By Andy Lack

2023 Open Championship Course Breakdown: Royal Liverpool 

The Basics 

• Course: Royal Liverpool
• Location: Hoylake, Merseyside, England
• Designer: Robert Chambers & George Morris (1871); Harry Colt (1895); Martin Ebert (2020)
• Length: Par 71; 7,383 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on one hole
• Fairways: Fescue
• Rough: Fescue with tall fescue
• Greens: Bent-grass with Poa Annua, Fescue

In a golf year mired with conflict, mergers, and anti-trust litigation, we have somehow made it to the final major of the year. Deep breaths. We are almost home, and yet I am somewhat dreading an inevitable narrative shift even further away from the birdies and bogeys once we bid farewell to another major season. For one more special and singular week of the year, we get to focus on the golf.

For the first time in 9 years, the Open Championship returns to Royal Liverpool, a British links course in the small town of Hoylake, which features a population of just 5,000. Liverpool was designed in 1871 by Robert Chambers and George Morris (the younger brother of Old Tom Morris), but Harry Colt completely re-modeled the course in 1895. Liverpool was left largely untouched for more than 100 years until Martin Ebert began work on the course in 2020 in preparation for this week’s festivities.

Built on an old horse racing track, Liverpool may be the least topographically intriguing course on the Open rota. Yet for what it lacks in sand dunes, it makes up for in history and atmosphere. Liverpool has hosted the Open 12 times, most recently in 2014, where Rory McIlroy triumphed over Rickie Fowler. In 2006, Tiger Woods won an emotional Open Championship in the wake of his father’s death. Rory and Tiger triumphed at 17 and 18 under, respectively, and Liverpool has historically played as one of the easier courses on the Open rota. With that being said, a concerted effort was made by the Royal and Ancient to ensure that Liverpool can adapt to the modern game. They hired Ebert, a famed British architect who had previously re-modeled Royal Portrush ahead of the 2019 Open, to enact a few crucial changes.

Course Changes

• The previous 15th hole has been replaced by a new 17th hole. The old 15th used to run east to west and measured 160 yards. It was a rather rudimentary downwind par three. Ebert flipped the hole 180 degrees in the other direction, and it now plays just 135 yards on the scorecard and features a table-top, elevated infinity green. This hole is going to be really cool. It’s a rugged little par three coming down the stretch and facing the ocean. “Little Eye” is now the closest hole to the beach on the property and is sure to provide plenty of drama coming down the stretch in the form of an exacting test of short-iron play and distance control. It’s a nervy little golf shot, not dissimilar from the 17th at TPC Sawgrass, where players are sure to be thinking about the shot well before they step on the tee box.
• The 15th and 18th holes both feature new tee boxes. The 18th has been stretched to 607 yards, as the tee was moved back 50 yards and significantly to the right, while the out of bounds down the right side has been moved 20 yards further left. The fairway now appears to be just a handful of yards wide off the tee, particularly with a carry of 240 yards to reach the fairway. Dangerous bunkers loom down the left side. The 17th and 18th will be a test of nerves coming down the stretch, and players will need to make two to three exacting swings to solidify their hands on the Claret Jug.
• Major changes were also made to the fourth, seventh, and 13th holes. The front of the fourth green is now raised to produce a flatter landing area. The fourth green is also shrunken in the back right section and replaced by short grass. The seventh green was moved to the left, allowing for a new tee complex on the eighth hole to be built. A new runoff area around the 13th green was created as well.
• The 15th hole also has a new tee box, extending the yardage to 620 yards. It will depend on the direction of the wind, but players can still take a significant portion of length away by carrying the bunker on the right.
• The par was changed from a par 72 to a par 71, as the 10th hole, which was previously a 532-yard par five, will now play as a 507-yard par four. 
• For information purposes, the 17th and 18th holes for members, actually play as the first and second holes for the championship.

