No. 15 at Royal Liverpool stands out. This shot in explicit.
Sean Zak
In 2006, Tiger Woods took aside Royal Liverpool like an archaeologist. He’d uncover a win ultimately, he was certain, so long as he didn’t make any big-time errors. Pulling driver to problem a faraway fairway bunker? May as nicely deliver dynamite to a prehistoric excavation. Woods left the blasting to his determined competitors, making his means round Hoylake with chisel and brush, utilizing smaller, finer instruments: 2-irons off tees and lengthy irons to the middles of greens. With each fairway and inexperienced he hit, the inevitability of his victory drew nearer.
To win a main championship, in some unspecified time in the future you need to take some dangers — until you’re Tiger Woods. Particularly 2006 Tiger Woods. To win this main championship, he was decided to not take any dangers in any respect.
“That week was far and away the best ball-striking tournament he ever had,” swing coach Hank Haney informed The Scotsman later.
His was a win for self-discipline and for persistence; Royal Liverpool was burnt to a crisp and Woods used that floor to advance his low-flighted irons down the golf green, even when it meant hitting longer method photographs than his competitors. It was a technique that served as tribute to his late father Earl, who had handed that May.
“He was always on my case about thinking my way around the golf course and not letting emotions get the better of you, because it’s so very easy to do in this sport,” Woods mentioned. “He would have been very proud.”
Caddie Steve Williams escorted a teary Tiger Woods off the 18th inexperienced at Royal Liverpool.
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The bridled nature with which he attacked the course was a sharp distinction to his response on the 18th inexperienced, when he set free weeks and months of pent-up sorrow as he sobbed into the arms of caddie Steve Williams.
“I guess I’m kind of the one who bottles things up a little bit and moves on, tries to deal with things in my own way. But at that moment it just came pouring out and of all the things that my father has meant to me and the game of golf,” he mentioned afterwards. “I just wish he could have seen it one more time.”
In 2014, Rory McIlroy dismantled Royal Liverpool like he was blasting a tunnel by way of a mountain. The Northern Irishman was already the most effective driver in the world and proved it, taking a wholly completely different method to Hoylake. The course was greener and lusher than the one Woods had picked aside some eight years earlier. McIlroy’s fashion of play was in vogue, too: Smash it down the golf green and play it from there.
“The way he plays is pretty aggressively,” Woods mentioned that week. “When he gets it going, he gets it going. When it gets going bad, it gets going real bad. It’s one or the other.”
This week, he had it going. McIlroy opened with 66 to seize the first-round lead and constructed a six-shot benefit going into the ultimate spherical, throttled again barely and received by two, cementing his Open Championship desires in addition to the dream — and wager — of his father, who had predicted by way of Ladbrokes that his son would win the Open by the point he turned 26.
The win hastened comparisons to Woods; certainly McIlroy was the subsequent man as much as chase his childhood idol? He was open to the chance.
“Golf is looking to someone to put their hand up and try,” he mentioned. “I want to be the guy that goes on and wins majors and wins majors regularly.”
Rory McIlroy was the 2014 Open’s deserving champion.
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In 2022, I, Dylan Dethier, arrived on the similar hallowed floor. I neither dissected nor dismantled something in regards to the property, however I’d weathered its blows and, by way of 14 holes, had performed the historic Open venue to one thing of a stalemate.
Enter No. 15.
The fifteenth will grow to be iconic in simply 9 months’ time, when the Open returns to the Wirral Peninsula. It’s a brand-new gap designed by architect Martin Ebert, who the membership introduced in to make sure its enduring relevance. The course’s latest addition is arguably its flashiest; at simply 135 yards, the pint-sized par-3 options a small, elevated inexperienced that gazes out over the Irish Sea, flaunting the view and reminding golfers that that is, in reality, a spectacular seaside property. (The course’s different 17 holes are close to the ocean however never rub your eyes in it; giving too many dramatic views could be too ostentatious. Subtlety and understatement are nonetheless prize possessions. This is England, in any case.)
Hoylake’s fifteenth gap (No. 17 in subsequent 12 months’s Open) boasts the most effective view on the course.
Sean Zak
I made reference, in the title of this piece, to the truth that I walked in the footsteps of Woods and McIlroy and but hit a shot they never could. That was sufficient enticement so that you can make it this far, which is a good factor. It’s additionally a little bit of a riddle. There I was, strolling in their footsteps. My drives couldn’t sustain with McIlroy’s from 2014 nor, maybe, even Woods’ 2-irons from 2006. But the fairways have been the identical, rumpled and pleasant, a former racetrack turned golf playground, and small-town U.Okay. retains even its mightiest programs accessible to the general public. Here we have been.
Hoylake’s fairways are a delight in many colours.
Sean Zak
Neither Woods nor McIlroy has but had the chance to play this tee shot, as a result of the opening hasn’t but made its Open debut. In that means, I was already protecting floor that they had not. But as I stepped as much as the ball, decided to hit one shut and conquer this devilish magnificence, my trailblazing took a sudden flip. A sudden proper flip, to be particular. I tweaked one thing in my swing thought, and when I instinctively regarded up in the intervening time of affect to look at my ball’s flight it was popping out of a completely different window solely, veering dangerously over the top of Tamara, our host and enjoying companion, earlier than careening into an adjoining shed with an emphatic wham.
I’d delivered a pure, chilly shank. The sort that sears itself in your muscle reminiscence. Even now, a whole lot of wedge swings later, I can nonetheless really feel that time of affect. I can see that ball taking pictures proper. (Continually re-watching the video in all probability doesn’t assist.) And whereas I’m not saying neither Woods nor McIlroy has ever hit one — YouTube outcomes remind us that McIlroy delivered hosel to ball as not too long ago as final 12 months’s Masters — however to take action with a little pitching wedge? Off a tee, no much less? That’s much more uncommon.
Sean Zak, my enjoying companion, fared much better when confronted with the identical shot. You can see exactly how a lot better in the video beneath. But on a surreal day in which we studied Royal Liverpool’s century-plus of historical past, dined on its patio, made ourselves at dwelling on its fairways and greens, this was the realest reminder of all: I could stroll the identical holes as golf’s best legends, however I wasn’t enjoying the identical sport. Not fairly.
The writer (cautiously) welcomes your feedback at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
P.S. — Our journey wouldn’t have been potential with out the assist of Destination Golf sponsors Footjoy. One cause I hit that shank is that I’d not too long ago eliminated my grey Lightweight Hoodie for the primary time in about 48 hours. Don’t make the identical mistake — test ’em out beneath!
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