Royal and ancient but feeling the heat

British Open countdown: As the sun beats down on a parched Hoylake, Philip Reid looks at the possibility an old and venerable links is about to be brutally humbled.

The ground underfoot is firm, like walking on concrete. The fescue grasses are wispy, barely moving in what, for these parts, constitutes a zephyr. The rough, parched of rainfall, is burnt and more bronzed than green and not nearly as thick as the R&A would have liked.

This is Hoylake - or, to give it its proper title, Royal Liverpool Golf Club - and the return of the British Open Championship to this course after a 39 years absence has brought no small measure of nostalgia but also a fear that it has been overtaken by time and that golf's superstars will destroy it.

The fears, to be sure, are genuine enough, with even Craig Gilholm, the links manager, believing a record low score is possible if the area's famed winds fail to arrive.

"This course relies on its bunkering, rough . . . and the weather," observed Gilholm, in believing Tiger Woods's low score of 19-under, set at St Andrews in 2000, was under threat.

Remember when the Irish Open went to Ballybunion in 2000? After the pro-am, played in a stiff wind, the protests from the players were loud and forceful, that it was too tough. Remedial action was taken.

The rough was shaved back overnight to placate the players, and oceans of water sprayed on to the greens to make them more receptive.

When happened? The tournament was played in four days of flat calm. With the negation of its natural protection, allied to the cosmetic "improvements", the tiger was turned into a pussycat and Patrik Sjoland won with a 72-hole total of 270 strokes.

Even if players were moaning here (and they're not, far from it, in fact), you can rest assured the R&A wouldn't cut back what rough there is here, and would be slow to take the step of watering the greens.

But one thing they can't control is Mother Nature and, unfortunately for them, the weather gods are not playing ball. There has been little or no wind in these parts for some time, and the forecast is for more of the same weather throughout the Open.

Once upon a time, the famed golf writer Bernard Darwin was to remark of the test presented by this old course at Royal Liverpool: "Hoylake, blown upon by mighty winds, breeder of mighty champions."

With no winds, who knows what sort of champion will emerge this time to grace a course that was built in 1869 on what was then the racecourse of the Liverpool Hunt? Of all the English seaside courses, only Westward Ho! in Devon is older.

For the first seven years of its life, Hoylake doubled as a golf course and horseracing track, and it was only once the horses were dispatched to pastures new the golf course earned its reputation as one of the finest in England and played host to a succession of British Amateur and then British Open championships.

The list of winners at Hoylake is impressive, including Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen and Peter Thomson. It was also the scene of Ireland's only major win, courtesy of Fred Daly, in 1947, while Roberto de Vicenzo won the Open's last staging here, in 1967. It has been off the British Open rota since then, however.

"We lost our way," remarked club historian Joe Pinnington. There wasn't room for parking or big galleries, particularly at the mediocre 18th hole. The course was considered flat and nondescript and too short for a modern championship.

Just over a decade ago, the club's powers-that-be decided to make another play at hosting the Open again. The club bought enough land to accommodate merchandise tents and TV trailers. They hired architect Donald Steel, who added an extra 263 yards to the course that was played in 1967. He refurbished Hoylake's 94 bunkers, built three new tee boxes and reshaped several greens. "Hoylake will always be Hoylake, I'm simply rearranging the furniture," remarked Steel.

The furniture has been rearranged in more ways than one, the R&A insisting the last two holes on the traditional layout become the first and second for the championship, with the 16th, a notoriously difficult par five made famous by de Vicenzo, becoming the new finishing hole.

A 560-yard par five, the new 18th could provide finishing drama on a par with what occurred at Wing Foot in last month's US Open. Who could argue with that? In fact, the club sold the change to the members on the basis of "potential glory or disaster", long before the shenanigans at Winged Foot.

The 18th is certainly a dramatic hole, with bunkers and knee-high rough to the left and out-of-bounds down the right, where the fairway doglegs about 400 yards off the tee.

In 1967, de Vicenzo arrived at Hoylake as a perennial Open contender who had never grasped the Claret Jug. Since Muirfield in 1948 he'd been third four times and second once. He was 45 when he got to Royal Liverpool and there hadn't been a winner as old as that since Harry Vardon in 1914. The Argentinian was to finally savour glory, though, and the 16th (now the 18th) was to cap off a final-round duel with Jack Nicklaus on the par five.

Standing on the 16th tee, de Vicenzo had a three-shot lead over Nicklaus (playing in the match ahead) but felt the American would birdie the hole, which he did. De Vicenzo's drive finished just short of the practice ground, requiring him to clear the out-of-bounds to reach the green in two. He showed nerves of steel in hitting a three-wood approach to the heart of the green and two-putted for birdie to effectively seal the win. But it is that risk-and-reward appeal that makes the 16th a perfect finishing hole this time round.

The original first hole has become the third, retaining its menace but allowing players the comfort of a couple of opening holes before having to face it.

To those who deem the course unworthy of hosting the Open, David Hill, the R&A's championship secretary, remarked: "We would not have come back if we didn't think it was of the highest standard. It's in first-class condition . . . obviously, we're hoping for the variation in the weather that is the main protection of all links courses and makes them such great challenges."

When Hoylake pitched at being returned to the Open championship rota, the club actually employed an actuary to show there was only a 10 per cent chance of four straight dry days in July. If it stays calm, though, the general view is the professionals could take it apart. As one English golfer said, "if you like tradition and looking at big shiny cups in display cases, then you'll like this course. Apart from that, it is very flat and boring."

But Hill's defence of Hoylake was seconded by the BBC commentator and former Ryder Cup player Ken Brown.

"Nearly all traditional links courses are old-fashioned. That's not derogatory in my mind; it's traditional, how golf should be played," said Brown. "It's an unsung, wonderful links course."

Brown's fellow commentator Peter Alliss can attest to Hoylake's at-times brutal nature. In the 1967 Open, Alliss suffered a back injury when attempting to play out of the hay-like rough. He had to be stretchered off the course.

Nobody expects anything like that to happen this week, with the rough not quite as tigerish as would normally be expected at this time of year.

"You know, I really like it," said Mark Calcavecchia after savouring it for the first time. "Sure, it's playing short and playing fast. The rough, although it's wispy, and fairly thin, gives you something to think about . . . after the US Open at Winged Foot, this is a pleasant sight."

Which is probably not precisely what the R&A had in mind.

They'd probably prefer if a wind whipped up, and ensured the wispy rough came more into play.