@georgetakei The category should have been "torture device!" Have you ever tried walking on gravel? It's not made for walking! 😱
Joking aside, even if the category was "type of passageway," there was virtually no way to think to guess "gravel" or" walkway" (let alone together) with the letters called. However, given the definition of "walkway," "place" was probably the correct category. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/walkway
Pat Sajak must have run short that day, or needed a little more money for Hillsdale College, of which he is apparently chairman of the board, so the bonus round was a little ... harder than usual.
His lack of sincerity when a contestant loses the bonus round was par for the course. Not sad at all that this will be his final round on a show that has made him wealthy, most recently at a rate of $13 million/year.
In real time, I've solved 2 puzzles with no letters revealed during normal rounds in my 40 years of watching WoF.
Since the advent of DVDs, I always pause on the final puzzle to see how long it takes me to solve it after the chosen letters are placed. In this case, it took me ~30 seconds. Obviously, I would've lost like everyone else.
That said, I instantly saw the incorrect "pathway", which I soon resolved to "walkway" but had the most trouble with "gravel".
@georgetakei Depending upon context "gravel walkway" can be either a place or a thing, so they were not wrong and the point is not to make it easy to win the bonus round. It would kind of make you feel bad though....