From a forty-thousand foot view, Royal Liverpool is a relatively flat golf course that does not feature a ton of towering sand dunes. It’s not really that interesting of a golf course topographically, but the tall fescue and looming out of bounds make for an incredibly fascinating tournament from the standpoint of how wayward driving is actually penalized. All the par fours and par fives have two to three yards of semi-rough, and if players miss that, they are essentially in knee high fescue. The margins for error are as slim as on golf course we’ve seen this year. The biggest question at this Open remains: Will Liverpool be firm enough to the point where even the most accurate of drivers are missing the fairway, or will the fairways play wide enough for precision to really shine? 

Out of bounds comes into play on six different holes, and there are deep and very penal fairway bunkers that were all re-positioned to account for modern driving distances. Small, raised green complexes are surrounded by very steep faced bunkers. Yet for what it’s worth, Liverpool features some of the flattest greens on the Open rota. Hoylake also does not feature fairway irrigation systems and should guarantee we will see a firm golf course.

Let’s run through a few quotes from players on the task at hand this week.

• Phil Mickelson, “The reason I really like Royal Liverpool is the same reason that I really like Muirfield, and that is when you have to land a ball 20, 30 yards short of the green, if you hit it at the green, the ball will kick on. There is not these repellent hillsides in the landing area that kicks balls off into the trouble. If you hit offline, it will continue to go offline. It’s not going to hit a mound and kick back to the green. What I’m ultimately saying is well-struck shots are rewarded and poorly struck shots are penalized. And that’s not always the case in links golf. It could be the exact opposite many times. In fact, that happened quite a few times at Royal Aberdeen. So the thing I really like about Royal Liverpool is the same thing I liked about Muirfield, those last 20, 30 yards short of the green were often times you don’t have to land a golf ball, it will continue to bounce on to the green if you strike it properly.”

• Graeme McDowell, “I think this golf course still has plenty of protection with the kind of rolls and humps and undulations on these greens. It’s going to be placement off the tee to give you a chance to attack some of the pins. The greens are so shaped with a lot of very good bunkering in and around the greens. You see a lot of the greens with quite narrow entrances with bunkers right and left, with kind of down slopes over the top of those, a lot of greens, where you have to be very careful with your approach shots.”

• Henrik Stenson, “So hitting fairways is going to be key, if you do that, you give yourself the best chance to hit the greens. In certain areas if you miss a green, you’re going to have a little trickier up and down as well. Some courses are a little bit flatter to the sides and maybe a little bit more undulation. On here they’re kind of flat on the surface and then it goes away a little bit more in certain areas. So fairways and greens, like any other week, I guess. But it’s going to be pretty crucial here, I think. And avoiding the bunkers is always going to be more or less costing you a shot every time you hit it in the fairway bunkers. Scoring is going to be down to the wind and the weather.”

Ultimately, coming off back-to-back easier Opens at St. George’s and St. Andrew’s, I would not be surprised if we see a bit of over-correction in terms of scoring (weather provided). There has unequivocally been a concerted effort to make this golf course more challenging. Liverpool was also on the softer side (for Open standards) in 2014. The 2006 edition saw firmer conditions, where Tiger Woods hit two iron off nearly every tee, ranking outside the top-50 in driving distance, but first in driving accuracy percentage. Looking at the weather forecast, I would guess that turf conditions will be closer to what we saw in 2014 than 2006, but at least the par change from 72 to 71 will protect scoring more-so than previous Liverpool Opens. Let’s take a five-day-out glance at the weather, and then dig into some trends and statistics.

Weather 

As I write this on Saturday afternoon, I would not say that I’m seeing weather conditions that will produce carnage. Thursday should see steady winds between 12 and 17 mph from the west. Players will be able to score in round one, but there will be enough breeze to prevent a shootout. Friday should see similar wind speed and direction, with some light rain in the afternoon. I will dive far deeper into this in my Wednesday article, but I could certainly see a bit of an advantage for the PM/AM wave, who will be able to avoid playing in moderate wind and light rain on Friday afternoon. I’m concerned about Saturday from a scoring standpoint. There is barely any breeze in the forecast for Saturday, and the course will be softer due to the rain on Friday afternoon. The R & A better get spicy with their pin positions on moving day, or we could see some really low scores. Sunday should provide a bit more of a test, particularly for the later tee times. The morning players will experience rather calm conditions, but the leaders will tee off with 22 mph wind gusts and some rain around 4:00 PM local time. Don’t be surprised if we see one of the early players post a number while the leaders struggle in far more difficult conditions. Taking all of this into consideration, my winning score prediction this week is -14. Let’s dive into some trends.

