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Five of the Best: Old Course bunkers

The Old Course at St Andrews has 112 bunkers. They range in size from ‘barely big enough to accommodate an angry golfer and their wedge’ to ‘almost as big as a football field’.

These sand traps, perhaps more than any other feature, define the challenge of the Old Course. Here the College Links Golf team picks five which stand out:

1: Strath

The 11th is one of the toughest par threes on the Open Championship rota and this vicious little pot bunker is its chief protector. On tournament Sundays, the hole is usually hidden behind this small trap. Find it from the tee and problems abound. Any attempt to get cute by only just clearing the hazard and the ball could end up back in the sand – maybe even in your footmark. Play safe and the dramatic hollows and borrows of the shared 7/11 green complex could sweep your ball away and leave a putt of 30 yards or more. It’s named after David Strath, a renowned St Andrews golfer who had more than his fair share of encounters with this nasty little bunker, poor fellow.

2: Hell

The motto for Hell bunker should be ‘once bitten, twice shy’. In favorable conditions this enormous expanse, which eats into the fairway of the par five 14th, does not come into play for most golfers. But when considering a second shot into the wind, or from a poor lie, the menace is revealed. And once a player has experienced the particular difficulties it presents, playing the 14th never feels as straightforward again. If the ball lands anywhere near Hell’s almost vertical face, forward progress is impossible and a splash out to the side, or even sometimes to a shallower part of the bunker, is the only option. Hell indeed.

3: Cartgate

The shared 3rd/15th green at the Old Course is one of the biggest putting surfaces in world golf, and the sweeping Cartgate bunker is equally impressive in scale. It guards the front-left approach to the short par four 3rd and is also lying in wait for any errant approach that runs through the back of the 15th. It is shaped, somewhat appropriately, like a frowning mouth and more than a few golfers have fallen victim to a double-whammy here by finding the sand with their approaches to both the 3rd and 15th during the course of a single round.

4: Shell

The Shell bunker is the dominant feature of the short par four 7th. A drive which finds the surrounding fairway leaves a straightforward pitch to a green. But any tee shot which finds its way into this tennis-court sized trap (and balls do somehow seem magically drawn towards it) can turn a potential birdie opportunity into a grim scrap for par, particularly if the ball is in the shadow of the steep, riveted bunker face.

5: Deacon Sime

A particularly horrible pot bunker situated in the left-side of the 16th fairway. The player may breathe a sigh of relief from the tee when their shot successfully avoids the highly visible Parson’s Nose bunkers, only to find it has trickled on into this tiny, hidden trap some 25 yards further down the fairway. The bunker measures barely two yards across, which means tricky stances are not just possible, but probable. Any player who does have to contort into an unusual position to try and manufacture a special recovery shot can expect golfers playing the shared 3rd fairway, or the neighboring Eden Course, to pause their own game and watch with interest. Memorable.

Bonus: Road

We decided not to include the Road bunker because of its widespread fame (or should that be infamy?) but, suffice to say, it remains the most testing trap of the lot. There’s a feeling of claustrophobia as the golfer steps into the impossibly steep-sided pit which is impossible to explain but unforgettable to experience. Once the 17th has been negotiated, safely or not, it’s possible to look back and admire the sheer audacity of a green wedged between a road on one side and the seemingly bottomless bunker on the other.