New Par-3 17th, Other Major Changes Coming To Hoylake For 2022 Open

New 17th at Royal Liverpool

Royal Liverpool, aka Hoylake, most recently home to Rory McIlroy’s 2014 Open win and last summer’s Walker Cup, is undergoing several huge changes prior to its next Open Championship in 2022.

Golf Monthly’s Elliott Heath with the details and some early images of the work, which includes a new short par-3 17th for The Open playing 139 yards with what looks like an infinity green backed by the Dee Estuary.

Royal Liverpool’s Chairman of Green, Andrew Goodwin, said: “The decision to make changes to a course like Hoylake wasn’t taken lightly, but throughout the Club’s 150 year history alterations have been made and Royal Liverpool has continued to evolve and improve, ensuring it remains a wonderful challenge for both amateur and elite professional golfers alike.”

He meant to note the profound increase in athleticism, too. We’ll let it slide.

The new hole also helps prevent two incoming par-5’s from being drives and short irons in the era of triathletes who are able to leap tall dunes in a single bound.

Martin Ebert said: “The project at Royal Liverpool has been an extremely exciting one overall but the opportunity to create a new hole on a great links such as Hoylake is a rare one. The hope and expectation is that not only can a very short hole produce significant drama for the penultimate hole of The Open, but also provide the Club with a hole which members and visiting golfers from around the world will be hugely excited to play. It is also a real advantage of the new hole project that the Championship 15th and 18th par 5 holes will be strengthened with new back tees.”

Heath describes other changes, including several new tees, run-offs and service roads with The Open in mind. And the modern athlete.