Trends 

• Open Championship Pedigree
  • Collin Morikawa won the Open as a debutant in 2021, and Cameron Smith won last year without a single top-15 in four prior Open appearances. With that being said, Smith was in the mix at Royal Portrush and Royal St. George’s before stumbling over the weekend. While the last two years have been the exception to the rule, all Open Championship winners from 2011 to 2019 had shown some prior level of success at this tournament.
  • 2019 winner Shane Lowry finished ninth at Liverpool in 2014. 2018 champion Francesco Molinari had a top-10 and two top-20s before winning at Carnoustie in 2018. 2017 winner Jordan Spieth had a fourth at St. Andrew’s in 2015. Henrik Stenson had three top-10s and another top-20 in 11 Open appearances before out-dueling Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon in 2016.
  • The past 11 winners of the Open Championship have appeared in an average of 10 Opens prior to winning, yet we are still beginning to witness a shift in talent trumping links experience.
• Recent Major Form
  • Nine of the last 10 winners of the Open Championship have posted a top-20 in at least one of their previous two majors. 
  • Every single one of the last 10 Open winners already had a win or a runner-up in a major in their career. Not great news for Patrick Cantlay or Max Homa!
• OWGR 
  • Only one world number one has won the Open in the last 20 years.
  • We have not seen an Open winner outside of the world top-40 in the last 10 years. Ernie Els and Shane Lowry were the only two winners in the last 10 years to have ranked outside of the world top-30. Six of the last 10 Open winners have ranked inside the world top-10, but none have been ranked first or second. 
• Recent Form 
  • Recent form is always an incredibly strong indicator of success at majors. While the Open certainly brings more variance into play due to the weather, form is still an essential predictor. Those who are struggling with their game are less than likely to suddenly find it on a links golf course.
    • 2022: Cameron Smith won the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January, the Players Championship in March, and he almost won the Masters in April. He went off in the final group at the Memorial, and finished 10th at the Scottish Open the week prior to winning at St. Andrews.
    • 2021: Collin Morikawa finished 71st at the Scottish Open the week prior to winning the Open at St. George’s, but prior to that, he had a fourth at the U.S. Open, second at the Memorial, eighth at the PGA Championship, and seventh at the Heritage, all within his last six starts.
    • 2019: Shane Lowry won the Abu Dhabi Championship season opener in January, finished third at the Heritage, eighth at the PGA Championship, and second at the Canadian Open.
    • 2018: Francesco Molinari won the BMW PGA in May, finished second at the Italian Open as the defending champ, won the AT&T National, and finished runner-up at the John Deere in the week prior to winning at Carnoustie.
    • 2017: Jordan Spieth was coming off a win at the Travelers Championship in his most recent start.
    • 2016: Henrik Stenson was coming off a 13th at the Scottish Open, and two weeks prior, he won the BMW International Open where he led the field in driving accuracy and greens in regulation.
    • 2015: Zach Johnson arrived at St. Andrews fresh off a runner-up at the John Deere Classic, a fifth at the Byron Nelson and a sixth at the Travelers in his preceding three starts.
    • 2014: Rory McIlroy won the BMW PGA in May and finished 14th at the Scottish Open in the week prior to winning at Liverpool.
    • 2013: Phil Mickelson won the Phoenix Open in February, finished runner-up at the U.S. Open, and won the Scottish Open in the week prior to winning at Muirfield.
    • 2012: Ernie Els had four top-five finishes, a seventh at Wentworth, and a ninth at the U.S. Open prior to winning at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.
    • 16 of the last 22 Open Champions had won a tournament in the season prior to triumphing at the Open. 
    • Nine of the last 10 Open Champions had posted at least one top-10 in one of their previous three starts. Surprisingly, the odd man out here is Rory McIlroy at Liverpool in 2014.
    • Eight of the last 10 Open winners have teed it up in the week prior to the Open, which is not great news for the LIV players.

