just doesn’t do the size of that hole justice. It’s tiny.”
It might be small in size, but it is enormous in significance, and yet perhaps it is a hole that messes with the mind even more than the card. By the end of the week, the field average score was 3.160, which actually ranked it as the second-easiest par-3 on the course. Yet, only one other hole, the par-4 11th, produced more scores of bogey or worse.
Not surprisingly, the devilish nature of a short par-3 was a hot topic all last week on both sides of the ropes. Fans loved the theatre, and so, too, did the players.
“It’s refreshing,” said eventual champion Xander Schauffele, whose path to the Claret Jug certainly was helped by his play at the 8th: three birdies and a par. “Most of the par-3s we play are 255 yards. It’s cool to have a hole that’s super scary and so short.”
“I’ve never played a bad par-3 that’s 120 yards,” Justin Thomas said. “And I would double down by saying all the worst par-3s in the world are the long ones.”
Tiger Woods, like the hole itself, kept it straightforward.
“Green, good; miss the green, bad,” he said. “It doesn’t get any more simple than that. You don’t need a 240-yard par-3 for it to be hard.”
E-MAIL MATT
Top: A double bogey at the par-3 eighth in the third round helps derail Shane Lowry's bid for the Claret Jug.
Stuart Franklin, R&A via Getty Image
