The bunker that guards the right side of the 12th fairway at Sunningdale is bogey territory...or worse.
From time to time, I will share photos, diagrams and observations here about holes that are rated the #1 handicap on their courses.
I would have been quite content on a recent first trip to Scotland to have played the Old Course at St. Andrews and just the few other terrific links layouts we played. The Old Course met every expectation I had in terms of atmosphere and nostalgia. The golf course was a delight, a mix of the familiar (from having watched the Open
Championship on television and skimmed golfing picture books) and all the inherent atmosphere of where the game began. During that same week, our rounds at Elie, Lundin and Crail Links, as well as a surprisingly challenging round at Scottscraig, the world's 13th oldest course, were all so good that I could have stuck the golf bag in its travel container and gone happily on to London for a week of relaxation with the family.
But as luck would have it, golf had been arranged for my son Tim and me at Sunningdale, a belated birthday present for Tim from his English aunt (my sister). After all the golf in Scotland, I didn't expect the famed Sunningdale to be an improvement, certainly not on the Old Course.
Boy, was I wrong. The Willie Park Jr. course, which I wrote about previously here, was wondrous in all regards -- condition, layout, atmosphere on and off the course, everything. I didn't play well and I didn't care. Standing over my ball and looking down each fairway or over the rising slopes in front of the greens, I thought how great it would be to be a professional golfer with the ability -- and chutzpah -- to stare down the forced carries and swirling putts, and to linger for an exquisite moment or two deciding whether a lofted shot or bump and run was the best way to approach one of Mr. Park's sloping greens.
The toughest hole at Sunningdale's Old Course, the par 4, 404-yard 12th, wraps all the course's challenges into one big present for those with the stiffest of upper lips. As you stand on the tee, you are faced with a thinking man's choice; aim down the right side and chance landing at the base of the swale just into the rough about 230 yards out or worse, the yawning steep bunker another 20 yards along; or go the short way down the left and face the prospect of a long approach from a kidney-shaped bunker, also about 230 yards from the tee. If left is the choice, then the approach must fly a series of five bunkers that split the middle of the fairway diagonally, like a group of armadillos marching down a Texas highway. For good measure, a bunker at front left makes any safe play short of the green a big risk. Just to add to the all-or-nothing-at-all nature of the approach shot, the green is elevated, with significant runoff on all sides.
Once on the green, hopefully in no more than three shots, the sloping is not as severe as on some of the other surfaces on the course, the only "break" you get on this terrific hole.
The best approach to the well-protected, elevated 12th green is from the center of the fairway. (Now there's a revelation!)