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A brief History of
Royal Liverpool Golf Club, British Open Addition...
The golf season is about to turn to the
east (depending on where you live) for
the British Open which is always
slightly awkward because we want to wake
up at 4 a.m. and watch our favorite
golfers compete in the oldest tournament
in the world but we often don't know
that much about the venue or the people
or the town.
We understand Augusta and the Masters
and everything that tournament is about.
Ditto the US Open and PGA Championship
for the most part, though we often need
a bit of catching up on those fronts, as
well.
But the British Open (or just "The Open"
depending again on where you live) is a
slippery thing. All historic and wily
and wonderful, but largely unkown.
Let's start here and we'll progress
forward over the next two weeks. A few
things you need to know about the 2014
British Open.
12th British Open: This will be the
dozenth time the British Open will be
played at Royal Liverpool Golf Club
(also called "Hoylake" for the town it's
in) but just the second since 1967.
Here's how it looks on a map: That's the
Irish Sea off to the west and London to
the southeast. I'm always jealous of
courses in England and Scotland that
were built a Tiger 3-wood to the seas.
It makes the man-made ponds at places
like the Byron Nelson Championship look
silly.
View a location
MAP of
Royal
Liverpool Golf Club HERE
For the
2006 tournament they flipped the course:
Yep, the tournament started on the
members' 17th hole and ended on the
16th.
Cynthia Powell is from there: Who is
Cynthia Powell? You might know her
better as Cynthia Lennon which was her
name after she married John Lennon. She
hails from Hoylake.
Bobby Jones won here: In 1930 Bobby
Jones won the second leg of the grand
slam at Royal Liverpool.
Tiger won
here, too: It was probably his most
emotional win ever, shortly after his
father Earl passed away.
Royal Liverpool was built on a horse
track in 1869: It was built on the
racecourse of the Liverpool Hunt Club
and according to its website "Hoylake is
the oldest of all the English seaside
courses with the exception of Westward
Ho! in Devon."
First amateur championship: Hoylake
hosted the first Amateur Championship in
1885. It has done so 17 times since with
the most recent taking place in 2000.
Its most famous quote: The most famous
thing ever said about Hoylake was by a
golf writer named Bernard Darwin and it
went like this.
"Hoylake, blown upon by mighty winds,
breeder of mighty champions."
It is beautiful: Oh, is it ever
beautiful.
15
days until we get this thing underway.
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