WHERE LEGENDS ARE MADE

Bill Elliott looks ahead to the 151st Open Championship, considers the history and characteristics of Hoylake and discusses the favourites for the Claret Jug

- Bill Elliott

Daft though it may seem to some of you, this 2023 Open Championship feels like a new beginning for the most relevant and historic Major on the old game’s noticeboard. Daft because, obviously, this is the 151st playing of the grand jousting match, but not that daft simply because it is the 151st version and after all the celebrations at jolly St Andrews last year, it does suggest a fresh start (kind of anyway). The fact this time it is hosted by the Royal Liverpool Golf Club on the Wirral only adds to my restless itch to get there and see what occurs during this latest reboot.

I’ve been going to this neck of the merry Scouse woods on and off for many years, but I’ve only been twice for The Open. Why? The club fell off the rota for 39 long years as the great week grew like Topsy on speed – the prevailing local infrastructure simply was not good enough to embrace the modern tournament’s demands away from the actual course.

Everyone worked on improving stuff, both at the club and in the local area, so that finally The Open came back in 2006. Of course, Tiger Woods won to refurbish the club’s long-held reputation as the course that stubbornly refuses to anoint anyone who isn’t an already acclaimed master of the golfing craft.

If you don’t already know, then allow me to remind you of Hoylake’s outstanding roll of honour, which kicks off with local heroes John Ball and Harold Hilton. Ball was the first amateur to win an Open Championship when he rocked home at Prestwick in 1890. He was also the first Englishman to do so, which further aggravated assorted Scottish pros who regarded The Open as theirs by right.