Royal Liverpool Golf Club

What was to become Royal Liverpool Golf Club was laid out by Robert Chambers and George Morris as a 9-hole course in 1869. Two years later, in 1871 it was extended to 18 holes and became the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. From the first-floor window of the clubhouse, the landscape on show looks relatively uninspiring. While the most photogenic holes inarguably lie closest to the waterfront, the architectural strengths of the holes on the flatter piece of land become more apparent the more you play them.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club History

The current 1st (Course) and 16th (Dun) holes play over the flat ground of the former Liverpool Hunt Club’s racecourse. For the first 7 years of the golf club’s existence, Royal Liverpool Golf Club members not only had to avoid hoof prints and racecourse rails, but also hundreds of rabbit scrapes, which were regarded simply as natural bunkers. Over the years, the smaller holes were filled in and larger ones were excavated to create pot bunkers much like the ones we’d recognise today.

From its inception, Royal Liverpool Golf Club’s defences consisted mainly of bunkers (pot, strip and cross), cops (some as tall as 5 feet) and rushes. Very few of these original features are recognisable today, other than perhaps the cop surrounding the practice ground. Even then, it is certainly less imposing than it appears in early photographs, and as vividly described in Bernard Darwin’s The Golf Courses of the British Isles, from 1910.

Until at least the mid-1950s, long trenches running beside Royal Liverpool Golf Club ‘s turf wall ‘cops’ trapped sand that was blown over the links, resulting in punishing strip bunkers. The longest and last-remaining of these hazards ran alongside the cop that still encircles the practice ground today.

Despite many writing about the mighty winds that batter the links, few realise how much those strong breezes have influenced comparatively recent course developments. Since the vast 200-yard bunker stretching along the right of the 1st hole was filled in, the level of its fairway has risen to almost a foot above that of the practice ground – a result of the sand previously trapped by the bunker now blowing freely and more evenly over the land next to the cop.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club & Harry Colt

Credit is due to many members and architects for the championship-calibre 18 holes we enjoy today, but Harry Colt deserves special praise for his mid-1920s work on the 8th green (Far), 11th (Alps), 12th (Hilbre) and 17th (Royal), which vastly improved the course.

Colt’s entirely new par-3 11th Alps hole and re-imagined dogleg par-4 12th Hilbre were his combined masterstroke. These changes brought into play the most dramatic of Hoylake ’s dune land terrain, whilst opening up spectacular views over the Dee estuary and the Welsh hills beyond. Aside from some bunker rearrangements, Colt’s 11th and 12th have barely changed in almost a century, and they both remain among Hoylake ’s very best holes.

Sadly, the legendary Harry Colt 17th (Royal) no longer exists due to its difficult and dangerous approach angle into a green positioned hard against an increasingly-busy road. With shots regularly leaving the property in the direction of houses and cars, it was decided that a re-design was unavoidable. In the late 90s, Donald Steel masterminded the initial changes, and in 2010, Martin Hawtree revised the green complex. The hole we have today is one of the toughest on the course, but Colt’s 17th is still remembered very fondly by many.

Constant Change at Hoylake

The Royal Liverpool Golf Club has been prepared to make significant changes to the course to ensure it continues to be used to test the world’s best on golf’s grandest stage.

Another hole lost at Hoylake which garnered much praise was the now-defunct 7th, called Dowie. Easier to eulogise than to play, O.B. lay beyond the cop which flanked the entire left edge of the green! When the Out of Bounds Rule was changed in 1952 – two penalty strokes rather than one – the already-challenging Dowie became one of the most feared one-shotters in links golf. Deemed too punishing even for the world’s best, it was completely rebuilt in the early ’90s, with Cameron Sinclair responsible for the extremely attractive, yet less-revered, hole we now play today.

In preparation for The Open Championship’s return in 2023, more changes to the course are underway, with MacKenzie & Ebert leading the design work. Little Eye, the new Par 3, has not been universally applauded, least of all by its members.

Over 150 years in the making, the Royal Liverpool Golf Club is a stern-but-fair test, comprising many moments of visual and architectural magic.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club & The Open

Royal Liverpool Golf Club has hosted the Open twelve times and will again host the championship in 2023:

1. The 37th Open in 1897 was won by Harold Hilton as an amateur.
2. The 42nd Open in 1902 was won by Sandy Herd.
3. The 47th Open was won by Frenchman Arnaud Massey in 1907.
4. The 53rd Open was won by JH Taylor in 1913 – his fifth!
5. The 59th Open was won by American Walter Hagan in 1924.
6. The 65th Open was won by amateur Bobby Jones in 1930.
7. The 71st Open was won by Alf Padgham in 1936.
8. The 76th Open in 1947 was won by Fred Daly.
9. The 85th Open in 1956 was won by Peter Thomson – his third.
10. The 96th Open was won by Roberto De Vicenzo in 1967.
11. The 135th Open was won by Tiger Woods in 2006.
12. The 143rd Open was won by Rory McIlroy in 2014.

Hoylake’s Royal Heritage

Further information on Royal Liverpool Golf Club and its history can be found in Scott Macpherson‘s book, Golf’s Royal Clubs.

Credit: Article a collaborative effort of Joe McDonnell & Jasper Miners of Evalu18.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club Reviews

Read Golf Club Atlas’ review of Royal Liverpool Golf Club.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club Photography

Purchase Hoylake photography from Kevin Murray.