Your Links Golf Primer - Royal Liverpool

It's Open Championship week, and we're back to Hoylake for only the second time since 1967.  In his linlsapalooza primer from a week ago, Shackelford had this, including the obligatory Bernard Darwin quote:

Royal Liverpool, or Hoylake as the Open Championship host is properly referred to, has historically required a stout defense from golf writers because so much of its brilliance falls under the guise of nuance. "At Hoylake the golfing pilgrim is emphatically on classic ground," Darwin wrote. "As he steps out of the train that has brought him from Liverpool, he will gaze with awe-struck eyes upon surroundings in which the irreverent might see nothing out of the ordinary." ESPN's coverage starts bright and early July 17th.

I think he was looking for a word like informally, as this week's venue is properly known as Royal Liverpool.  But perhaps we should move on....  We played Hoylake during our extended stay in Southport in 2010, and my thoughts on the links can be found here.    

It's not the nest links and it's not the most beautiful links, but there's little question but that under the right conditions it can be a stern test of golf.  It's weirdest feature is the prevalence of internal out of bounds, with the demarcation being a low grass wall called a "cop."  You'll no doubt be hearing that term frequently this week, and I'll just ask you to remember that you heard it here first.  That's Theresa and her caddie walking with a cop directly behind them.  The OB is mostly related to the club's practice facility, which is unusually good for linksworld.  It might even be adequate for the big boys this week.

The far reaches of the property, closest to the sea, are quite beautiful, though the bulk of the property is pretty flat. That's where the first photo above was taken, as well as the one to the left.  For the Open, the routing will start on the members' No. 17, so I'll no doubt confuse you if I try to cite specific hole numbers.  

Hoylake was a fixture in the R&A's Open rota for decades, most famous for Bobby Jones' win in 1930 that was the second leg of his slam.  From 1897 until 1967 it held ten Opens, with champions including J.H. Taylor (1913), Walter Hagen (1924), Fred Daly (1947, mentioned because he was the only Ulsterman to win a major before Graeme and Rory), Peter Thompson (1956) and Roberto de Vincenzo (1967).  It fell out of the rota due to its shortage of space for all the accouterments of a modern Open Championship.  

When the club was able to acquire an adjoining parcel of land, the R&A granted them the 2006 Open Championship, won by Tiger in unusually warm and dry conditions.  Riffing on that theme, James Corrigan has this in the Telegraph:

Eight years after his memorable Open triumph, Tiger Woods was reunited with Hoylake on

Woods on the first fairway with Peter Dawson.

Saturday. Yet it was difficult to tell which was the more changed: the course or the golfer?

Mother Nature has largely decreed that the links is lush and green instead of burnt and brown, while Father Time is maybe responsible for the transformation in Woods. He has played two competitive rounds in more than four months because of back surgery and the 38-year-old arrived without a major victory in more than six years.

He showed he means business, however, by flying in five days before the Championship begins, just like he did eight years ago, in fact. Woods was welcomed by Andy Cross, who was the Hoylake captain in 2006 and who had handed him his third Claret Jug at the awards ceremony.

Tiger famously hit only one driver in 72 holes in 2006, and that driver was a mistake. As with many links, the pot bunkers must be avoided off the tee, and the ground was so hard that the ball was running inconceivable distances. Thus, the only way to ensure a lay-up was to really LAY-UP. None of us can say that Tiger won't win this week (though I'm in the skeptics camp), but we can say with assurance that the lessons of 2006 will not apply this week.

Corrigan's piece includes this helpful graphic on Tiger's many injuries:

Multiple injuries to the left knee, right achilles and back.  It's a high mileage vehicle.

For those waxing nostalgic for the days when Tiger was Tiger, Cameron Morfit gives us nine reasons why 2006 was his greatest Open Championship.  It's worth a click, as besides the hot dusty conditions I mostly remember Chris DiMarco holing lobster after lobster on Sunday.  But you forget important things, such as Sergio's canary yellow outfit on Sunday.