A wonderful start to The 151st Open Championship. Alarms were set for 5:30am to ensure we were in the grandstand in good time to watch local boy Matthew Jordan hit the opening tee shot. The group – also featuring friend of the jar Richie Ramsay, and Brandon Grace along with a strong showing from the Royal Liverpool membership to support their man – would be the one we’d follow.

Here are the top 5 takeaways from the morning’s action:

1. The bunkers are no joke. The work by James Bledge and team to flatten the base of the sand and remove the bowls that you would typically expect to see in the bunkers have been replaced with a flat floor of sand. The result is one where the ball will race up to whatever edge is in its way, without consideration for the player’s stance or ability to progress the ball. Stances were awkward and two bunker shots which would typically have been simple ‘up & downs’ for the pair instead required either unorthodox stances or to be played well away from target on the 8th & 11th. At the time of writing Cam Smith has just escaped the greenside trap on 10… an accomplishment not many amateur golfers would be able to do (going forward at least).

2. The decision to reduce the 10th to a par 4 instead of lengthening the hole back to maintain its par 5 status is a triumph. Whilst there is certainly room to lengthen the hole, the indecision on the tee was visible as players flirted with idea of driver and taking an aggressive line up the left or hitting a safer fairway wood just short of the ridge where a view of the green is obstructed. Talking with Geoff Shackelford after the round, wrestling with the decision to maintain par or provide the best holes seems to be a constant theme, not just for Hoylake, but at LACC as well. Tip of the cap on making a good decision here. 

3. It’s busy. Seriously busy. The grandstands without doubt offer the best (*only) chance to see a sustained amount of play, as walking with the groups is tricky. The queue for the stand on 17 currently stands at 100m long thanks to our roving reporter, with fans reportedly camped up there for the duration. Hoylake is a flat links, and whilst there are some dunes out on the far end of the course at the start of the back 9, the grandstand at the back of 6 offers the best chance to watch a series of shots as well as capture the flow of the groups as they make there way out. With uninterrupted views of 5,6,7 and 8 if you get yourself to the far right flank of the stand and go up high, it’s a good spot to spend an hour or two. 

4. The mighty winds are yet to blow. Whether they will or not remains to be seen, but as things stand, the 17th is playing much easier. A great bit of work by our friends over at Clippd, who measure shot quality rather than simply looking at Strokes Gained data which does not factor in such things as course conditions and weather have an interesting take on the hole. It looks at how finding the green and leaving a putt of 15ft on Little Eye requires a completely different calibre of golf shot when the winds reach 15mph and 30mph respectively, compared with todays benign conditions. If the wind does get up then things will become very interesting indeed on 17. More on that in due course…

5. In lieu of the winds, the pins have been put away as much as they can be. The far right pin on 11 and 14, and the spot behind the traps on 18 all very much part of the score prevention strategy that seems to be in place on a morning which seems conducive to good scoring. Aggressive swings at conservative targets will be the modus operandi for many of the players today, no doubt acutely aware of the dangers lurking if you find yourself short sighted in one of the traps.