Preview 2023

The 150th Open Championship, Muirfield’s first running of The AIG Women’s Open, a Senior Open staged at one of the most scenic and historic of all Scotland’s courses…

One thing’s for sure, 2022 will be a year that will go down in the history of golf in the UK.

In our excitement, though, we should not forget to take a quick glance around the metaphorical corner to see what is in store for next year.

The Open will be heading to Royal Liverpool. Easily accessible for millions, the venue is a huge favourite with golf fans – around 230,000 people visited to watch Tiger Woods in imperious form when the course hosted its first Open for 39 years in 2006.

The Championship also came to this corner of the northwest in 2014, when Rory McIlroy emerged as a worthy and very popular winner.

England will also be the venue for the AIG Women’s Open, which will be taking place for the first time at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey.

You could hardly wish for a more historic venue. Founded in 1903, the club’s first captain was the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII). Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George were members and five-time Open Champion James Braid was the long-standing professional.

Not only that, and perhaps pertinent to its role next year, in 1912 the course was the venue for a 72-hole “Man versus Woman Challenge match” in which Cecil Leitch defeated twotime Open Champion Harold Hilton 2/1. Leitch would go on to win the Women’s Amateur Championship on four occasions (as well as five French Ladies Amateur Championships).

The Senior Open meanwhile will be going west – to Wales and Royal Porthcawl, a course that was dubbed “absolutely spectacular” by former world number one and 1992 Masters champion, Fred Couples.

Opened in the 1890s and South Wales’ first-ever 18-hole course, Royal Porthcawl will be welcoming The Senior Open for the third time, having hosted the Championship previously in 2014 and 2017. Bernhard Langer was victorious on both those occasions and, knowing the German maestro’s peerless record in this event, he will no doubt be one of the favourites again in 2023.

Dates for the diary

Scotland passes the golfing baton to England and Wales next year – as the UK’s premier golf Championships head to three compelling venues

Words: Angus MacDonald

Royal Liverpool: an arena to challenge the best in the world

Make your dream a reality

By Chris Bertram

Aluxury beachfront hotel with year-round sunshine and a beautifully manicured golf course within a fiveminute walk of your sun lounger… could a golf holiday get any better than that?

The answer is, remarkably, ‘yes’. Add in competing in a tournament with players you grew up watching play on television or idolised as a fully-fledged golf nut, and the level of appeal is nudged up at least one notch.

Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. It is actually a thing, because Constance Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius is the final venue for the EU Legends Tour, which offers opportunities via either the Pro-Am tournaments or the alliance for amateurs to play with the likes of Paul Lawrie, Thomas Bjorn, Paul McGinley and Ian Woosnam.

So you’ve got the sun, sea and sand of Constance Belle Mare Plage, a European Tour Destination, and some of the biggest names in the game over the past two decades.

Playing in a Pro-Am is hardly unheard of you might say. True. But in addition to your rounds with Lawrie, Bjorn or whoever being played under Mauritius sunshine and on a world-class course such as the Legend, there is another seriously tempting reason to get involved.

The pros are also all staying at Belle Mare Plage too, so you find yourself having a chat with Lawrie as you order your breakfast omlette. Or talking on the 10-minute bus transfer to the resort’s other course, the Links, with former Ryder Cup star Joakim Haegmann. You get the idea.

There’s more. Belle Mare Plage is the final stop on the Legends Tour schedule and that means there are also eight top celebrities competing for a prize too. Guess where they are staying? Yes, Belle Mare Plage. So as well as having the chance to play golf with one of them, you might also find yourself having a beer at the pool bar with Liverpool football icon Robbie Fowler. Or having lunch on the next table to exLions rugby captain Gavin Hastings and his wife.

The pros and celebrities are all trying to win a tournament and win money for themselves or a charity respectively. But they’re all on holiday too, just like you are, and the vibe happily really reflects that.