Stats 

• Off the Tee 
  • Let’s run through a few of the quotes from the 2014 Open on strategy off the tee at Liverpool:
    • Rory McIlroy: “I’ll use 2 iron a bit. I’ll use it on the first two holes, definitely. I think it will be an important club. I’ll probably use the 2 iron just as much as I’ll use the driver. I usually carry a 5-wood instead of a 2 iron, but I just think for this terrain and the conditions and the wind, the 2-iron just goes that little bit lower, and there’s a bit of a better flight on it, which is obviously better for these conditions.”
    • Phil Mickelson, “Yeah the 2-iron. I have two clubs that are specific to this tournament; it’s a 2 iron and a 64-degree wedge that has very little bounce. I think there will be a few times when I use a driver, but it will be situational on the wind, pin placement and how I’m feeling at the given moment.”
    • In 2006, Tiger Woods ditched his 5-wood for a 2-iron, and played incredibly conservatively off the tee. He took many of the fairway bunkers out of the equation, and hit 85% of his fairways. Tiger only used his driver once during the whole tournament. Rory obviously played a bit more aggressively in 2014, but even he hit far more 2-irons than we would typically see from Rory, and he still finished top-20 in driving accuracy.
  • Ultimately, this is a challenging golf course to model out off the tee, because it is all about club selection and discipline. We are not yet at a point with data where we have certain driving accuracy percentages based on club choices. I say this to encourage all to take their models with a grain of salt this week. For example, Rory is not an incredibly accurate driver of the ball with the big stick, but if decides to deploy a similar strategy to Tiger in 2006, how accurate he is with the driver becomes irrelevant if he hits 2-iron on every hole. With that being said, we can come close to figuring out which players are the best suited for a golf course like this off the tee by combining a couple of specific off-the-tee metrics and taking an aggregate.
    • The best way to try and identify who are the most accurate drivers of the ball with clubs other than driver are to identify which players gain the most strokes off the tee on club-down, positional golf courses that take driver out of a player’s hands. The best players off the tee on short, positional golf courses over the last two years have been Joaquin Niemann, Corey Conners, Russell Henley, Adam Scott, Emiliano Grillo, Sungjae Im, Francesco Molinari, Luke List, Talor Gooch, and Tony Finau. 
    • Royal Liverpool is also an incredibly firm golf course, and another worry metric to look at is what players perform the best off the tee in firm conditions. The best players in this field off the tee on firm conditions over the last two years have been Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Cameron Young, Joaquin Niemann, Gary Woodland, Tony Finau, and Corey Conners. 
    • Finally, I still want to identify the pound for pound most accurate drivers of the ball in all sorts of conditions. Players can hit driver on this course, and some who are incredibly accurate with the big stick may end up with a huge advantage on this course. The most accurate drivers of the ball over the last year have been Russell Henley, Brendon Todd, Si Woo Kim, Collin Morikawa, Tom Kim, Zach Johnson, Patrick Cantlay, Andrew Putnam, Sepp Straka, and Brian Harman. 
    • The players in this field who rank top-20 in all three of these metrics, and feel the safest bets to succeed off the tee at Royal Liverpool are Patrick Cantlay, Sungjae Im, and Corey Conners. 

