This is a brief follow-up to an earlier post on my 2022 Open Championship replay. It provides a statistical overview of how Birthplace played over the course of four rounds (256 holes) under mostly favorable conditions with different pin placements. It also highlights some of the challenges of playing Birthplace.
A Round-By-Round Statistical Recap of the Replay
Wind had very little effect on the round-by-round scores. Average scores increased slightly in Rounds 3 and 4 due to the need for additional shot-making to take on more difficult pin placements. The fact that greens-in-regulation declined in the latter two rounds, yet putts per round stayed about the same or went up a bit, would indicate pin 6 and 4 hole locations put more stress on the short game. They both have a few more hole locations at the edge of greens, well away from the centerline and sometimes near a hazard, which may account for the differences.
The Challenges of Playing Birthplace
With everyone’s shots rolling out on the fairways, the entire field had no issues with length. Birthplace has no deep rough to speak of and no trees whatsoever. The whin bushes present some risk, yet a player could avoid that risk by playing away from them on most holes.
In many cases, Birthplace offers a chance to bail out well left on tee shots. With lengthy rolls on Birthplace’s shorter tract, the reward for aiming way left was a near certain shot in the fairway well away from hazards at the minimal cost of a somewhat longer approach from a good lie.
Getting in deep fairway bunkers was more a matter of bad luck than bad planning. With the exception of Cameron Smith’s bunker breakdown (described in the last post) and a few other players, most of the field got out unscathed except for the 5-iron club restriction.
Sand around the green proved to be more problematic. K. H. Lee provided an example of why the sand save rate hovered around 30 percent for the replay. On the ‘road’ hole, number 17, Lee’s tee shot found the fairway. Unfortunately, his next shot to the green landed into the deep bunker left of the green.
His first swing left him in the bunker. His second shot flew across the road and out of bounds. After dropping in the bunker, he was now laying 5. Unfortunately, he couldn’t escape the bunker on his sixth swing. With the next attempt, he got out and managed to keep the ball on the green. Mercifully, Lee one-putted for an 8 to finish out the hole.
While Lee’s luck was particularly bad, many others took more than one stroke to escape from these green-side bunkers. Or they escaped the trap, yet missed the green altogether. Or they found the green, then failed to one-putt.