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Without question, the North Course has been restored to the satisfaction of purists. The fairways will be fast and firm, the greens slick yet not particularly undulating, and the rough exactly where you would expect U.S. Open rough to be. The penalties for too much ambition and imprecision off the tee will, in some cases, be terminal. Repentant players might well wish to seek sanctuary after exposure to such torture in the Playboy Mansion next door. We’ll see!

As far as is known, there is no monument to the late Hugh Hefner in Hoylake, where Royal Liverpool will be hosting The Open for a 13th time in July. There will be plenty of bunnies in the surrounding undergrowth, but this is definitely not a course on which a rabbit is likely to triumph.

The last two ‘Champion Golfers’ here are named Woods and McIlroy, and the pedigree of this venerable links suggests that their successor will be far from unworthy.

Woods, surely, will be there—to play and, if his body holds up, to contend. The course is as flat as the pancakes they love to make in this part of the world, in contrast to Augusta National and Los Angeles Country Club, where his participation is likely to depend on how confidently he feels about his fitness.

McIlroy, after his stellar though major-less year in 2022, will be a strong favorite with both the bookies and the galleries, but another popular winner would be Rickie Fowler, joint second in 2014 and now happily emerging from the doldrums that have submerged his game over the last four years.

As for the rest of the elite cast who we know will be assembling at all four majors, players like Fitzpatrick, Schauffele, Morikawa, Cantlay, Hovland and Tony Finau can win anywhere when their putters are hot. Veterans like Adam Scott and Justin Rose can have an Indian summer, or even an Indian spring given their Masters records and current form. Near rookies like Zalatoris and Cameron Young will continue to batter on the door. But in all this fog of talent, look out for two Koreans—Tom Kim and his slightly older countryman Sungjae Im.

They are yin and yang. One stoically playing every week come what may, the other a natural star to whom it all comes so effortlessly. Tom Kim is the future of the game, perhaps one to match McIlroy for star quality if not quite Woods, though he has won his first two PGA Tour titles at a younger age than Tiger. He’s personable, intelligent, remarkably fluent in English and a magnificent golfer without any apparent weakness. If not this year, his time will come very soon.

Meanwhile, let the drums roll and battle commence. At least these four championships will be about golf, and not politics. Fingers crossed. Touch Woods.

The Masters

Augusta National GC, GA. April 6-9 e big talking point leading into this year’s Masters, apart from whether Tiger Woods decides he has the stamina to tee it up, is likely to be the extra 35 yards added to the right-to-le , dogleg par-5 13th. e stretching to 545 yards of this iconic hole, named Azalea, was agged up several months ago when overhead photography of Amen Corner revealed that the teeing area had been pushed back onto newly acquired land beyond the property’s previous boundary edge. In e ect, players will now be driving through a narrow arboreal chute knowing that carrying the trees guarding the corner of the dogleg will be a far harder task than before, if not impossible.

Last year, tournament chairman Fred Ridley acknowledged that due to the increased distances delivered by enhanced equipment technology and players’ improved tness levels, the hole no longer played as it had been designed by Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie. Eagles were abundant as second shots with short-irons had become the norm, but those going for the green over Rae’s Creek this time will generally be using much longer clubs o a less even lie. More risk, probably for less reward.

A similar change to the par-5 15th for last year’s Masters resulted in not one single eagle being carded. e 13th then played as the third-easiest hole behind the two other par-5s, the 2nd and 8th, with an average score of 4.852.

It is believed the Augusta National scorecard for 2023 will show a total length of 7,545 yards with the par unchanged at 72.

The PGA Championship

Oak Hill CC (East Course), Rochester, NY. May 18-21

Oak Hill began life in 1901 as nine holes beside the Genesee River, with a converted farmhouse for a clubhouse. Two decades later, due to golf’s burgeoning popularity and an irresistible land-swap o er from the University of Rochester, it moved to a much larger site in the suburb of Pittsford, where Donald Ross laid out two 18-hole courses, the East and West.

John Ralston Williams, a local physician and botanist, planted 75,000 oak, maple, elm and evergreen seedlings to line the fairways, and golf writer Sal Maiorana wrote many years later: “As you walk the grounds of Oak Hill, you can’t help but gaze skyward at the majestic trees that dominate the landscape. ey soar to the heavens, lending both an unmatched beauty and a treacherous detriment to one’s scorecard.” e East Course came of age in 1941, when the local Times-Union newspaper posted a $5,000 purse that attracted a eld including Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, who was the eventual winner. Many changes have been made since then, by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in the early 1960s, and later by Tom Fazio.

