‘Oooooohhhh,’ said the crowd. They knew…

It was closing in on 11am yesterday when Calamity Corner lived up to its name and reputation.

Six groups had already passed through the notorious par-three 16th across the opening 90 minutes of day two and, while seven had made bogey and none a birdie. It was only when Tyrrell Hatton stepped up on the tee near the White Rocks beach that things got really interesting.

The Englishman was five-under when he let fly with his three-iron, but not for long. Off the green to the right is precisely the wrong neighbourhood to be visiting in these parts but most see the deep ravine filled with rough to the front as the really dodgy postcode. Hatton flew over the back and into a different world of hurt.

“Oooooohhhh,” said the crowd. They knew.

Hatton’s first attempt at a salvage job on a near-vertical slope filled with high grass produced nothing but a swing. No ball. His second the same. It was third time lucky but only just as his Titleist Pro V1x squirmed almost bashfully over the lip of the green and came to a halt 15 to 20 feet from the pin. It took a superb putt to avoid a triple bogey.

Hatton’s temperament has been a talking point in the past but the rescue job with the flat stick seemed to curb his frustration. A rueful shake of the head and he was off to the next tee but the sudden loss of two shots, on the back of a bogey on 14, ate away at him beyond the scorer’s hut.

“It just leaked it a little bit on the wind,” he said of that tee shot. “I tried my best to move the ball and couldn’t move it. It’s tough. I don’t think it’s a good hole anyway. And it’s maybe a bit too harsh if you can’t move the golf ball when you’re no more than seven yards right of the edge of the green.”

Unplayable was his description of the lie and the slope. The confusion of vegetation around that side of the green meant a drop wasn’t an option either. Hatton had no choice but to hope and hack at a ball that was wedged and sitting well below his feet.

Calamity wasn’t the hardest hole on the course on day one. It wasn’t even the toughest par-three. It’s scoring average of 3.244 was identical to the 185-yard 6th on Thursday but none of that is to say it wasn’t the potential ‘card crusher’ so many had warned about prior to the tournament.

Only seven birdies on day one, against 43 bogeys and one double, attested to that. Of the 17 three-balls that diced with disaster on 16 before the rain returned yesterday, only four birdies were recorded against 17 bogeys and Hatton’s double. All this with elements that were about as kind as you see around here. What must it be like in a tempest?

Hatton spoke of a wind off the left side which didn’t help him on the tee but the flag hung limply for long spells of what was an overcast but muggy morning on this corner of the Dunluce track which, regardless of his distaste for it, proved to be a popular vantage point for patrons.

The small grandstand at the back sported a rat’s tail of standing spectators awaiting patiently for someone to vacate their seat and open up a spot. A snaking line of fans three and four deep lined the left side of the green close to the vicinity where so many balls have landed before and did again yesterday.

It was Bobby Locke who gave his name to the hollow on that side after the South African’s decision to aim for the dip through all four rounds of the Open here in 1951 when he escaped all four times with par. It was a sound strategy then and nothing had changed 68 years later.

If the right side is a rotten borough of overgrowth and ravines then the other is an almost idyllic haven of manicured grass, it’s steep ridge proving to be little obstacle for the exquisite putting abilities of virtually every pro who found that its environs were very much the lesser of two evils.

Even Miguel Angel Jimenez, who overshot Locke’s Hollow in the day’s opening group and finished further back and to the left behind the ropes, managed a par from that side. The lesson was simple: miss left and a par was still likely, miss right and you were gambling with your card. As Hatton found out to his cost.