SOUTHPORT, England — These are all the shots on Royal Birkdale’s reachable 321-yard par 4, 5th hole on Friday.
If you look closely you can see two different strategies emerge.
Your browser does not support the video tag. Option 1: Lay back
The ones on the left are the players who laid up.
These guys tended to tee up on the left side of the tee box, and if you chose this route you needed to hit an iron that rolled out no more than about 230 yards. Because that’s where a bunker and ridge are.
Do that and you’ve got about a 110 yard wedge shot into the green.
Matt Wallace was among that crowd. He explained his reasoning:
“There was less wind helping. The traps were kind of like all that I could see with where my mini was going to go, and it’s not driver there because driver is just going to go long. It’s going to land on the green basically for me. In that moment I was like: ‘this is an easy pin to get at from a 7-iron, wedge, and I focused on hitting a great 7-iron, then I had a perfect gripped-down gap wedge to about flag high that I could be aggressive with it straight downwind.”
Option two is to attempt to cut the corner with a driver or mini-driver. If you go that route, you have to carry it at least 289 yards to clear the hazard and group of pot bunkers. Which was a stretch today because the 5th was into the wind. Do that and you’ll be greenside.
Blow it too far right, as Bryson DeChambeau did (the furthest right line on the graphic) and you’ll be in the long grass. It’s how Bryson made his only bogey on the front nine on Friday.
A short hole which requires your full focus.
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