SOUTHPORT, MERSEYSIDE, ENGLAND – This will be a fascinating year to watch the statistics for individual golf holes, because Royal Birkdale and the R&A believe that they – with the help of golf architect Tom Mackenzie – may have solved a pesky issue. For decades, the book on Birkdale was simple: go low on the outward nine while the prevailing wind is with you...
Southport and Ainsdale – Ancient and Venerable, Rare and Wonderful —Special to JF.com and Golf News Net— [Editor’s Note: Last year our Indomitable Sportsman, Jay Flemma, spent a glorious eight days lost amidst the fabulous dunes of northwest England – England’s Golf Coast as it is called. As we turn towards GNN’s live coverage of the 2026 Open...
BLUNDELLSANDS, LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – It was somewhere along the front nine of the West Lancashire Golf Club after the blustering 25-mile per hour gusts turned from directly in my face to a ferocious crosswind when I broke into the widest smile of the week. Once again, I had returned to my beloved northwest coast of England for another four rounds of golf amidst the...
Great job by Carrie and all the wonderfully sweet folks at Golf Course Trades as they have run my latest story from Royal Liverpool. The link is here. With 150 years of history to recount, both professional and amateur, we had to split the project into two parts. We’ll pick up with the modern championships in a later article, after we’ve finished...
Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Over 150 Years of Championship History [Editor’s Note: This article also appears at Golf Course Trades. Our Indomitable Sportsman Jay Flemma takes us back to northwest England’s Royal Liverpool Golf Club, this time for a walk though over 150 years of golf history. Click here for last month’s breakdown of the golf course and its design.]...
LYTHAM ST. ANNE’S, LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND – It was somewhere just off the sixth fairway of Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s Golf Club when, lost amidst the heaving sea of shaggy, marram-grassed hills, I felt the metaphoric lightning strike. It was electrifying how much fun I was having. I had no idea where the green was; it was made blind by dunes towering above me on...
“It’s only my opinion and carries no weight, but I will say ‘Forgive them Old Tom for they know not what they do,” raged Melvyn Hunter Morrow, when he heard the R&A will lengthen the iconic Road Hole – the 17th at The Old Course at St. Andrews – by building a new tee on part of the adjacent Eden Course. “Certainly, Peter...
My latest Golf Channel dot com article discusses where to play if you’re out at Royal Birkdale for the Open Championship. Enjoy…and try Wallasey! One more news item – ***correction*** in my preview piece for The Open, I mispoke. I said at Birkdale Trevino completed a tri-fecta Woods never did – he won the U.S., British, and Canadian Opens in...