Royal Liverpool Golf Club

The Hoylake links can be, by turns, beautiful, uplifting, awe inspiring and, on occasion, soul-destroying. They were created to be a demanding test of golf and remain so, and they lie at the very heart of the history and development of golf in Great Britain.

Rory McIlroy lifted the Claret Jug the last time The Open was held at Royal Liverpool in 2014. The course will stage the Championship for the 13th time in 2023.

Built in 1869, on what was then the racecourse of the Liverpool Hunt Club, Hoylake is the oldest of all the English seaside courses with the exception of Westward Ho! in Devon, which was established just a few years earlier. Robert Chambers and George Morris were commissioned to lay out the original Hoylake course, which was extended to 18 holes in 1871.

This was also the year in which the Club was granted its Royal designation thanks to the patronage of His Royal Highness The Duke of Connaught.

Bernard Darwin, the doyen of golf writers of the early 20th century, famously described Hoylake as the home of ‘mighty winds’ and ‘mighty champions’.