O verthe years, I have visited the Southport area a number of times to enjoy playing its unbelievable stretch of exemplary links courses. By circumstance rather than design, there have been some noticeable gaps between visits, so this summer I headed up not once but twice to make up for lost time.
The course I was most keen to revisit was Royal Birkdale, the leading English entry in the Golf Monthly Top 100 and one that I had somehow failed to play since 1994! Since then, it has been regularly and sympathetically upgraded, largely under the expert guidance of Martin Hawtree. Much of this has been in preparation for the staging of three more Open Championships, the most recent being in 2017 when Jordan Spieth amazed with his imperious finish.
Apologies for the cliche, but