It’s impossible not to feel holiday vibes at Belle Mare Plage. The soft, white sand and the warm turquoise water are without peer anywhere in the world. The accommodation is luxurious, classy and comfortable. There are so many activities you’ll never fit them in in a week. The food is sumptuous and the wine cellar one of the finest in the Indian Ocean.

Oh and did I mention the golf courses? They are happily very different, with volcanic rock and blind shots characterising the tricky Legend while the Links is a risk-reward test on flatter ground punctuated by water hazards.

You get a chance to play both as part of the Alliance week, when you’re not chilling out with Fowler or quizzing McGinley for his Ryder Cup best stories. That’s the kind of week it is when the Legends Tour arrives on the east coast of Mauritius.

Chris Bertram has been Golf World’s Top 100 Courses and Resorts Editor for 12 years. He has played more than 600 courses worldwide, as far afield as Nicaragua and

Norway. His tally includes all of the Top 100 in GB&I and 92 of continental Europe’s 100.

Constance, stepping gently through the Indian Ocean

Yahia Nazroo ©

Make your dream a reality.

The pros and celebrities are all trying to win a tournament and win money for themselves or a charity respectively. But they’re all on holiday too, just like you are, and the vibe happily really reflects that. It’s impossible not to feel holiday vibes at Belle Mare Plage. The soft, white sand and the warm turquoise water are without peer anywhere in the world. The accommodation is luxurious, classy and comfortable. There are so many activities you’ll never fit them in in a week. The food is sumptuous and the wine cellar one of the finest in the Indian Ocean. Oh and did I mention the golf courses? They are happily very different, with volcanic rock and blind shots characterising the tricky Legend while the Links is a risk-reward test on flatter ground punctuated by water hazards. You get a chance to play both as part of the Alliance week, when you’re not chilling out with Fowler or quizzing McGinley for his Ryder Cup best stories. That’s the kind of week it is when the Legends Tour arrives on the east coast of Mauritius.

By Chris Bertram

A luxury beachfront hotel with year-round sunshine and a beautifully manicured golf course within a five-minute walk of your sun lounger… could a golf holiday get any better than that? The answer is, remarkably, ‘yes’. Add in competing in a tournament with players you grew up watching play on television or idolised as a fully-fledged golf nut, and the level of appeal is nudged up at least one notch. Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. It is actually a thing, because Constance Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius is the final venue for the EU Legends Tour, which offers opportunities via either the Pro-Am tournaments or the alliance for amateurs to play with the likes of Paul Lawrie, Thomas Bjorn, Paul McGinley and Ian Woosnam. So you’ve got the sun, sea and sand of Constance Belle Mare Plage, a European Tour Destination, and some of the biggest names in the game over the past two decades. Playing in a Pro-Am is hardly unheard of you might say. True. But in addition to your rounds with Lawrie, Bjorn or whoever being played under Mauritius sunshine and on a world-class course such as the Legend, there is another seriously tempting reason to get involved. The pros are also all staying at Belle Mare Plage too, so you find yourself having a chat with Lawrie as you order your breakfast omlette. Or talking on the 10-minute bus transfer to the resort’s other course, the Links, with former Ryder Cup star Joakim Haegmann. You get the idea. There’s more. Belle Mare Plage is the final stop on the Legends Tour schedule and that MAURITIUS • SEYCHELLES • MALDIVES • MADAGASCAR constancehotels.com means there are also eight top celebrities competing for a prize too. Guess where they are staying? Yes, Belle Mare Plage. So as well as having the chance to play golf with one of them, you might also find yourself having a beer at the pool bar with Liverpool football icon Robbie Fowler. Or having lunch on the next table to ex-Lions rugby captain Gavin Hastings and his wife. Chris Bertram has been Golf World’s Top 100 Courses and Resorts Editor for 12 years. He has played more than 600 courses worldwide, as far afield as Nicaragua and Norway. His tally includes all of the Top 100 in GB&I and 92 of continental Europe’s 100.