The tee shot starts with most aiming at, or just left, of the St Mark’s Church steeple (formerly Hope Park & Martyrs Church). The beardies, a set of four bunkers, guard the left side of the fairway, so safe play is to the Elysian Fields, the right of the fairway right and beyond the . Players who are able, or if the wind is helping, can attempt to fly straight over these bunkers to get home in two.
Alister MacKenzie mapped and wrote about four specific lines to play the hole, and Bobby Jones added a fifth:
Left: Drive far left of the Beardies onto the lower area of the 5th fairway. Hit up right of the seven sisters bunkers and left of the Hell Bunker. Approach over the Grave bunkers.
Center: A longer player can drive over the Beardies. Hit the second over Hell, and attempt to roll up to, or just shy of the green.
Right: The “straightforward” route. Play safe right of the Beardies, past the corner of the wall. Hit the second over the Elysian Fields and the rough beyond it. Then, approach from the far right side. MacKenzie notes he thinks this is the least advantageous route.
Across: An accurate, but shorter player, can play close as they can to the Beardies, on the right. The second plays well left toward the seven sisters. The approach is then played aver the Grave bunkers.
Jones: With the wind behind him, Jones would play to the Elysian Fields. From here, he would not play to the green, but beyond it. This would allow him to use the slope of the green to run it up and stop it close to the hole. The two rear bunkers at the green are likely the reasoning for this strategy.
Other notable bunkers on this hole are:
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Benty Bunker: in play off the tee for longer hitters, a danger to players laying up left of Hell
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Kitchen Bunker: a danger to players laying up left of Hell
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Two Bunkers guard the line right of the Hell Bunker
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Ginger Beer bunkers punish players who miss the green left
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Two bunkers guard the back of the green a large bunker on the left, and a small one on the center-right side.
“Some years ago I described it as probably the best hole of its length in existence. Here, again, the hole is made by the slope of the green. There is a most marked tilt up from left to right, so much so that it is impossible to approach near the hole from the right.
It is slopes of this kind that are so often overlooked in designing a golf course, and it is one of the most difficult things imaginable to construct them really well; but it is subtleties of this nature which make all the difference between a good course and a bad one. At the fourteenth hole at St. Andrews this tilt of the green has a considerable influence on the tee shot 530 yards away.”