‘Pure theatre!’ Why The Open’s newest hole is the place to be at Hoylake

One of the world’s best coaches can’t stand it. One of the world’s best caddies can’t stand it. And the word on the street here in Hoylake is the Royal Liverpool members can’t stand it.

Many of the players, though, love it. As do the hundreds of fans who flocked to golf’s most divisive new hole on the opening day of the 151st Open Championship.

The par-three 17th – or Little Eye, as it’s known – has been torn apart by some of the biggest names in the game. Pete Cowen told bunkered in the run up to the tournament that it will “ruin someone’s career”.

Not that his star pupil, Brooks Koepka, agrees.

“Yeah, that sounds like Pete,” he joked. “I think it’s a good hole. That’s how par-threes should be. I’m not a huge fan of the 250-yard par-threes. All the great par-threes are nine-iron and less and difficult greens.”

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Matt Fitzpatrick’s bagman Billy Foster described it as “monstrous”. His boss was less keen to offer an opinion. “It’s interesting,” the former US Open champion said with a telling smile.

But such was the anticipation of the drama this new hole – which opened in 2020 – may cause, spectators were filling the small green-side grandstand more than two hours before the first group even got there.

Look at these beautiful lunatics.

The 17th won’t see any action for at least another couple of hours — the flag isn’t even in the hole yet! — and the grandstand is already filling up.

God bless every one of you. pic.twitter.com/vKJGsCxKwA

— Alex Perry (@byAlexPerry) July 20, 2023

The mound on the opposite side of the green, with its equally advantageous vantage points, was also beginning to get busy, as was the stand that surrounds the tee. Room for plenty of people, but fail to get in any of these spots and you will be rubber-necking to see any action from the dance floor.

So while sensible, there’s something wonderfully bonkers about shelling out the best part of £100 to attend a sporting occasion, then actively choosing to spend the first few hours not watching the action. (Perhaps they are catching up on the Open Commute episodes of The bunkered Podcast?)

When Game Number One did finally arrive, local favourite and Hoylake member Matthew Jordan had the crowd on their feet as his ball dropped tantalisingly close to the pin before skipping 20 or so feet away.

By now, the queue to get into the grandstand was stretching all the way back to the 18th tee, some 100-plus yards and 100-plus humans away.

There are other options, of course…

If you can’t get tickets to The Open, have you considered simply buying the house by the 17th and putting up some scaffold in your garden? pic.twitter.com/2BNOUYVdvv

— Alex Perry (@byAlexPerry) July 20, 2023

But whether you’re inside the grounds or just outside them, three two-putt pars is not what you came to see – and it was Russell Henley in the second group who provided Little Eye’s first birdie in an Open, the American’s long sweeping putt from the fringe entertaining what was, by now, clearly the busiest part of the golf course.

Suddenly, some drama. After the bland and the beautiful came the downright ludicrous when Lucas Herbert rocked up at the 126-yarder on top of the scoreboard.

His tee shot found a similar position to that of Henley’s, but the Australian’s chip had a little too much sauce and drifted through the infinity green and into the deep bunker that sits in the shadows of the bleacher. With two needed to escape the trap, followed by a couple of jabs with the putter, Herbert was heading to 18 three back of a lead he had shared just minutes before.

pic.twitter.com/U8KpAGrCWn

— bunkered (@BunkeredOnline) July 20, 2023

Somewhere on the range, Cowen was bowing his head in silent reflection. (Probably.)

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Just three of the 52 groups in and the crowd had already seen everything there possibly was to see from this delightful new hole. As one fan leaned in and noted with a sense of awe in his voice: “It is pure theatre.”

Rory McIlroy, the Champion Golfer the last time the Open was held in this corner of the Wirral, said “these little par-three holes always create drama”.

That was what architect Martin Ebert intended with the 17th at Royal Liverpool and, if the first round of The Open is anything to go by, that’s what he will get.

Now bring on the wind.

Alex Perry is the Associate Editor of bunkered. A journalist for more than 20 years, he has been a golf industry stalwart for the majority of his career and, in a five-year spell at ESPN, covered every sporting event you can think of. He completed his own Grand Slam at the 2023 Masters, having fallen in love with the sport at his hometown club of Okehampton and on the links of nearby Bude & North Cornwall.

Associate Editor