Turnberry Ailsa Course: Hole 17 Lang Whang

The 2009 Open Championship:

17th hole - Lang Whang, 559 yards, par 5

The seventeenth is the only real hole on the golf course that substantially rewards the longer hitter. It is a reasonably generous fairway, although semi blind. For the second shot if you can’t carry the two cross bunkers, which are 45 yards short of the green, you have to lay up but then the problem is that you then are going to have to lay up at the bottom of the hill leaving a blind third shot of about 100 yards to the pin. Anybody laying up is actually going to be happy if they are making a par, whilst players who carry the bunker will have a great chance to make a birdie or eagle. This is a hole where a bit of power will make it a soft par 5 and a birdie and yet for the shorter hitter it is actually a difficult par 5 to have to lay up into a very awkward spot short of the treacherous bunkers.