Royal Lytham & St Annes - Lancashire - England
Links Gate,
St Annes on Sea,
Lancs.,
FY8 3LQ,
England
+44 (0) 1253 724206
1 mile SE of St Annes town centre
Welcome Mon & Thu - Contact in advance
Charles Grimley
Ben Squires
Championships hosted:
Boys Amateur,
Brabazon Trophy,
British Masters,
British PGA Matchplay,
Curtis Cup,
English Men's Amateur,
English Women's Amateur,
Men's Home Internationals,
Ryder Cup,
Senior Open,
The Amateur,
The Open,
The Womens Amateur,
Vagliano Trophy,
Walker Cup,
Women's Home Internationals,
Women's Open
Royal Lytham & St Annes is the most northerly of the English championship links courses, situated only 10 miles, as the seagull flies, from its illustrious neighbour, Royal Birkdale. This monster links opened for play in 1886, fashioned by George Lowe, the club’s first professional. In the early part of the 20th century, three great architects joined forces to remodel the course—Harry Colt, Herbert Fowler and Tom Simpson. C.K. Cotton and Frank Pennink later modified the layout. This is definitely a links course, but it is no longer beside the sea. It now lies half a mile inland, but with Blackpool tower looming in the distance you know the sea isn't far away. Rather unusually, the links is surrounded by red brick houses and (less unusually) flanked on the west by the railway line. The guardian Victorian clubhouse always watches sternly over the links. Conditioning is often exceptional and not as rough and ready around the edges as many of its contemporaries. The ground is relatively even, except perhaps on a couple of holes, where the going is slightly undulating. The course itself is extremely tough, only Carnoustie (on the British Open circuit) is thought to be tougher. Bernard Darwin describes Lytham’s challenges in his book, The Golf Courses of the British Isles:
The greens are firm, fast and true, or as Darwin once said when he was playing a match at St Annes against an opponent who was a very good putter. “The truly-struck putt comes on and on over that wonderfully smooth turf and flops into the hole with a sickening little thud, and there we are left gasping and robbed of our prey.” The 1st is unique because this is the only par three starting hole on the Open Championship circuit and it’s a long one, measuring 206 yards from the back tees. Ian Woosnam hit a fine tee shot here in the 2001 Open and then sank the putt thinking he’d made a birdie two. Unfortunately Woosnam was carrying 15 clubs in his bag. This cost the Welshman £225,000 and possibly the Open Championship title—it also cost his caddy around £20,000 and his job.
Royal Lytham and St Annes could never be described as a “classical” links course. It doesn’t have any giant shaggy dunes, nor does it have undulating roller-coaster fairways or pretty sea views. But it does have honesty and character by the bucket and spade load, and bags and bags of history. |
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I had the good fortune to be invited back the other day to make up a 4-ball, nearly six years after first playing here, and I loved every minute all over again. The dormy house and clubhouse experience is wonderful, but the course really grabbed my attention this time – it’s as tough as old boots!!!
You really have to have made your score on the front nine because the last six holes (all par fours) will chew you up and spit you out with ease if you’re not careful.
On the more benign front nine, the back-to-back par fives at holes 6 and 7 are also the ruin of many a poor golfer (God, I know, I’m one) before the landscape really pitches and rolls in the south east corner of the property between holes 8 and 10.
This is my favourite part of the course and, quite frankly, the last chance you have to really savour the layout before knuckling down for the fearsome finish of the aforementioned home stretch.
Many of the bunkers around the course were marked as GUR whilst the club prepares for the next Open championship so, in all honesty, we really tackled Lytham this time with its fangs extracted – of course, that’ll all have changed once July comes around and what a fearsome sight it’ll then be for the top professionals.
Jim McCann
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