Is it really as hard as it looks?

The Road Hole bunker is known as one of the most difficult tests in golf, but how much of a test does it really present? I drilled into the stats to find out…

According to Shot Scope data only 15% of amateurs get up and down from the Road Hole bunker. Even worse, more than half of players who end up in one of golf’s most famous traps walk away with a double bogey or worse.

So how do the pros stack up against this?

The Road Hole bunker at The Open: Day 1

Only 14 players hit it in the Road Hole bunker during Thursday’s opening round. The biggest influencer on scoring was ball location. Both Si Woo Kim and Corey Connors had to hit their initial shot sideways to have a chance of reaching the putting surface.

Kim was unable to escape with his first attempt, but a touch of class followed to help him salvage par…

According to Shot Scope data, less than 1% of players hole out from the trap, Kim was one of the lucky ones.

Overall, the scoring average from the Road Hole bunker was 4.64 for the opening round, 0.24 shots higher than the field average for the hole.

So far 42.86% of players have got up and down from the Road Hole bunker. That means the pros are getting up and down nearly three times more than us amateurs.

Are you better missing the green long?

It is tempting to take the front trap completely out of play by taking an extra club and making sure your ball is long. But then you’re presented with a completely different problem. The road.

Both the path and the road at the back of the green are in play, and statistically you are much worse off here than in the front trap. It certainly caught Sergio Garcia out on Thursday.

It wasn’t just Sergio who made this mistake. Seven golfers ended up playing off the path or the road on 17. Their average score for the hole? A whopping 6.28.

So, if any players in contention at the weekend are reading this, statistically playing short of the pin is much more likely to reap a reward.

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