‘Nostalgia. It ain’t what it used to be’. So quipped American satirist Peter DeVries.
Over the last few months, the nostalgia for me has been real. Every time I walk the few hundred yards from my home to the golf course I’ve loved my entire life, I am transported back to memories of a week that shaped the rest of my life. That golf course is Hoylake, home to the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. And the week in question was a sunburnt and cloudless one in July 2006.
Hoylake
Hoylake is a grand old place. One of the great bastions of the game. Among a hundred other things, it is the home of the Amateur Championship and the first international golf match. It was where GB&I amateurs first played the Americans, a year before that formalized fixture received a trophy presented by George Herbert Walker.
Put simply, a lot has happened at Hoylake, and it has given a lot to the game of golf. It also happened to be the first place I swung a golf club.
So, back in 2006, Hoylake was just my home course – the only one I’d ever known. Special not for its place in the game but in the way every golf course is special to a golf-addicted teenager.
It was the place my friends and I would loop endlessly. We’d have chipping competitions till the light faded and spend every moment our parents would let us there.
A month of Mickelson
Phil Mickelson was the reigning PGA Champ. He was the reigning Masters Champ too. But for a few weeks before the Championship started, he became a regular fixture at Hoylake. Perhaps he was putting his traumatic double bogey finish to the US Open at Winged Foot behind him, sharpening his game for the next major. Perhaps he was hiding from the sharp eyes of the golfing world. But for three of the four weeks before the 2006 Open Championship, Phil became a regular fixture at Hoylake.
It became a nearly daily experience to see Phil out practicing on the course. ‘Bones’ MacKay on the bag, and famed short game coach Dave Pelz casting his eye over proceedings. Members soon got used to this unlikely threeball on the links. When they caught up with them, Phil would stand aside, smile and wave the starstruck Hoylake members through.
He ingratiated himself, though. Arriving and asking for the nearest Mcdonalds’ restaurant, he was directed instead to the local fish and chip shop, ‘Marigolds’.
Championship week
Sunday is the start of the official practice days when the gates are opened to everyone. Until then, we had the run of the place.
For the poor professionals preparing for one of the game’s biggest majors, I’m sure a group of eager teenagers is the last thing they’d want. Some of them gave us short shrift, the manicured personalities portrayed in the media not holding up to the real-life experience. Others were fabulous. Generous beyond duty, taking the time to talk to us, sign gloves and hats and share in our excitement.
A memorable moment involved Nick Dougherty. Now one of the best pundits on the British coverage, he was playing in his first Open that week. As he stood and chatted to us, a scaffolder putting the final touches on the 18th grandstand shouted down: ’Hey kids, Tiger Woods is over there!’.
‘Thanks Nick! Sorry Nick! Good luck this week!’. The moment we had been waiting for had arrived. We were off, as fast as our legs would carry, to follow our idol.
Tiger arrives
By now, the fairways had been baked to a crisp and the greens weren’t far behind. To stop a ball on them with a mid-iron was beyond the abilities of most. We watched Tiger play the full course, refining the game plan which would serve him so well.
This was the Saturday before the official practice days, and watching the world’s greatest golfer put on an exhibition for a handful of club members was something that will live long in the memory.
Tiger positioned his 2 iron off the tee as a grandmaster plots his way around a chessboard. His ball striking was a cut above anyone else we’d seen, and his short game was immaculate. The control he had seemed absolute and unbeatable.
And so, it proved to be. Despite Phil’s extended practice, his performance was not enough to make amends for Winged Foot. Tiger made it two Opens in a row.
It may be clichéd to say Tiger made golf ‘cool’, but for me, it was true. Watching him play with passion and panache, athleticism and a competitive edge surely unmatched, he inspired a generation to the game.
If I’d been told back then that this would potentially be his last Open win, that he would soon enter a major drought that would last 11 years, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.
The 151st Championship
17 years later, as Hoylake is again transformed with the infrastructure to accommodate over a quarter of a million fans, the excitement builds. But it doesn’t look like my hero from 2006 will be amongst this year’s superstars.
As I watch the carnival build in 2023, I wonder if it feels quite the same as it did in 2006? Perhaps not. But that’s OK. For me, The Open did its job. It made me fall more deeply in love with the greatest game there is. Now, I’m lucky to call it my job as well as my passion.
For the new generation, I hope they feel the same butterflies we did. I hope they see their heroes write new stories that will stay with them for years to come.
As the fairways of Hoylake regain the same crisp, brown sheen as 2006 – I think they will.
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