Other Peoples Open!

A crowd of 38,000 golf fans descended on Hoylake on Thursday, a whole eight thousand more than witnessed the entire Open Championship the last time it was held here in 1967 and 500 more than at St Andrews last year.


Hoylake has its own answers to the postcard images at other Open venues. St. Andrews has the spires of the Auld Grey Town. Troon has the Isle of Arran. Hoylake has Hilbre, an island you can walk to at low tide. Just don't wade out: The tide is fierce, and so are the jumbo jellyfish. Seals frolic on the rocks near the wreck of the steamship Nestos, which ran aground in 1941. Hoylake's scenery can even top those nuclear reactor towers at Royal St. Georges; several miles off the coast is a clutch of gigantic, eco-friendly windmills. Those towering, three-bladed constructions spin lazily most of the time, but they whir when the offshore breeze sweeps toward the old links.
"Hoylake, blown upon by mighty winds, breeder of mighty champions." The Times of London golf correspondent Bernard Darwin, grandson of Charles, wrote that line when the course was among the most famous in golf. Now what's old is new again, at least to most Americans. There are no sure bets, given Hoylake's oft-wild weather and the oft-wild drivers of Tiger and Phil, but the 135th Open Championship is sure to be a bigger spectacle than the 96th. In '67 only 29,880 paying customers attended the Open; this year there'll be 9,000 a day in the stadium seats around the final green. As the World Cup proved, that many sporty Brits can make a mighty noise.


Hoylake has two stations - Hoylake and Manor Road - with the former being only a par-five away from the golf course........

About half of Royal Liverpool's 63 hectares are left in their natural state as a haven for wildlife. And amid all this untrammelled outdoors is a unique item of flora. The rough between the 11th and 14th holes is the only place in England you will find McKay's Horsetail. And no, I have no idea what it looks like. The course can also boast of a knab of rare natterjack toads.
(The R & A have even appointed, wait for it, A TOAD OFFICER!!!!!!!
No I didn't believe it..............................................................

Hoylake might lack nightclubs and cash points but it is well served in the public house department - La Bodega comes recommended as a potential spot for celeb-spotting, while The Lake, The Plasterers Arms and The Ship are suggested for more relaxing post-Open pints.

Hoylake's beach is one of Britain's top sites for sand yachting, which sounds like a lot of fun. The 2007 European Championships are going to be staged there. I have no idea if Hoylake was off their rota for nearly 40 years too.

The British Open (golf) is being held nearabouts, and according to the local news George Clooney has been spotted in a nearby watering hole. If the weather is not so distressingly hot tomorrow I might wander the streets to see if he has come back. Although I don't know that I want to see George Clooney in the scally-ridden poundshop environs of Hoylake; it might sully him.