• Approach 
  • There probably isn’t a more challenging golf course on the schedule in terms of accurately predicting proximity buckets than Royal Liverpool. We can do our best to guess what direction the wind will be coming, but there is no longer a definitive prevailing wind direction during the summer months. I still went hole by hole and did my best to approximate what approach shot distances would look like under the current weather forecast. I do expect this golf course to play extremely firm, yet still, due to strategically placed bunkers, Liverpool is still a golf course that will play fairly long. There are a ton of forced layups on this track, and holes that will play much longer into the wind, as well as downwind holes that cause layups due to the potential for balls running through the fairways. I still expect that most will deploy a more aggressive strategy than Tiger’s “no driver” approach in 2016, but Liverpool is still a golf course that takes driver out of a player’s hands. Driving corridors play very narrow due to the firmness of turf and bunkering, and the consequence for narrowly missed tee shots is dire. The margin for error is small at this golf course, as tall fescue and internal out of bounds sit dangerously close on many holes to the center of the fairway. Taking all of this into consideration, here is how I have the proximity buckets shaking out:
    • Inside 100 yards: 11%
    • 100-125 yards: 5%
    • 125-150 yards: 11%
    • 150-175 yards: 11%
    • 175-200 yards: 28%
    • 200 yards plus: 33%
  • I would still say that like most major championships, mid- to long-iron play remains the name of the game this week. Liverpool is not as long-iron intensive as Oak Hill, Los Angeles Country Club, or Augusta, but due to the bounty of hazards that will deter players from wailing away aggressively off the tee, course lengthening, and its exposure to the wind, it’s not as far behind as many would think. The best mid- to long-iron players in this field are Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Gary Woodland, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Tom Hoge, Davis Riley, Justin Rose, Scottie Scheffler, and Xander Schauffele. 

• Around the Green 
  • All of the bunkers at Royal Liverpool were re-done ahead of the Open, and they all feature riveted edges. Many of the bunkers were actually reduced in size, but they are actually larger due to the ground surrounding that will funnel shots in. Ebert also created pockets of exposed sand in the dunes, a staple of his remodel jobs. Ultimately, expertise out of bunkers will be incredibly important at Royal Liverpool. The best sand players in this field this year have been Justin Rose, Andrew Putnam, Ben Griffin, Brendon Todd, Brian Harman, Padraig Harrington, Tommy Fleetwood, Si Woo Kim, Jordan Spieth, and Chris Kirk. 
  • The best players around the green in firm conditions over the past two years have been Chris Kirk, Russell Henley, Talor Gooch, Brendon Todd, Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Cameron Smith, and Matt Fitzpatrick. 

• Putting 
  • Similar to last week at the Renaissance Club, the two specific putting metrics that should always be at the forefront of our mind on links golf courses are slow green performance and lag putting. I will say that the greens at Royal Liverpool are on the flatter side compared to other Open venues, which does open up the door for worse putters to potentially succeed. I still see a ton of value in identifying the best lag putters and those who raise their baseline on slower greens.
    • The best lag putters in this field over the past year have been Jason Day, Sam Burns, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Tyrrell Hatton, Scottie Scheffler, Andrew Putnam, Keegan Bradley, Matt Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy, and J.T. Poston. 
    • The best slow green putters in this field over the past two years have been Billy Horschel, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Reed, Jon Rahm, Brendon Todd, Lucas Herbert, Andrew Putnam, Patrick Cantlay, Tyrrell Hatton, and Max Homa. 

• Scoring Stats 
  • I went back and forth on including some sort of wind metric in my model this week, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that we are just not there with data yet to accurately identify (from a purely statistical standpoint) the best wind players in this field. We can certainly figure out players who have had success in windy conditions anecdotally, but I still wouldn’t put too much stock into using data to help us here. On the contrary, I do believe that we can accurately identify the players who have performed the best on firm golf courses. The best players in this field over the past two years on firm golf courses have been Jon Rahm, Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, Tyrrell Hatton, Max Homa, Wyndham Clark, and Tommy Fleetwood. 

