I've got to wonder if golf's already wobbly foundation, stressed thin by weird handicaps and the maddening geometry of bunkers, can handle another dose of historical weirdness. This year's Open at the rather grand Royal Birkdale has already coughed up a score – an 8-under 62 – that two different blokes, Sam Burns and Lucas Herbert, have managed in the same darn round. Honestly, it's like finding two identical Fabergé eggs on a Tuesday; not impossible, but makes you squint.
It feels like ages since The Open actually needed a playoff. Seriously, since 1986, the R&A has been fiddling with its extra-hole rules with the kind of frantic energy usually reserved for people rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We’ve gone from a leisurely 36-hole slog to a brisk 18, then a four-hole aggregate, and most recently, a quick three-hole skirmish. Yet, the heavens (or maybe just the scoreboards) have stubbornly refused to serve up any tie-breaking drama.
But if, and it's a big "if," the golfing deities decide a decider is in order, the chosen battleground will be a rather spiffy little trio of holes: the 14th, 15th, and 18th. This carefully selected lineup promises a good old-fashioned test of mettle, featuring a par-5, a par-3, and a finishing par-4. It’s a mini-odyssey designed to sort the birdie-makers from the bogey-droppers.
The 14th, a rather lengthy par-5, practically dares you with its strategically placed sand traps, making even the most confident tee shot pause and consider its life choices. While theoretically reachable in two, the green’s remarkable talent for repelling anything with a bit too much zip suggests that a sensible layup might be the smarter play. Even the lads who shot those sensational 62s happily took pars here, a gentle nod to the fact that history is written in stone, but birdies are as fleeting as a good golf swing.
Then comes the 15th, a par-3 that, thanks to a prevailing downwind breeze, struts around with a defiant air. Despite a putting surface that looks deceptively accommodating, its pronounced front-to-back slope has a nasty habit of funneling every errant shot straight into trouble. With bunkers guarding its left and a treacherous run-off to its right, a par here would be met with the kind of quiet relief usually reserved for surviving a tax audit.
Finally, the re-imagined 18th, a hole whose complexity has been reshaped by a relocated tee, now offers a more direct, though decidedly sand-filled, assault towards the clubhouse. The old dogleg is gone, but the fairway's newfound sandy embrace means you might want to ditch the driver and opt for a more considered approach shot, lest you become another cautionary tale buried six feet under the sand. If the aggregate score is still tied after these three trials, the players will face the exquisite torture of infinite sudden-death play on this very hole, which sounds about as fun as Sisyphus’s day job.