Royal Birkdale Open Champions, 1954 – 2017
Royal Birkdale has produced eight different Champions since it joined The Open rota in 1954.
The 146th Open Championship marks the 10th time Royal Birkdale Golf Club has hosted this ultimate test of skill and endurance. With the exception of Padraig Harrington’s 2008 victory, Americans and Australians have curiously dominated the Royal Birkdale track since the first playing of The Open on Birkdale’s links in 1954.
First, a bit of background on this historic links course. Birkdale is located along England’s northwest coast, near Southport and while it does not have a sea view, on-course conditions are profoundly influenced by weather blowing in off the Irish Sea.
The Birkdale Club opened for play as a nine-hole track in 1889 and was expanded to 18 holes and moved to its current location in 1894. During the 1930s the course was renovated and upgraded to championship standards by F.W. Hawtree and J.H. Taylor.
In 1951 George VI bestowed the royal charter on Birkdale and since then the club has hosted, in addition to The Open, the Ryder Cup, Women’s British Open, Curtis Cup, and Walker Cup competitions.
Bernard Darwin has described the Birkdale links in Golf Between Two Wars as:
". . . a ‘big’ course on which it is good fun to see the big men stretch themselves . . . no bad player is going to win over Birkdale, and yet it is no slogger’s paradise . . ."
With fairways laid out to follow the valleys between enormous dunes, Royal Birkdale is both challenging and fair in its test of golfers’ skills. When the wind is blowing in from the Irish Sea, carries from tee to fairway and fairway to green require strength and shot-making precision.
Pot bunkers, some of them tucked into sly and sneaky fairway locations, and tussocky dunes can complicate life for players who stray from the short grass. Take a hole-by-hole virtual tour to get a feel for the challenge of playing Royal Birkdale.
Despite the potential troubles and excruciating challenges, Royal Birkdale is among the favorite Open Championship tracks for the players who compete for the Claret Jug. Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johny Miller, Tom Watson, Ian Baker-Finch, Mark O’Meara, and Padraig Harrington would probably put Royal Birkdale at the top of their favorites lists.