The Open Championship is back at Royal Birkdale, one of the most historic golf courses on the planet.
It’s a familiar venue on The Open rota, which is preparing to host its 11th championship, and its first in nine years. The last time players fought for the Claret Jug at Birkdale, Jordan Spieth won his third major championship to move to within one major of the career grand slam.
While Birkdale hasn’t hosted as many Opens as some other courses on The Open rota, such as Muirfield or Royal St George’s, it has hosted its fair share of Open Championships in modern times. Golf’s oldest major has been played at Birkdale four times in the last 20 years.
But what do the players think about this golf course, which is so often the host for this historic major?
Royal Birkdale is a popular golf course among major championship winners
Golfers are typically quick to complain when a golf course isn’t to their liking, but that hasn’t been the case with Royal Birkdale over the years. It’s a place that has received near-unanimous approval from legends of the game over the years.
In 2008, Phil Mickelson said, “I think it’s a very fair test where good shots get rewarded, primarily the 30 or 40 yards short of the green. You get much more consistent bounces, so the well-struck shots are rewarded and typically end up about where you would anticipate.
“I think that’s the biggest thing. There’s also a good mixture of holes that move both ways. The bunkers are perfectly placed for strategy, and it just seems to use every club in your bag.”
And at the same Open in 2008, won by Padraig Harrington, Dustin Johnson agreed with Mickelson’s verdict: “I really like the golf course. Obviously, it’s my first time here. But I got over here early; I got here on Saturday. So I’ve gotten a lot of practise on the course. And I feel like it sets up well for me.
“But it’s like any Open Championship, you’ve just got to control your golf ball. If you can do that, you can get around here and shoot some good scores.”
The Open returned to Birkdale nine years later for the 2017 event, and that’s when Sergio Garcia heaped praise onto this difficult test: “I think Birkdale, it’s a great golf course. I think it’s a tough — probably one of the toughest, other than Carnoustie and maybe Muirfield, one of the toughest Open venues we play.
“So obviously all depending on weather. But it is a solid golf course and I’ve managed to play the ’98 and 2008, I think it was. So it is a golf course that I like. But we’ll see how it plays throughout the week.”
Scottie Scheffler shares honest thoughts on Royal Birkdale before The Open
Nine years on from its last Open, how does Royal Birkdale stack up now? With the rapid advance of golf technology causing incredible distances off the tee, the golf course has undergone some big changes since 2017.
Reigning champion and world number one Scottie Scheffler said he likes the changes that they have made, and he’s a fan of the golf course as a whole just like the multi-time major winners before him.
Speaking before this year’s Open, he said, “First impressions were really good. I think it’s pretty obvious — the one thing I found interesting is it’s so obvious as to which holes had been redone.
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“They look like they’re not even on the same golf course. You look at 14, 15, 16, those green complexes and the amount of slope that they have off of them are pretty severe and quite challenging. The 5th hole is kind of like that, 7th hole as well.
“It was pretty obvious like, oh, these are the holes that got redone because they look like they’re on a different golf course. Those are the things that stood out to me the most.
“Overall, I think it’s really solid. Like I said, the fairways are tight, and there’s some thinking you have to do off the tee. You’ve got to be hitting the ball, I think, really sharply around this place if you’re going to make some birdies. There’s some very, very challenging holes, especially the par-threes.”
Judging by the reaction from the players, it sounds like Birkdale have been incredibly clever with the renovations that they have made to the golf course, and combining that with the firm and fast conditions, it should be an incredible week of action.
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