Editor’s note: With The Open Championship kicking off this week at Royal Liverpool, GGP+ Offers a refined look at the renovated venue and floors in a story that originally ran on April 18th.
Hoylake, England | My ball lay near the middle of the fourteenth fairway for Royal Liverpool, glistening in the spring sunshine like a white snooker ball on a green. He was just as far off the flag as Tiger Woods was on the same hole during his second round of the 2006 Open Championship.
You wouldn’t be surprised at the difference between Woods’ approach to the green 17 years ago and mine when I played the course, also known as Hoylake, earlier this year. his ball took two hops and disappeared into the hole for an eagle; I did not. Woods’ hit, hit by a 4-iron, was the high point of a 7-under round 65 which she described in times From London the next morning as one of the most amazing performances of the medium and long iron play I have seen in 50 years.
It was during the eleventh and penultimate day of the opening to be held there. The most recent was in 2014 when Rory McIlroy won. Now we turn our attention again to the famous Merseyside Course, with its rich history of golf and the fun practice of naming all the holes, because The Open Championship is back there in July.
Once again, the way members play the course will be changed as it has been in every tournament since 1967. What members define as the first hole will be the third, the ninth will be the 11th and so on. The 17th and 18th members will play as 1 and 2. This is how I refer to holes from now on.
Since Royal Liverpool hosted the 2019 Walker Cup, work has continued to make the course more testing and aesthetically pleasing, so that one can hold more spectators than any other open venue than St Andrews. Much of this was done under the watchful eye of Martin Ebert, R&A’s current favorite architect for open-course renovations. Remember his good work for the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush?
The new greens were placed in the fourth and seventh. Greenside dunes were lowered on the 12th. A spectrum of fearsome form and questionable merit has been inserted to the right of the 13th green. A new road has been built running behind the fourth green for transportation infrastructure, and here and there on these strong links the scrub has been removed, leaving bright patches of sand. They are as distinctive as the white faces (actually bunkers) in Merion, in the US, and underscore the club’s proximity to the Irish Sea. These scratches had an advantage: 4,000 tons of sand were removed and spread across the golf course, and it cost the club nothing.
For Hoylake’s first 10 holes, the sights are the golf course, but the moment a golfer hits the 11th tee and turns to play north, back toward the clubhouse, everything changes. To the left across the Dee Estuary are the Welsh Hills. Out of the sea are Helper Island and its sister islands, Al Ain Al Wusta and Little Eye. Now the scrub has been removed from various places on the seaward side of the inner vents, and the result is that the sweep of the estuary and the dominance of the islands become apparent. wonderful view. We’re not talking here of the Monterey Peninsula, once described as the greatest confluence of land and sea, but the morning sun danced on the water and made you aware of the visible majesty the scrub hid in years past.
But is the hole designed for a proper TV hole on such a premium golf course? The jury is out. Let’s see what players say in July.
Of the changes made, Ebert’s design of the new 17th hole, a short hole replacing the old 15th, will probably cause the most discussion. Actually, he already had. You hear snippets of conversation on the subject as you move through the club. The new hole is played west towards Helper Island, away from the clubhouse, up a table-top green and provides a solid change of character and tough challenge.
He plays 134 yards, with a bank like the front 15 at Augusta National leads into the wasteland. There is more sand to the left and right of the green, and over the back the ground drops 15 feet to thick grass and reeds. Standing on a tee, I found it difficult to draw a bead on the target because very little of the mounting surface was visible. In any wind, the green can be a diabolical hit and catch.
Quite frankly, the pit was built for television and to excite onlookers. There is no doubt that it breaks the series of flat holes that preceded it, and it strengthens what Bernard Darwin, the great golf writer, called “Hoylac’s solid finish”. It also begs the questions: Is it a good hole punch, and is it in the right place in the spin? Would it cause such a discussion if, say, the seventh player and the players had the opportunity to recover their score?
As it is, a golfer with a three or four stroke lead over his nearest competitor with two holes to play won’t breathe calmly because that lead could be gone in moments—and not just because of the 17th. If this hole has escaped without disaster, there remains the 18th, which has been lengthened over 600 yards. One of Hoylake’s famous cops, the two-foot-high mounds of grass that mark the boundaries of the training ground, has been shifted to the left to force a left, darting down the right lane as always. A player who wants to go to the green must play on the practice ground, which is out of bounds. On a day with a north wind in a golfer’s face, this is certainly a three-stroke hole even in the era of drives of 320 yards or more.
Forty years ago, one noticed a trend emerging in golf design. On new golf courses with ambitions for big events, the 18th hole often sagged gently from right to left, and the water ran along the left of the fairway. On the last day of the tournament, the flag is placed as close to the water as possible. To go for the flag, the player had to take his guts with both hands.
Are we now seeing the emergence of a new trend, the made-for-TV punch-hole? I give you the near-island green on the 17th at TPC Sawgrass and 16th at TPC Scottsdale, site of the recent WM Phoenix Open, which is as much a bear hole as a golf hole.
Hoylake’s 17th doesn’t make this test and historic golf course any easier. far from it. But is the hole designed for a proper TV hole on such a premium golf course? The jury is out. Let’s see what players say in July. Will they bless him or curse him? It can be very fun
Top: The new Par-3 overlooking Dee Estuary will play at Royal Liverpool as the 17th hole of the 2023 Open Championship. Photo: David Cannon, Getty Images
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