Treachery and high dudgeon at the 17th

Des Smyth speaks as a course designer as much as someone who has played on the European Tour for longer than most when, of the 17th hole at St Andrews Old Course, the famous "Road Hole", he says: "I don't think you'd be allowed to design it today."

Ironically, modern-day designers have sought to replicate it on courses as diverse as desert links in Nevada and parkland layouts in Sydney. What competitors in next week's British Open will get, however, is the real thing. Fearsome and intimidating for the players, a magnet to the macabre for the spectator. To say that the claret jug could be won and lost on this hole is no exaggeration.

History has a story to tell. Invariably, the tales are of the horror variety. As far back as 1891, John Ball, an English amateur defending the title, played almost every shot for the first 16 holes of his first round as a worthy favourite destined to retain his crown. Then he came to the 17th and took 11: he put his second shot over the road - an area that at the time was not out of bounds - and into a ditch. Despite one effort after another to move it, the ball stubbornly refused to budge and Ball, eventually, was forced to take a drop in the knowledge that the championship was already out of his grasp.

Six years earlier, in 1885, the leader Davie Ayton also took 11 - including five to get out of the Road Hole bunker - to lose by two strokes.

In more recent times, the stories have been no less gruesome. Tom Watson found himself with his back to the wall (literally) when finding the bunker in his 1984 encounter with Seve Ballesteros and dropped a crucial shot in the process. And, in 1978, Tommy Nakajima famously ran up a nine, not in itself remarkable until you appreciate that he putted into the bunker. From there, he took another four shots to find the green. Ever since the bunker is occasionally called the `Sands of Nakajima'.

"I still think it is a great hole, one capable of changing a golf tournament," says Smyth. "It is very, very difficult - and anything is liable to happen."

He should know. In the 1988 Dunhill Cup, Smyth's opponent Rodger Davis of Australia drove out of bounds there as Ireland went on to capture the team title for the first time.

Certainly, it has stood the challenge of time and, to many, it remains the most fearsome test in championship golf. Ben Crenshaw has remarked that the reason it is the toughest par four is because it is really a par five, while American course architect Desmond Muirhead has described it as "irrational, enigmatic", alluding also to the requirement of a good bounce as against a bad one from a player's tee-shot.

The thing is, the player doesn't see where his drive lands. Off the tee, a player is forced to hit a blind shot over the old railway sheds that are attached to the Old Course Hotel. Then, there is no margin for error on the approach, which is played to a green that runs at a vicious angle and has the ominous presence of the Road Hole bunker half-way down on the left. The green itself is raised some three feet high and, at the back, running parallel with the green, is the road which gives the hole its name.

"It is perhaps the most difficult par four in golf, especially with all the extra pressure of the British Open," concedes Costantino Rocca. "The last thing you want to do is end up in the bunker and, by trying to avoid it, you run the risk of ending up on the road."

Rocca knows what it is like to be in both places. In 1995, the last occasion that the Open was played on the Old Course, Rocca was one shot behind John Daly - already in the clubhouse - when playing the 17th. His approach went on to the road.

"I had practised the shot from the road in the days leading up to the Open, so I wasn't unprepared when my second shot ended up exactly there," he recalls. Rocca used his putter off the tarmac and the ball finished up four feet from the hole and he sank his par putt before, famously, going on to birdie the 18th by putting through the Valley of Sin and forcing a play-off.

In the play-off, however, Rocca was twodown heading down the 17th, the third playoff hole, when he put his approach into the Road Hole bunker and, with a mini-cam imbedded into the bunker for all the world to see, took three to get out, effectively handing the claret jug to Daly.

There are those who insist that the best way to play the hole is to treat it as a par four-and-a-half, to purposely leave the second shot short of the Road Bunker, but not directly on-line (the last thing a player wants is a pitch over that trap, a shot that Peter Thomson describes as "trying to play the piano in boxing gloves") and then chip-and-run and hope for a one-putt.

"I've seen just about everything happen on the 17th," admits Smyth. "It's a hole that I don't think you'd be allowed to design today, the type that only a lot of older courses can get away with. It's a bit like Ballybunion a few weeks ago, where you had players driving over greens, and only older courses have such unique qualities. You couldn't design a course that way today."

From the time that a player first walks onto the 17th tee-box, it is intimidating. "For a start," says Smyth, "you have a very difficult drive, right over the sheds. If you hit it in the rough, then you are faced with an automatic five. If you go for it, you're also inviting a bogey."

But Smyth would love to get the chance to take on that shot next week. As a player who isn't exempt into the championship, he must come through 36 holes of final qualifying - in his case at Leven Links - tomorrow and Monday if he is to take his place in the field.

"I'd dearly love to play," he says. A couple of weeks ago, in Ballybunion, Smyth remarked how some players his age couldn't wait for retirement. He is different: "I wish I was 20 years younger and that I could do it all over again."

There is something about St Andrews that tends to bring out the best in Irish players. Ireland has won two Dunhill Cups there and although recent British Opens on the course don't back up that theory - Darren Clarke and David Feherty, tied for 31st in 1995, and Eamonn Darcy, tied for 22nd in 1990, were the best of the Irish in the past two Opens there), Smyth believes there will be a strong Irish challenge.

"It's such a famous place, it gives everyone a buzz," he says. "The first time, there is a tremendous aura and while you are not in awe of the place on subsequent visits, it is still a very special feeling.

"I suspect that this year will see one of our top players - Darren (Clarke), Paul (McGinley) or Padraig (Harrington) - do really well. They've really put a lot into their preparations and are focused on doing well. The way that Padraig played in Pebble Beach has to give him tremendous confidence. Also, they have had the advantage of playing the course so often in recent years in Dunhill Cups. And they've all taken the week off in the run-up, so I'm hopeful that they'll do well," says Smyth.

Players who have competed in the Dunhill Cup since 1997 will also be familiar with the new tees which have lengthened the course to 7,115 yards, 172 yards longer than when the championship was played there in 1995. The new tees are at the third, sixth, 10th, 13th, 15th and 16th. The idea was to bring back into play bunkers which had been rendered obsolete by modern equipment.

Mark O'Meara, for one, didn't approve of the changes - "They don't play around with the Mona Lisa, do they?" he observed - but Michael Bonallack, former secretary of the R&A and this year's captain, counters: "Changes have been made to the Old Course since the dawn of time, and these new tees are simply taking into account what is happening in the game. Playing the course as it was meant to be played, with fairway bunkers in range instead of being irrelevant hazards, is surely a good thing."

Thing is, you can play the old course as often as you like, feel that you've built up a special relationship with it, and then it contrives to kick you in the teeth. "You can play the place a thousand times and still end up in a bunker you didn't know about," says Nick Faldo.

But one thing is certain, everyone walking up the 17th fairway knows about the Road Hole bunker. Decide to erase it from play, and the road comes into play. Next week, as many times before, it may well have an important role to play in the destination of the claret jug.