Royal Liverpool Golf Club is one of the pillars in the game, and perhaps the most important club in England. Dating back to 1869, sporting a royal charter since 1871, it may be a century or more younger than some of its most venerable Scottish counterparts, but its role in spreading golf south of the border and throughout Great Britain is no less consequential in gradually turning golf from a regional curiosity into a global phenomenon.

The course called "Hoylake" - after the Liverpool suburb in which it sits - hosted a 44-man "Grand Tournament" in 1885 that would later be recognized as the very first edition of the R&A's esteemed Amateur Championship. John Ball, England's greatest early amateur golfer, won eight editions of the event, including in 1890 at Hoylake, his home course. In 1897, hometown hero Harold Hilton captured his second Open Championship on Royal Liverpool's links.

All that 19th-century golf buzz established Royal Liverpool as a great club, while its subsequent service to the competitive game cemented it as indispensable. In 1921, the club hosted the first-ever team match between the best amateurs of the United States and their counterparts in Great Britain & Ireland. From that event grew the Walker Cup, established the following year.

Royal Liverpool hosts The Open Championship for the ninth time in the last 100 years (13th overall) this week. In that time, the list of golfers to lift the Claret Jug there is as great as any other club can boast: Walter Hagen in 1924, Bobby Jones in 1930 (en route to his single-year Grand Slam), Peter Thomson in 1956, Tiger Woods in 2006, Rory McIlroy in 2014.

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2023 Open Championship Live Streaming Schedule: How To Watch The 151st Open at Royal Liverpool

July 14, 2023

The 151st Open Championship returns to Royal Liverpool where Rory McIlroy won in 2014.

By GolfPass Staff

Along the way, the club has never been shy about selectively updating the course to fit the times; only one green - the 4th - remains from the 1869 iteration of the course. The list of architects to shape it is as long as a Beatle's 1970s hairdo, with major pre-WWII contributions by Harry Colt and modern tweaks courtesy of Fred Hawtree, son Martin, Donald Steel and, most recently, Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert, whose contributions to the club since it last hosted the Open have included the construction of a brand-new par 3, the 17th, which figures to become one of Great Britain's great set pieces, with its tiny raised green beside the River Dee.

As ever, it will take power, precision, guts and guile to win over a course that drifts between flat former horse-racing terrain and the rumpled dunes where the Dee empties into the Irish Sea. Woods' 2006 victory on blonde, drought-stricken turf required just one driver all week; he tacked around Hoylake not just with an ironclad swing but an immaculate game-plan. In 2014, under slightly more normal circumstances, McIlroy captured the third of his four majors with a mix of strategy and awesome power; a late-Sunday eagle on the par-5 16th (played this year as hole 15) put the tournament out of reach for the chasers.

This year, early-summer drought has given way to mid-summer rains, and the course should be gettable, though there will still be ample teeth to help sort the field out. Whereas in the past, balls that found Hoylake's revetted pot bunkers tended to settle into capacious spots in the middle of the sand, recent work has flattened out the sandy floors, such that shots that stray toward the edges will be more likely to stay there. This increased potential for disaster means that these small hazards will play even bigger - physically and psychologically - than ever.

At press-time, the forecast calls for cool breezes off the Dee out of the west, which will toughen the start but blow at the backs of the players down both back-nine par 5s. Here's hoping both sides of Darwin's proclamation hold true in 2023.

The first three of Hoylake's 81 bunkers pinch the landing area of this gentle dogleg-left at about 270 yards off the tee, prompting a decision right off the bat. Playing into the prevailing wind, players will likely lay back off the tee, leaving a mid-iron into the first of many greens that falls off not just into pot bunkers, but low-slung grass swales as well.

Named for the old starting gate from the 19th century, when Royal Liverpool doubled as golf course and horse racing venue, this slight-right par 4 should play downwind for the 151st Open, allowing bombers to potentially negate the three fairway bunkers with a 320-yard carry. Most others will play less than driver, settling for a flattish fairway lie and an approach of around 160 yards to a large, rolling putting surface.

Typically the first hole for members and most amateur competitions, this dogleg-right is one of the quirkier tests in championship links golf, owing to the long, skinny "cop" mound that separates the right edge of the fairway and green from the paddock housing The Open's tented village, which is out-of-bounds. A layup off the tee to a wide lobe of fairway serves to delay the player's confrontation with the out-of-bounds; tee shots up the left will mean a more straightforward look down the flat fairway to the bunkerless green.

Hoylake's shortest par 4 is home to the only putting surface that dates back to the course's earliest days. A following wind could help some players push tee shots up toward the green, but any miss right leaves a poor angle and a pot bunker 25 yards short of the front edge could turn a birdie chance into a struggle for par. For those who lay back, a diagonal contour across the fairway can funnel rolling balls into a left-hand fairway bunker.

