This is the famous hole where Gene Sarazen holed his second shot in 1935. They were already handing out the prizes in the clubhouse because he had no chance of winning. Then, suddenly, he got this albatross two on a par five and had a couple more birdies and won the title. So that hole immediately went into folklore.
It has been altered tremendously over the years. You drive over a ridge, then the fairway runs down and they've put in lots of little humps there. If you're lucky, you can scoot off the top of one of them and gain another 40 yards or so. Failing that, you can land in the hollow and your ball stops within two or three steps.
The trees down the left encroach on the fairway, so a long hitter down the left side can be blocked out. This was another hole, when I first went there in the late 1950s, where I couldn't believe that anyone, let alone Sarazen, had reached it in two. Of course the hole has been lengthened over the years, but the grass has been cut tighter so the ball rolls more.
But when you look at the green you've got this pond in front and this very severe slope which is cut like a baby's bottom it's so smooth. Anything up on the green that's a little bit short, or has too much backspin, will come right back and there's nothing on God's earth you can do about it. It can come back about 20 yards, which I think is a bit unfair.
There's room at the back of the green but if you go too far you can end up in the pond in front of the 16th tee. Then chipping back, if you give it a bit too much, you are faced with the problem of skipping past the flag again and maybe ending up in the water at the front of the green. It is an extraordinarily difficult hole where we've seen many dramas.
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