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It is human nature to want the puzzles and problems we deal with to conform to a set of rules. But the most interesting problems tend to escape whatever box we try to place them in.
If every golf hole is a puzzle, then the Road Hole - the 17th at the Old Course at St. Andrews - smashes that box to pieces. It thumbs its nose at multiple conventions of golf design at once.
Modern architects don't exactly go looking for opportunities to force golfers to tee off over a wall - not to mention a corner of a luxury hotel - to a blind, angled fairway. Yet it the first of the Road Hole's defining characteristics.
Today's architects would never put a green next to a paved path if they could help it. Yet Old Station Road sits just a few feet off the entire right edge of the Road green.
Speaking of the putting surface, today's architects would be reticent to build one that repels shots from seemingly all angles like the Road green does, especially as firm as links turf can be. But not only is the Road green fortified and pushed up with an awkward shape, one of the world's deepest bunkers, beyond escape for some golfers (another conventional architecture no-no), sits smack in front of it.
This list of rebellions marks the Road as one of the hardest golf holes in the world...especially relative to its par of 4.
And that's where the bother begins.
A brief history of "par" and its effect on golf course design
The concept of par is actually a relatively recent development. Though it, along with "bogey," was used informally to approximate expected scores around various courses by professional players since 1870, it wasn't until 1911 that the USGA codified the concept of par in the Rules of Golf as "the score that an expert player would be expected to make for a given hole," with guidelines as to what length of hole might correspond to which par. The maximum par 4 yardage was 425 yards until 1917, when it was bumped up to 445 yards. The last time the USGA changed its par/length standards was 1956, when par 4s were said to be holes that measured from 251 to 470 yards. Just watch the PGA Tour and you'll know that today's par 4s can surge past 500 yards.
Though things have been done differently across the Atlantic until the last several years, the Road Hole's own relationship to par has been fluid. Not only does the hole predate any widespread use of the standard, it actually was regarded as a par-5 hole until at least the 1930s and possibly as late as the 1960s, according to a Shell's Wonderful World of Golf match. Lee Trevino, who won the 1971 and 1972 Open Championships, said of the Road Hole, "I got no pride on the hole. It's a par-5 and I play it that way. A four is a birdie."
So is the 17th hole at The Old Course a par 4 or a par 5?
Here is the golf hole; play it any way you please.
In addition to an elegant summation of golf course architecture in general, this is a poignant comment on the concept of par. Practically all of Ross' best courses have their share of what architecture geeks call "half-par" holes. In other words, through a combination of length and sternness of challenge, they don't fit squarely into golfers' expectations about how a par 3, 4 or 5 should be. Ross was a master builder of holes in the 210- to 250-yard range that might read on a scorecard as par 3s, but just about any golfer would not be upset to walk off their greens having made a 4. He also built several cracking longer holes, where golfers would be looking to turn a 5 into a 4 whenever possible (though many of these holes have had to be altered to maintain their intent amid golf equipment's technological advances).
Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C., which now hosts the PGA Tour's regular-season-ending Wyndham Championship, is a great example of the half-par concept. Lee Trevino once called it the best collection of 18 par 4s he'd ever seen; the course's par 5s are on the shorter and easier side, while its four par 3s can wreck a golfer's scorecard - even the short 16th (just ask Russell Henley after this year's Wyndham Championship).
Part of the reason why the post-World War II era of golf course design (about 1948 to 1995) was less dynamic than those which preceded or followed it is that courses became a bit more formulaic as a response to the exploding popularity of the game and its rapid worldwide development. Legions of par-72 courses with symmetrical layouts of 4 par 3s, 10 par 4s and 4 par 5s tended to keep things neat tidy and, oftentimes, a bit dull. Half-par holes like the Road Hole fell out of style. Just look at a scorecard from a course from this era and you're likely to see relatively little variety in the distance of holes of each par.
In recent years, architects have revisited the classic era, with some more new and renovated courses featuring holes that, like the 17th at The Old Course, challenge the concept of par. Increasing interest in match play has helped stoke this embrace of potential awkwardness.
One course that leans into this concept is The Match at PGA National Resort, where architect Andy Staples fashioned out of the resort's old and tired Squire Course a novel concept that consciously sets aside par altogether. The course is meant to serve as a platform for match play - stroke play is kindly forbidden - and as such, par is truly irrelevant.
Holes 15 and 16 at The Match are particularly par-agnostic. The former stretches to about 440 yards, with cross bunkering that encourages most golfers to hit less than driver off the tee, making it play a bit longer. The latter can play up to 250 yards, with a pedestal green that rejects aerial attacks, making it too severe to fit the typical mold of a par 3 but also short of typical minimum par 4 length. It seems radical but it simply reiterates Donald Ross' point: the object of the game is to get the ball in the cup in as few strokes as possible, period. It's up to the golfer to figure out how.
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