The wind at the Postage Stamp is your enemy. Small target, tiny margin for error. Seven or eight yards of width to hit into and accuracy and nerve required. It’s terrific golf architecture, demanding course management rather than power, shot shape rather than a licence to bomb.
“Challenging a player for precision as opposed to solely length is a lost art,” said Phil Mickelson, who came mightily close to winning a second Open here in 2016. “The Postage Stamp is a perfect example of how you can challenge the best players in the world. I would love to see that implemented more.”
Xander Schauffele, who broke his major duck at May’s US PGA Championship, smiled when talking about it on Tuesday. “It’s refreshing,” he said. “It’s really hard. I played it for the first time today, so it’s pretty fresh in my mind.
“Most of the (par three) holes we play are 255 yards. It’s kind of cool to have a hole that’s super scary that is that short, and I think it’s going to provide a lot of entertainment if that wind picks up off the left. It’s more fun than playing a 250-yard hole with no wind, but it’s probably harder.”
Every Open at Troon seems to add another layer to the story of the Postage Stamp.
In 1950, it was Hermann Tissies, the German amateur, who took 12 shots to find the putting surface then took three more to complete the hole. Poor Hermann was never heard of again.
“It’s a simple hole but it doesn’t take much of a mistake to pay a severe price,” said Woods. The great man is living proof of that. In 1997, playing in only his third major as a professional and after shooting 64 in his third round, Woods came to grief at the Postage Stamp. He found sand and took six. The same year, the Englishman Steve Bottomley took seven on day one and 10 on day two.
In practice in 2016, Rory McIlroy said it took him “five or six goes” to get out of one of the bunkers. Henrik Stenson, the stunning winner, had a similar fate in a warm-up that year. He eventually kicked it out.
“I get frustrated sometimes when the solution to distance is just making holes further and further,” said world number one Scottie Scheffler.
“Number eight is a good little way to almost step back in time and control your ball a bit more. You don’t have to make a par three 230 yards to make it a great hole. It can be 120 yards. Like 12 at Augusta and 17 at Sawgrass, the best par threes in the world are short par threes.
“It leaves a lot of opportunity for you to hit a shot. If I don’t hit the green on eight, it’s most likely going to be a bogey unless you’re in the front of the green. If you hit it in the left bunker you’re going to be glad to be making a bogey because it’s probably going to plug.
“Great short holes like that are fun. It’s an underrated skill for guys nowadays to be able to control your ball and it’s something we need to encourage in our game, not just building golf courses longer and longer.”
Colin Montgomerie, a local boy who went on to achieve great things in the game, once spoke about the genius of of the Postage Stamp.
“Even in a practice round you stand up there and it’s a potential card-wrecker,” he said. “Always was and always will be. It’s amazing how one can design a course back in the 1870s and it still stands the test of time today. Fantastic. Nearly 150 years old and it can still generate excitement and drama.”
Can and will. There are so many unknowns about where the Claret Jug is heading on Sunday but the Postage Stamp’s capacity to make it interesting is as relevant now as it ever was.