Pay hazards

Donald Steel, one of Britain's top architects, put Royal St. George's formidable bunkers back into play

By DEREK LAWRENSON
Contributing writer, GOLF MAGAZINE

Sixteen years ago, Sandy Lyle becalmed a tempest in the third round of the British Open at Muirfield using nothing more than a 1-iron off the tee, and Jack Nicklaus, playing behind him, shook his head in admiration.

Donald Steel also shook his head, but in disbelief. Steel's respect for Lyle's skill was overwhelmed by the revelation that it was possible to play a British Open course without using woods. A prominent course designer who doubles as a journalist, Steel wrote, "Vast sums are being spent on research by the best brains to dredge out a few extra yards and we are all flattered by the results. But enough is enough. Continued unchecked, the game is bound to suffer even more than it has."

Steel, 65, has continued the assault ever since. Like many commentators, he thinks the R&A, which regulates equipment along with the USGA, has let advances in technology get beyond it and that the "courses are our game, and they are being killed off."

But what distinguishes Steel's criticism is not simply that he was first to sound the alarm, but that it comes from within: He has been a member of the R&A for more than 40 years.

How did the club react? Did members rebuke one of their own for breaking ranks? Far from it. When it came to revisions to Royal St George's in preparation for this year's Open, the R&A asked Steel two years ago to ensure that this was not a course anyone could play with just irons.

Steel would prefer that such a redesign not be necessary. But given the opportunity on one of the few courses on the rota with extra land, he made the most dramatic changes to any Open venue in recent history, adding 246 yards. "The important thing was to maintain the integrity of Royal St George's and bring some bunkers back into play," says Steel.

Steel acknowledges that St. George's always has been the "least regarded" Open course, particularly by the American contingent. Under normal conditions, the vastly undulating fairways simply throw off a good drive into light, wispy rough. Under Open conditions, the same good drive can finish in deep stuff that has been left untended, leaving no shot to the green. This can be infuriating for anyone -- Americans, mostly -- brought up to believe tee shots headed for the middle of the fairway should finish there.

Nevertheless, after a decade of equipment advancements since the last St George's Open a decade ago, the R&A wondered whether the course would stand up, particularly given how winner Greg Norman shredded it with a final-round 64. So in addition to accounting for increases in players' distances, Steel focused on bringing back into play the hazards that already had been rendered impotent in 1993.

A classic example is the 4th hole. Here, a bunker so steep you would need crampons to scale it guards the right side of the fairway. At least it did until about 10 years ago, when it was only in play if you had a pail and shovel. Its menace has been restored by a new back tee, creating a 250-yard carry into the prevailing wind, playing even longer given the height of the bunker.

"It has always been one of the most recognizable hazards in Open Championship golf," says Steel, "and it was important that it was not seen merely as decoration."

The new tee turned the hole from a 468-yard par 4 to a 497-yard par 5. The 4th will play easier relative to par -- provided you don't drive the ball in the bunker, in which case a 5 will be good.

Steel also made major changes to the 13th and 14th holes. The tee of the par-4 13th used to be to the left of the 12th green; now the tee is 30 yards to the right and begins a sharply defined, 459-yard, left-to-right hole.

The par-5 14th features one of the most difficult drives in links golf; in 1993, Bernhard Langer's ball finished on the wrong side of the out-of-bounds fence that lines the right side to knock him out of contention. A creek called the Suez Canal, which crosses the fairway at just over 300 yards from the tee, will be in play on a benign day.

But the big difference comes with the second shot, to a green 43 yards farther away, making the hole play at 550 yards. Says Steel, "Again, we have brought back into play some hazards, namely a cluster of bunkers 50 yards short of the green. Players are going to have to think whether they take them on and go for the green in two, or play short."

Steel made changes to nine holes in all, with eight new tees, boosting the total yardage to 7,106. Par shifts from 70 to 71 because of the change on the 4th hole. There are no new bunkers, but old ones have been brought back into play.

Steel recently wrote that some of the integrity of links golf had been removed because many of the manly Open par 4s that required drives and 2-irons for players even as recently as Tom Watson's era were now 3-woods and 8-irons.

Do his revisions restore the balance? "On a windy day a top links course can cope, as we saw during the third round last year at Muirfield, when even Tiger Woods failed to break 80," says Steel. "The challenge is to give a course some teeth in benign weather, so it still requires a lot of thought. That was what we were trying for at St George's, and I think we have succeeded."

Derek Lawrenson is golf correspondent for the Daily Mail in the U.K.