However, in recent times it was felt the ubiquitous trees were choking Ross’s original design, so an extensive pruning and felling program, plus a rebuilding of all the greens and bunkers, was initiated three years ago under the supervision of Andrew Green, assisted by 1988 PGA champion Je Sluman.

With the work completed, Oak Hill will host its seventh major in May. e previous six were PGA Championships won by Jack Nicklaus (1980), Shaun Micheel (2003) and Jason Dufner (2013), and U.S. Opens won by Cary Middleco (1956), Lee Trevino (1968) and Curtis Strange (1989). Other highlights in the East Course’s illustrious history include the 1995 Ryder Cup, two U.S. Amateur Championships, two Senior PGA Championships and the 1984 U.S. Senior Open.

The U.S. Open

Major championship golf makes a long overdue return to the Los Angeles area a er a gap of 28 years, since the PGA Championship was held at Riviera in Paci c Palisades. e U.S. Open’s only previous appearance in the City of Angels was back in 1948, also at Riviera, when Ben Hogan li ed the trophy for the rst time. Now it’s the turn of Los Angeles Country Club, which has never previously hosted a major, to stage the 123rd version of the USGA’s agship tournament.

Like Oak Hill, LACC also started o as a 9-hole layout, in 1897, with a clubhouse converted from an abandoned windmill. A er two relocations, the club found itself ensconced in Beverly Hills and re-opened with two courses, the North and South, in 1911.

Club founders Joe Sartori and Ed Tu s created the original fairways, along with Englishman Norman MacBeth and advisor Charles Orr. Herbert Fowler oversaw a redesign in 1921 and soon a er, member e North Course was also the home of the Los Angeles Open in 1926, 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1940, when the winners were, respectively, Harry Cooper, Macdonald Smith, Vic Ghezzi, Jimmy Hines and Lawson Little.

George C. omas Jr. and architect Billy Bell shaped the two courses that are now in play.

Despite its prolonged absence from golf’s high table, the North Course is far from unknown to the USGA. It hosted the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in 1930, when Glenna Collett Vare won the h of her record six titles, the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1954 and, most recently, the 2017 Walker Cup.

In 2010, with a view to returning the North Course to the big time, Gil Hanse restored it to something akin to omas’s designs. e USGA obviously likes what it sees, as it has also committed to the U.S. Open returning in 2039 while, in the meantime, the U.S. Women’s Open will be held there in 2032.

The Open Royal Liverpool GC, July 20-23

The links at Royal Liverpool, next to the Cheshire town of Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, is one of the delights of England’s northwest coast—a capricious creature that can be benign on a calm day and a monster when rough weather blows in from the Irish Sea.

Laid out in 1869 on the site of a racecourse, it hosted its first Open in 1897. Local amateur Harold Hilton prevailed but was not eligible for the winner’s purse of £30. Scotsman Sandy Herd won next up in 1902, France’s Arnaud Massey became continental Europe’s first Open champion five years later, and England’s J.H. Taylor took the honors in 1913.

Royal Liverpool’s position as a classic Open venue was consolidated in 1924 and 1930, following a redesign by Harry Colt. The former saw Walter Hagen capture his second Open, while the latter was the second leg of Bobby Jones’s grand slam.

The next four winners were Englishman Alf Padgham (1936), Northern Ireland’s Fred Daly (1947), Australian Peter Thomson—completing a hat-trick of Open triumphs in 1956—and Roberto de Vicenzo of Argentina (1967).

Then followed a 39-year hiatus as the club, the R&A and Wirral Borough Council worked to upgrade the infrastructure around the course. When The Open returned in 2006, the winner, exploiting hot, dry, windless conditions, was Tiger Woods. Royal Liverpool’s 12th Open, in 2014, went to Rory McIlroy, who edged out Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia by two shots before claiming the PGA Championship as well, a couple weeks later.

The hope now is for Bernard Darwin’s description of nearly 70 years ago—“Hoylake, blown upon by mighty winds, breeder of mighty champions”—to ring true again for number 13 this summer...

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Our U.S. Open preview in association with Dewar’s, the Official Scotch Whisky of the U.S. Open

Old meets new on the West Coast this June, as America’s longest-running major championship heads to a golf course that has never held one. Expect a fascinating scene—and a sense of the unknown—as golf’s greatest stars gather at Los Angeles Country Club for the 123rd U.S. Open.

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Los Angeles Country Club

LACC brings an impressive architectural pedigree and century-long history to its majors debut p9o

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