Royal Liverpool (Hoylake)

Royal Liverpool, aka Hoylake, can be equally beautiful, uplifting, awe inspiring and, on occasion, soul-destroying. Currently GOLF Magazine has the course listed as #65 in the world. The links was created to be a demanding test of golf and remains so. They lie at the very heart of the history and development of golf in Great Britain.

Royal Liverpool was built in 1869 on the horse track of the Liverpool Hunt Club. Hoylake is the oldest of all the English seaside courses with the exception of Westward Ho! in Devon. The original design of Hoylake was overseen by Robert Chambers and George Morris, younger brother of Old Tom Morris. The course was extended to 18 holes in 1871, then later that year the Club was granted its Royal designation thanks to the patronage of His Royal Highness The Duke of Connaught.

For the first seven years the land still doubled as a golf course and a horse racing track. Echoes of this heritage can be found today in the names of the first and eighteenth holes, ‘Course’ and ‘Stand’. While also, the original saddling bell still hangs in the club house. Once the horses had been dispatched to pastures new, Hoylake began to take its place in the history of golf and the amateur game in particular.

In fact, it is Royal Liverpool’s contribution to the amateur game that sets it apart from all other clubs in England. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews became the governing body in golf. However, it was at Hoylake that the rules of amateur status were laid down.

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