The first of three par fives is short on the card, but a strong westerly wind could make it play longer than either of the other two three-shotters, which trek in the opposite direction. Swinging left past a thicket of bushes, the last flattish fairway players will encounter for quite some time starts to give way to the rumpled dunes that define the course's dalliance with the mouth of the Dee River and the Irish Sea beyond.

For the second hole in a row, golfers who can work an iron from left to right should see great opportunity, with an elevated but mildly contoured two-tiered green where dropoffs and three pot bunkers short and left comprise the main threats to scoring. The hole is so named because it was built just a half-century ago by architect Fred Hawtree.

The burbling terrain begins to show itself on this long par 4, where a diagonal row of hillocks cuts off the fairway and complicates any view of the green, which flows out of the natural grade and is puzzling to read correctly. The fairway begins 250 yards of the tee but with winds expected to help from the left, getting started on this hole should not be much of an issue for anyone in the field.

Playing along the western edge of the property, the tee shot here plays over a corner of out-of-bounds that cuts away short of the landing area but nonetheless makes the tee shot a bit uncomfortable. Two staggered right-hand fairway bunkers will keep players from bailing away from the boundary too much, while three more pots sit greenside.

With the prevailing wind blowing from right to left, the front-left-to-back-right cant of the slender green makes it play even smaller than it looks. Great longer iron players will be rewarded for their craft here. The undulating green gives way to swales and bunkers left and right.

Hoylake's longest par 4 typically plays as a par 5, meaning it is a likely candidate for the toughest hole to par in the 151st Open. Even though the landing area is unencumbered by bunkers, it does shimmy and roll, with many awkward stances. A rough-covered mound intrudes into the fairway, making the approach to the small, elevated green semi-blind. With the village of Hoykale and the River Dee in the background, it's a beautiful spot to struggle for par.

Running in the opposite direction to the 10th, this is where the golfer starts to trek back toward the clubhouse from the farthest-out point on the course. A dune that crosses the landing area separates blind approaches from ones that enjoy a view of the green, which is surrounded by dunes but is less forgiving than the hole's name implies.

Named for the river whose mouth players see throughout the round, this par 4 swings left past three fairway bunkers, fighting the prevailing wind. Even though there are no bunkers guarding it, the dune-top green is exposed to the breeze and can be tough to reach in regulation. Long or left are the most serious misses.

Once again, players will need to hit a quality iron shot to a brilliant, Harry Colt-concocted green that cants in the opposite direction of the prevailing wind, making it play even narrower than it already appears. Complicating matters, the dunescape between the tee and the green, where Mackenzie and Ebert have exposed sandy blowout areas, obscures parts of the putting surface.

For the third straight hole, drawers of the golf ball will feel at ease, as this is yet another par four that heads left to a green immersed in the dunescape. Four fairway bunkers limit players to about 295 yards off the tee before the hole turns back toward the river and another exposed, elevated green.

Where once golfers would have played another par 3, they now turn away from the coast to the longest hole on the course, which heads back east and represents the first likely downwind hole since the 7th. A reconfigured fairway bunker scheme added two pots down the right. Bombers who carry these hazards will be rewarded with the ability to reach the putting surface in two. Players who overcook their approach could find any of four bunkers strewn up the left side on the way to the green.

Something of a misnomer, this hole has no water in play. Instead, it tacks slightly left into the prevailing wind, with a total of eight bunkers affecting strategic calculations not just on the tee shot and approach, but also any layups for players who find trouble off the tee. The green's rear section is a full three feet higher than the front.

This brand-new short par 3 built by Mackenzie and Ebert is sure to become one of the most-photographed holes in the Open Championship rota. Heading straight towards the river, this fortress-like test features a small, elevated horizon green with trouble all around - a more scenic version of Royal Troon's Postage Stamp 8th. A two-shot swing on Sunday - one player hitting the green and making birdie, the other missing and making bogey - could cement the hole's celebrity status. Heading away from the 18th tee, it creates a bit of an awkward spot in the routing, but the view should make it worthwhile.

That the closing hole should play downwind is the only saving grace for a player who stands on the tee thinking of winning the Claret Jug. The same cop mounding that rings the interior out-of-bounds confronts players from the right edge of the fairway and runs most of the length of the hole before meandering away starting 70 yards short of the green. A chaser could play two heroic shots into this green, or come undone with a flared tee shot or second shot. Whereas the majority of the Open rota's finishers are long, formal par 4s, Hoylake's eclectic finish could spark serious drama come Sunday.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club

Hoylake, Wirral

Private

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Architecture

July 27, 2018

Want to know why golf holes and courses are the way they are, and why you love some and hate others? Learn all about golf course architecture here.