First Look At Royal Liverpool 2023; Q&A With Stephen Proctor

Notes as the 151st Open week kicks off. First course and design observations plus weather news. Also, a Q&A with the author of The Long Golden Afternoon and Hoylake by the numbers.

I walked most of Royal Liverpool on a blustery Sunday and it would have presented a brutal test despite being pretty green, slow and manageable off the tee. We’ll need wind this week for it to be demanding and, at least so far, the forecasters say we’ll have plenty of breeze to confound the players. Various observations from my first stroll around the 2…