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He didn’t even want to set foot in it.

The year was 2007. Tiger Woods was scouting Oakmont Country Club, seeing the property for the first time outside of TV highlights and photographs. A group of 82 American Express cardholders walked along, watching Woods, jaws open.

A “small” fee of $900 got those AmEx customers onto Oakmont for the day, but little did they know they’d get to spend it with the then 13-time major champion. Woods helped execute the surprise as a cardholder perk, inviting them for a stroll around that year’s U.S. Open venue as he strategized for the tournament ahead.

When they arrived at No. 3, Woods striped a 3-iron off the tee, splitting the fairway with ease. When the group approached his ball, one onlooker curiously asked, “Can you hit one from the church pews?”

“No,” Woods replied, according to the AP.

Woods eventually agreed to stand in the infamous 108-yard-long bunker, smiling momentarily only for a photo-op, before climbing out again: “I only practice from where I expect to play.”

The monstrosity sits between the third and fourth fairways. It now occupies more than 28,000 square feet of Oakmont real estate. And it lives rent-free in the psyche of any golfer who steps up on that tee box. The bunker creeps into your peripheral vision, even if you don’t anticipate playing from it.

Oakmont’s church pew bunker, one of the most recognizable golf course features in the world, is just as beautiful as it is maddening. So is its history.

Read more about that history below.