Royal Troon: Inside the Par-3 Postage Stamp

Let’s take a closer look at the most famous hole at Royal Troon: The Postage Stamp.

The par-3 eighth hole at Royal Troon GC, the site of this year’s Open Championship, has been called one of the best par 3s in golf by many.

“I’m not a massive fan of long par-3s, really long par-3s. I think the best par-3s in the world are generally all pretty short,” Lee Westwood said several years ago at the PGA Championship. He said it was a tie between the 12th at Augusta, the Postage Stamp and the seventh at Pebble Beach for the title of the best in golf.

Henrik Stenson, who played a round at Royal Troon recently, talked to the media about the Postage Stamp hole and said he hit a “little dinky 8-iron” during practice.

“My personal opinion is that most of the good par 3s in golf, they are probably ranging between, yeah, 123 to maybe 180 yards, something like that,” Stenson added.

He thinks the long par 3s aren’t as exciting as short ones for golf fans.

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“On these little ones, 17 at Sawgrass, the Postage Stamp, you hit a good one shot, you make a two,” he said. “You hit a bad one, you can walk away with a five. You can have a three-shot swing on a pitching wedge.”

Colin Montgomerie, in the area for last week’s Scottish Open, also played a practice round at Royal Troon.

“I went out and the first seven holes are all relatively downwind and I think, well, okay, I can do this, this is okay,” he began. “And then you get into the eighth hole and it’s the first hole that turns into the wind, so it’s the first shot of the day in reverse. It was playing a 6-iron on Sunday, 120 yards’ worth, and very, very different shot all together. It’s amazing.”

He said it proves that a par 3 doesn’t have to be long to be tough or interesting.

“It does bring to mind that the great par 3s in the world of golf, really, are Pebble Beach’s 7th, you’ve got the 12th at Augusta, and you’ve got the 8th at Royal Troon, and not one is over 150 yards,” he noted.

But just because it’s a short hole doesn’t mean it’s easy. Though miniature in distance, the Postage Stamp has had monstrous effects on the scores of some great players, as well as a few who are nearly unknown, like Herman Tissies.

At the 1950 Open Championship at Royal Troon, Tissies took 15 strokes to play the Postage Stamp. The Telegraph reported that he visited every bunker on the hole on the way to five times par.

It took him three shots to get into the first bunker. Then it was five more shots to get out of it and into the second bunker. From there, he needed two more strokes to get into bunker number three and two more to get out. He then three-putted for the 15.

In 1997, Tiger Woods was in contention until he wrestled with the Postage Stamp on Saturday. It extracted a six, and Justin Leonard went on to win the championship.

In 1989, Greg Norman shot a final round 64 to get into a playoff. His only dropped shot came at the Postage Stamp. In the playoff, Norman lost to Mark Calcavecchia.

Walter Hagen posted a five on the hole and lost the Open Championship by a shot in 1923. Arthur G. Havers won.

But it’s not all bad luck. Tom Weiskopf birdied the hole on the way to a Royal Troon victory in 1973.

And the late Gene Sarazen, at age 71, might have provided the best Postage Stamp memory of all. Playing in celebration of the 50th anniversary of his first Open Championship win, he holed out his tee shot in one round and holed out from the bunker in the other round of the first two days. All told, it took him three strokes to play the whole twice.

“Even in the practice round, you stand up there, and it’s a potential card-wrecker and always was and always will be,” Montgomerie said.

“If you’re kind of a fan that wants to see carnage, I can highly recommend going out to that 8th hole and sitting in that grandstand on a difficult day, because that hole will cause a lot of problems for sure,” Stenson concluded.

The Postage Stamp hole was originally called Ailsa because of the view of the eponymous rocky outcropping in the Firth of Clyde. But Royal Troon’s own web page said it became known as the Postage Stamp when a writer named William Park coined the phrase to describe it.

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