• Comp Courses/Course History 
  • While there have been a fair amount of changes to Royal Liverpool since we last saw this golf course in 2014, the bones are still there, and the general ethos of the golf course has not changed. The players in this field who finished top-20 at the 2014 Open Championship at Liverpool were Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott, Shane Lowry, Dustin Johnson, Francesco Molinari, Keegan Bradley, and Chris Kirk. 
  • Not all Open rota courses are created equal. St. Andrews, for example, is a terrible comp course to Royal Liverpool. Big misses are not remotely penalized at St. Andrews the way that they are at Royal Liverpool, which causes players to enact completely different strategies at each course. The two Open rota courses that I did find to be appealing reference points however were Royal Troon and Muirfield. I’ve already provided the Mickelson quote equating Liverpool to Muirfield. Yes, Muirfield features more interesting topography and undulating green complexes, but both courses are all out in front of you, completely exposed to the wind, and require enacting driving. The players in this field who finished top-20 at the 2013 Open at Muirfield were Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Zach Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Francesco Molinari, Charl Schwartzel, Keegan Bradley, Danny Willett, and Harris English. 
  • If we look at the leaderboard at the 2016 Open at Royal Troon, another more strategic and exposed venue, Stenson and Mickelson rose to the top again. Hard to view this as a complete coincidence given the nature of the test at Troon and how that could also be applied to predict how the leaderboard may shake out at Liverpool. The players in this field that finished top-20 at the 2016 Open at Troon were Henrik Stenson, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Gary Woodland, Emiliano Grillo, Patrick Reed, Matthew Southgate, Keegan Bradley, Tony Finau, and Charl Schwartzel. 
  • TPC Sawgrass: If we look at the top four players at the 2014 Open at Liverpool — Rory, Rickie, Sergio, Adam Scott — they have all won the Players Championship (not to mention our 2006 champion at Liverpool, Tiger Woods.) I’m not entirely sure that this is a huge coincidence. Yes, TPC Sawgrass is a Florida, Bermuda golf course with water hazards everywhere, but the strategy and skill-set required at both courses is not all that dissimilar. Both Sawgrass and Liverpool feature landmines at every turn. Driving accuracy and avoiding hazards is paramount at both golf courses, and there are far worse uses of our time than identifying some players who have found success at TPC Sawgrass as a reference point. The best players in this field in average strokes gained per round at TPC Sawgrass have been Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Bryson DeChambeau, Si Woo Kim, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Thomas, Jason Day, Viktor Hovland, Keegan Bradley, and Scottie Scheffler. 
  • PGA National: My rationale for looking at TPC Sawgrass can also be applied to PGA National. Rory McIlroy (winner at the Honda), Sergio Garcia (2nd at the Honda), Adam Scott (winner at the Honda), Shane Lowry (2nd, 5th at the Honda), Rickie Fowler (winner at the Honda), and Chris Kirk (winner at the Honda) ALL finished top-20 at Liverpool in 2014. Similar to TPC Sawgrass, PGA National is a Florida, Bermuda golf course with water everywhere, but the name of the game is avoiding hazards at all costs. The best players in this field at PGA National have been Sergio Garcia, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, Gary Woodland, Wyndham Clark, and Kurt Kitayama. 

Model 

• Off the Tee (19%)
  • Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Firm Golf Courses (7%)
  • Driving Accuracy Percentage (7%)
  • Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Short, Positional Golf Courses with Narrow Fairways (5%)
• Approach (30%)
  • Recent Strokes Gained Approach (15%)
  • Long-term Proximity 175-200 yards (7%)
  • Long-term Proximity 200 yards-plus (8%)
• Around the Green (12%)
  • Strokes Gained Around the Green: Firm Golf Courses (6%)
  • Sand Save Percentage (6%)
• Putting (12%)
  • Strokes Gained Putting: Slow Greens (7%)
  • Approach Putting (5%)
• Scoring Stats (8%)
  • Strokes Gained Total: Firm Golf Courses (8%)
• Comp Courses/Course History (19%)
  • Royal Liverpool (5%)
  • Muirfield (4%)
  • Royal Troon (4%)
  • TPC Sawgrass (3%)
  • PGA National (3%)

Top 20 

1. Jon Rahm
2. Patrick Cantlay
3. Rory McIlroy
4. Scottie Scheffler
5. Xander Schauffele
6. Collin Morikawa
7. Justin Rose
8. Tony Finau
9. Hideki Matsuyama
10. Shane Lowry
11. Tommy Fleetwood
12. Si Woo Kim
13. Viktor Hovland
14. Max Homa
15. Tyrrell Hatton
16. Corey Conners
17. Tom Kim
18. Wyndham Clark
19. Rickie Fowler
20. Sungjae Im