Sam Snead, upon first viewing St. Andrews in 1946, blurted out, That looks like an old abandoned golf course. Jack Nicklaus, writing in the July issue of Golf magazine, said his initial reaction in 1964 was:’Hey, what do have we here?’ Then, after I played a couple of practice rounds and began to understand the course, it changed to:’Hey, this is something pretty special.’ By the time the championship ended, I loved it.

In 1921, the legendary Bobby Jones hated it. In fact, a man who prided himself on his fine demeanor was so frustrated, he walked off the course after a triple bogey at the 173-yard 11th and ripped up his scorecard. But later he, too, changed his mind, saying he could have taken away everything except my experiences at St. Andrews, and I still would have had a rich, full life. You have to study it, and the more you study, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you study.

Jones studied and learned well enough to win the 1927 British Open played on the Old Course, a venue that has also seen most of the game’s most storied players hoist the silver claret jug above their heads. Snead did it in 1946, a year when Ben Hogan declined to spend the $4,000 he figured it would have cost him to stay the week. Tony Lema prevailed in 1964, Nicklaus in 1970 and 78, Seve Ballesteros in 1984 and Nick Faldo in 1990.

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St. Andrews also was the site of Arnold Palmer’s first venture to a British Open, in 1960, when he finished second to Kel Nagle of Australia. Palmer won the next two, at Royal Birkdale and Troon, and this week, at age 65, will make an emotional final appearance in the British Open. R&A officials, not usually the sentimental sort, decided to change their exemption rule to read British Open winners 65 and under instead of under 65.

St. Andrews is the one course where everyone wants to win an Open championship. Normally stoic Nicklaus was so delighted with his playoff victory here in 1970, after making his three-foot birdie putt on the last hole to win by a stroke over Doug Sanders, he hurled his putter high in the air. On the way down, it narrowly missed him and his playing partner.

Sanders might have welcomed a blow to the head. The day before, needing only to make a three-footer for par to win the tournament, Sanders’ stabbed effort crawled just past the hole to force the playoff.

Do I ever think about it? Sanders asked recently.

Well, I’ve been known to go as long as five minutes without thinking about it.

The 17th, also known as the Road Hole, is a brutish 461-yard par 4, with a sharply veering dogleg to the right. For the best result, a blind tee shot over a series of what used to be railroad sheds at the corner is necessary to get maximum distance down the fairway. The second shot must be played to a shallow green with the cavernous Road Bunker, an evil thing with a steep face lined with bricks of turf, in front and a tarmac road behind.

Ballesteros said he has putted off the road several times with decent success, but that tactic cannot be used this year.

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The R&A has decided to grow the grass between the road and the green, necessitating a tough pitch to get close to the hole. On the left side of the fairway, they’ve also added longer, thick grass and a new scoreboard to help prevent players from laying up from the left side and avoiding the bunker on a relatively easy third-shot chip.

If we had holes like this back home, people just wouldn’t play, Love said this week with a smile. We’re too spoiled.

Love, who grew up within commuting distance of Augusta National, also admitted the British Open is the major championship he’d most like to win. His father played in the 69 Open at Royal Lytham, the year Tony Jacklin won.

He loved this championship and came over as much as he could, Love said. If I could win just one, it would be this one. It’s got the players, the most history, a lot of great winners.

It’s my ninth in a row. I love it. It’s the biggest tournament in the world, it’s special. Guys who don’t come over every year and only come now and then don’t get the full impact of how big it is.