Royal Birkdale has changed for The Open – this is how it feels to play it

The fairway in front looks more like a green because of the surrounding trouble. With the grandstand overlooking a tight landing spot, bunkers pockmarking the landscape left and right and thick rough swaddling either side, it would be a daunting hole in any circumstances.

Throw in the fact that this is the 18th at Royal Birkdale and, potentially, the hole that could stand between a would-be Open champion and golf’s oldest major, and it becomes even more forbidding.

It feels that way on the late Spring day The Athletic visits — and that’s without the thousands of fans who will be in attendance when the 154th Open begins on Thursday, or the gale-force wind and driving rain that can whip in from the Irish Sea. After a sliced tee shot, a recovery shot into a fairway bunker, one out, and another short of the green, I  was grateful to walk off with a double-bogey six.

It feels respectable enough for a rusty ten-handicapper, but I might be in decent company in finding the hole — remodelled this year as a 508-yard Par 4, ditching the quirky “double fairway” that used to be a defining feature — an ordeal.

Chris Thompson, a member of Royal Birkdale for 20 years and who sits on the Championship Committee (his father, Alan, used to coach Tommy Fleetwood, who hails from nearby Southport), says the 18th could end up being one of the higher-scoring holes this week.

---

Royal Birkdale — it was afforded the ‘Royal’ status in 1951 by King George VI — sits on the so-called ‘Golf Coast’, a stretch of shoreline in the north-west of England which includes Royal Liverpool (Hoylake) and Royal Lytham, both Open venues in their own right.

This is the 11th time it has hosted an Open since 1954 — only St Andrews has hosted more often in that period — and demand has never been greater. More than 1 million applications for tickets were received but only 300,o00 struck lucky.

Royal Birkdale may be 137 years old but it has never been afraid of change. Three of its 18 holes are new this summer and with modifications to every hole — made by Mackenzie & Ebert, the golf course designers who have worked on Carnoustie, Royal Troon, Royal Portrush and Turnberry — the variety should only enhance the feeling among players that this is one of the most enjoyable venues on the Open circuit.

There’s a spectacular new par-3 (Hole 15), a long par-5 (Hole 14) and a revised, risk-reward short par-4 (Hole 5), which could become one of the most entertaining spots for spectators who are fortunate enough to attend.

New tee boxes have been added elsewhere, enhanced run offs around 12 greens will create more doubt, and all bunkers have been reshaped. One of the more contentious decisions was replacing the old 14th hole with a new short-game area, although there is no disputing the quality of the practice facilities.

Yet for a course regarded as one of the best in England — and now the most expensive to play at £495-per-round ($657) — the obvious question is why so many changes?

Was this a push from the Royal & Ancient, the St Andrews-based governing body of golf who set the rules and run The Open? The committee at the club insist it was not.

Making the four tournament days tougher was never the primary objective, either, even if those connected with the club are naturally hoping the conditions keep scores in check.

Nor was the multi-million-pound project designed with the world’s best players specifically in mind. At Birkdale, where the membership is drawn overwhelmingly from the local area (traditionally, the home of many Liverpool FC footballers), it is the members, not the professionals, who tend to come first, so this was a project designed for everyone; to make the course more playable for the regulars, to enhance the experience for the growing number of U.S. tourists who arrive on package deals, and to create a little more doubt for those chasing the final major of the year.

Nine years ago, Jordan Spieth won by three shots to join an illustrious list of champions at the venue. But despite the winning margin, his victory was anything but straightforward. He blew a three-shot overnight lead by the turn of the final round to eventually claw it back with a run of birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie to finish on 12-under, which feels like a modest number to expect this time around given that the UK has been basking in a heat wave for much of the last month and how low the scoring has been on the PGA Tour this season.

The abiding memory of 2017 was Spieth’s shot from the practice area after a wild drive on Hole 13, but this year that will be out of bounds as part of the spectator village. The practice area at neighbouring Hillside Golf Club will be used for The Open in a push to enhance the spectator experience.

The Athletic visited in May, before the course closed for final preparations, and while it became clear that the changes haven’t made the course any easier, the layout is more varied.

Take the Par 3s, for example. Three of the four were once aligned in much the same direction and often playing to a similar yardage but they now possess their own distinct identities, and there’s no chance of taking the same club on every tee shot.

The 7th measures 151 yards from an elevated tee and a different angle to 2017, with the green being raised a metre to create severe run offs.

The new 15th plays in an easterly direction, unlike any other Par 3, and features the largest green on the course, but it is designed to run the ball in and can stretch to a daunting 241 yards. Sadly, the view of the iconic white clubhouse from the tee will be blocked by a huge hospitality facility erected behind the green, although whatever is lost visually should be replaced by plenty of noise from what is likely to become the course’s ‘party hole’.

No doubt the closing stretch is where the Claret Jug will be won or lost. It starts with a new 602-yard beast of a Par 5 at Hole 14, playing slightly uphill and which could be chaotic if it is windy. The 16th is a Par-4 that will play 35 yards shorter than in 2017, but with a new fairway bunker and expansive runs offs around the raised green. The newly-narrowed 17th will be straight-forward from the fairway, but finding it is another matter, before heading to the final hole, which is as dramatic as it is testing.

There are plenty of smaller touches, too, which should appeal to golf nerds— from making the clubhouse more viewable from certain positions on the course, to removing the mound at the back of the 12th green so there is no backstop, and revealing a beautiful natural dune instead.

The changes to Holes 5, 7, 14, 15 and 18 will take up most of the talk in the days ahead, but there is so much more than that.

A measure of the scale and subtlety of the alterations elsewhere can be seen on Hole 6. Pine trees have been removed as part of long-term ecology work to restore the land to natural duneland.

This benefits turf condition on the tees and has facilitated new spectator access along the right-hand side of the hole. The 6th fairway used to be waterlogged after heavy rain but is now dry 12 months of the year because of a new drainage system.

Scoring will depend largely on the weather, but the hope is that it does not descend into a putting contest. That would do little for the club, the championship or, most importantly, the spectators who pay big sums for a true test of golf rather than a birdie fest.

The last time the Open came to this corner of England, at Royal Liverpool (Hoylake) in 2023, Brian Harman emerged as the surprise winner when his putter was red hot. That led to some heckling the US golfer, partly in disappointment that he had taken the spotlight away from Fleetwood, but because he was just so good that he appeared faultless from tee to green, despite the testing wind and rain. The R&A hope a new code of conduct around spectator behaviour will keep everyone in check.

The glory of winning an Open does not depend on the venue, but Birkdale offers a particular prestige. Australian great Peter Thomson won here twice, while Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Lee Trevino are three of the six Americans to have conquered it.

Their achievements are immortalised in the pictures hung on the walls of the clubhouse. The hope, this week, is that more memories will be added.