The Open 2024: Troon's fearsome holes that have Tiger Woods and Co worried

The three-time Claret Jug winner is teeing up there for the third time, having tackled it on the first occasion when Justin Leonard won in 1997 before returning in 2004, when another of his compatriots, Todd Hamilton, used his hybrid club to devastating effect to spring a surprise in the sport’s oldest major. There could even have been a sparkle in his eye as he recalled the first of those appearances at the venue that is flanked by the Firth of Clyde on one side and the Glasgow to Ayr railway line on the other.

“I got a chance to play with Tom Weiskopf in his last practice round,” he said of the 1973 winner here. “That was neat for him to take me back to some of his holes and how he played them, and I obviously gave him some stick, and he's giving me stick, like we always do. We had a wonderful time playing just a wonderful practice round.”

Injured at the time, Woods missed out in 2016, when Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson fought out their epic battle over the weekend, but he’s made it this time and, as always seems to be the case when it comes to this event, the 15-time major winner is genuinely excited to be playing golf in its purest form.

“I loved them both,” he said of those two previous Troon tee ups. “It's a lot longer golf course. A few added bunkers here and there. Overall, it's one of those courses where you're going to get it on one of the nines. It's either going out it's going to be downwind, or coming home it's going to be into the wind or vice versa. Half of the holes are going to be playing really difficult, and the other ones are definitely gettable.”

After a few detours in terms of topics, he was later asked to pick out what he felt were green light holes and ones that definitely weren’t. “The first couple holes starting out are pretty simple, straightforward. The two par 5s on the front nine - the fourth and sixth - are gettable and seven is one of those holes that I think you can go for it if you want to. You can drive it down there. You get the right wind, you can almost drive it on the green.

“Then coming home, coming home is no joke. You've got some tough tee shots coming home. You've got to hit some good shots. Depends what 16 is doing with the wind. You can get it whistling into the wind, it's a three-shot hole no matter what. Or, if the wind lays down, you can get there in two. You've just got to be careful with the burn coming across the fairway.

“Other than that, you'll see a lot of the guys lay up to the same spots. There will be occasional areas where, with the right wind conditions, guys can be aggressive, especially some of the longer hitters. They can be aggressive. It does allow for that. But, in general, if we get the winds we're forecasted, I think we're all going to be playing from about the same areas.”

It goes without saying, of course, that the Postage Stamp is the best-known hole at this particular Open venue an even a grizzled veteran like this correspondent sat in the room smiling as one of the game’s greatest-ever players talked about how a flick at the shortest hole on any of the courses used by The R&A for this event stirs an unmatched feeling of sheer dread.

“I hit 9-iron and a pitching wedge the last two times I played it,” said Woods. "I've hit as much as a 7-iron. But it's a very simple hole; just hit the ball on the green. That's it. Green good, miss green bad. It doesn't get any more simple than that. You don't need a 240-yard par-3 for it to be hard.”

For many, the par-4 11th, which has the aforementioned railway line on one side of the fairway and a bank of gorse on the other, is one of the toughest tee shots in major golf and Bryson DeChambeau, for one, wouldn’t disagree with that opinion.

“It's a very difficult hole,” observed the US Open champion. “If the wind picks up, it may be driver. There are times where it has to be driver. You can't hit 3-wood or 5-wood because that would be just too short. So there are times where you may be forced to hit driver, and you've just got to suck it up and hit a good drive.”

In truth, even for the top players, it’s tough test after tough test on the back nine into a headwind in particular but a crosswind as well, with the big-hitting DeChambeau paying those stretch of holes what was possibly the ultimate tribute when he was asked how he planned to overpower it.

“I don't think it's possible to overpower it,” he admitted. “There's too many hazards around the fairways, even in the bunkers. You've got to be very strategic out here. I've got to hunker down and play a strategic game out there this week.

"Look, I've played well on strategic golf courses in the past, whether it be RBC Heritage, I've played well there in the past. Valderrama, I played pretty well. I had two top 10s there, finished second last year and ninth this year. Those are pretty strategic golf courses and very placement-oriented golf courses. So I think I'm pretty solid at it, but overpowering this golf course, I don't know if it's possible.”