The tee shot

You’ve been on North Berwick for the past two and a half hours and it’s an exhilarating experience.  The wind has picked up and now is directly in your face as you approach, “The Pit”, the par 4, 13th hole of 390 yards now playing a lot longer than that as you take the tee. The tee shot will have to be long enough to be either in the middle of the fairway or the left side of the fairway to set up the approach shot to the green.  There are two bunkers on the left side of the fairway, but I believe the wind is too strong to risk a tee shot in those bunkers.  The rough to the left side of these bunkers has to be avoided or there is no opportunity to go at the green.  The tee shot is perfect but not really long enough for me to approach this green.  The green is enclosed by a five foot wall surrounding the green and daring you to cross it and hold this green.  Surveying the expanse of the hole, there is plenty of room to get something out there, but it presents a false sense of security.  The pit bunker on the left has to be avoided with its vertical walls bringing to mind Hell Bunker at the Old Course at St. Andrews and perhaps the “devil’s asshole” at Pine Valley.  There is no heroic outcome from this bunker as punishment is delivered unevenly as you generally have to punch out sideways or backwards.  Pit bunker delivers a psychological blow as a decent tee shot ends up as a par disabling effort.

The wall has nothing to do with the golf course and its architecture.  The wall is a feature of the agricultural use of the land that was used for animal grazing, segregation of agricultural crops and animal habitats.  The wall stands in deference to the prime use of land and now is present to shape the mental acuity of the golfer attempting to hit the 13th green in regulation.  The custodians of the course saw no reason to remove the wall and merely incorporated it into the design of the hole.  A simple stone wall–weathered over the years by the elements and proximity to the sea-simply becomes a psychological and tactical challenge for the player to deal with integrated into the basic identity of the hole.  The wall differentiates the hole without any effort from the course architect–a freebee delivered by agricultural history.

The green is large but horizontally large and not very deep so that an aggressive shot at the hole will probably not hold and head for the scrub in the back of the green.  My playing companions all hit terrific tee shots with about 145 yards to the green.  The wall was not going to be in play for them, but club selection and execution were far from making this an easy shot.  All three of them ended up airmailing the green ending in the thick spinach over the green, leaving them with very difficult chip shots.  They would all eventually make bogey from these positions.  Players that really fly the green tend to pay a visit to the beach along the Firth of Forth, whereby a chip shot through beach sand has to cover the spinach approaching the green and the wall itself.  For me, I surmised that 170 yard shot over the wall to the green against the wind was not in my bag so I decided to take a 9  iron and layup to about 85 yards.  A flick of the gap wedge to seven feet rewarded me for a par on what was the most interesting holes I have ever played.  The Pit is yet another notch on the board that makes North Berwick so special.

The Pit is yet another example of the mystique of North Berwick–seemingly charming but nevertheless severe–the golfer is mystified with its beauty surrounded by the sea and the untamed winds that affect the entire environment.  The hole speaks to its history and unaffected by anything presented in the modern game–it almost speaks softly and says, “Bring it on” baffling both daily fee player and professional alike.  The hole does not overwhelm, it simply provides clarity that the player has to mesh his skill and attitude, and what the course yields in negotiation.  You simply accept what happens as golf is reduced to its elemental form of land, wind, human judgment and the consequences of that integrated result.