The magic of Hoylake is dictated by history. In this small town on the Wirral peninsula, located a few kilometers west of Liverpool, Royal Liverpool was founded in 1869, a course that has hosted the British Open in three different centuries. As if this were not enough, legends such as Harold Hilton –a local idol–, Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy have championed on its turf. The Open stops again this year at Hoylake for the 151st edition of the world’s oldest tournament in golf and Jon Rahm seems more than ready to add his name to a list of champions that will take your breath away.
The current Masters champion has been training for several days in the Islands before arriving in Liverpool to finish preparing for the Open after almost three weeks of hiatus. “We had planned it that way. We are going to play many weeks from now until the end of the season and that is what it was called for. In addition, for a change it has not been bad to play the father ”, he confessed at the official press conference of the tournament.
Rahm, who already has four victories this year alone and who will play in the most attractive match with McIlroy and Justin Rose (3:59 p.m.), counts more than ever on the inspiration of Severiano Ballesteros. The Spaniard, who was already remembered by Barrika on the 18th green of the Augusta four months ago, is the only Spaniard who has been able to lift the Clarete Jug. “It would be a great honor to put my name on that list,” he wrote.
In Hoylake, as in all the British, the weather, which this week looks benevolent except for some water, plays a fundamental role since it is one of the great defenses that the links courses have. Although it is not the only one. This week, for example, the fearsome pod bunkers have been touched up and it is expected that many of the balls that end up being swallowed by them will stick very close to the slope. In fact, many professionals these days have been seen training precisely that type of shot.
Rahm leads a great Spanish participation that is completed by Adri Arnaus, Pablo Larrazábal, Alejandro Cañizares, Nacho Elvira, Jorge Campillo, Adrián Otaegui and the amateur Josele Ballester, who reaches his first major as a star of the Spanish team that won the absolute European Championship last Saturday.
The golf war has been somewhat controlled with the agreement between the LIV and the PGA Tour, among the countless stories that are circulating these days behind the scenes at Royal Liverpool, two stand out. That of Rory McIlroy, who has been around since 2014, when he precisely won at Hoylake, without winning a major, and that of Brooks Koepka, very critical of slow play, whom the organization has paired with Patrick Cantlay, a player who drives anyone mad with his slowness. The morbid is served
