The Open Championship: Els Finds a First-class Delivery for the 8th

One of the joys of watching top-class golf is seeing some of the game's finest exponents getting into trouble. If you are fortunate you will witness brilliant par-saving recoveries, but if you are really lucky you might see one or two players humiliated in the manner of a weekend hacker.

And there are few places where that is more likely to happen than the Postage Stamp at Troon, a hole which is living proof that for the golfer small is not necessarily beautiful.

Measuring 123 yards from tee to green the par-three 8th is the shortest hole in championship golf, and with the Munros of Arran visible from the elevated tee it is also one of the most scenic. Just don't expect a player approaching the turn in the first round of the Open to appreciate it.

Not only is the hole short, the jelly-bean green is also tiny, 30 paces long and only a dozen wide, and surrounded by five cavernous bunkers, the most treacherous of which is known as the Coffin. Many a promising score has been buried in the shadow of its vertiginous face.

Add the regular distraction of aircraft climbing directly overhead from Prestwick airport and it is fair to say that players do not always relish playing the hole.

The paying punters, however, cannot get enough of it, and yesterday morning the grandstand next to the green was packed with people quietly hoping that, amid the brilliance, they might witness a car crash or two.

As the first group arrived in watery sunshine a little after 8am, mayhem seemed unlikely. The flag hung limply against a pin planted towards the left edge of the green at the base of a slope concealing a bunker, and, without the prevailing north-westerly as protection, conditions seemed set for low scoring.

The absence of gusts that can force a player to use a five-iron for a sand-wedge distance did not stop the 500 or so onlookers from hoping for disaster, though being predominantly Scottish they were too polite to show it. Nevertheless, there were subtle signs that the crowd were quietly baying for bogeys.

Wayward-looking tee shots were greeted with expectant murmurs of approval which turned into disappointed applause if the ball ended up on the green. When balls did disappear into the sand the groans of sympathy were of the pantomime variety; this was really what they had come to see.

Brad Faxon was first to pay the price for a wayward shot, collecting a four in the first group, and there followed a generous smattering of dropped shots amid the excellence that saw 129 of the 156 players record a three or better.

Nick Price was first to find the Coffin, and some in the stand were almost rubbing their hands with glee as he disappeared up to his shoulders in its depths. Thanks to a plugged lie he could only squirt the ball away from the flag towards the front edge of the green, leaving himself a 40-foot putt which he left short. Having arrived at two under he departed a shot worse off and with his sloping shoulders just a little more stooped.

Luke Donald suffered a similar fate after finding the back edge of the same bunker but he could perhaps be excused, given what had preceded his tee shot. Playing with Ernie Els, the young Englishman had to play immediately after the South African had brought the crowd to its feet in genuine appreciation of an ace.

Els had been the first of the favourites to arrive at the shortest hole and there had been an air of expectation as he loped into view up the 7th fairway to where his enormous drive had finished. He missed his birdie putt on that hole, but did not require anything other than his pitching wedge at the next.

Having been talked into using the club by his caddie Ricci Roberts - he himself had favoured a nine-iron - he switched the ball high and watched smilingly as it landed softly 18 inches from the hole, bounced once and then span back to rest against the pin before dropping for a hole in one.

If that was the highlight of the morning, the patient sadists in the stand were rewarded deep into the afternoon when Mark Foster, in only his second Open, played the hole like a mortal. His tee shot landed in the right-hand bunker and his first attempt at escape rolled back to his feet. His second rolled back around the trap before re-entering behind him, and his third skipped across the green into the Coffin.

He got out of that in one, but two putts later he had recorded a seven, and three under had became one over in short order. The galleries will be looking forward to Foster's return in the morning far more than he will.

Three shots to heaven

A packed grandstand watched Ernie Els make his hole-in-one on the shortest hole at Royal Troon but one surrounded by five bunkers.

The South African was persuaded to use a pitching wedge and his brave shot came within 18 inches of the flag before bouncing back into the hole.

The albatross of Gary Evans was more memorable, however, for being on a hole, the 4th, which is over four times the length of the Postage Stamp. A driver took Evans 333 yards, a five-iron did the rest.