Hall Of Fame

One of Hoylake’s finest modern-era golfers, Pearson began at Prenton and impressed at junior level, representing England in 1946, alongside Peter Allis.  At 17, he was Cheshire’s youngest ever county player - he played 60 times in all.

He was twice second in The Brabazon and reached the last 32 in the 1950 Amateur. He made a Walker Cup trial squad v Ryder Cup Players in 1952 where he played Hoylake’s 1947 Open Champion Fred Daly.
Pearson played 12 times for England and won the Cheshire Championship three times. He qualified for The Open in 1961 and recalled the scoreboard showing the order of play as Palmer, Pearson, Player. 
Golf writer Leslie Edwards said of him: “He is one of those rarities, a man with no enemies and many admirers.”  

The Graham family ranks among the most influential in Hoylake history. John Graham Snr moved from Glasgow for business reasons in 1873 and from a home in Stanley Rd watched his children, Jack, Molly, and Allan, turn into fine golfers.

Molly was born in 1880 and went on to a remarkable amateur career highlighted by victory in the 1901 Women’s Amateur Championship at Aberdovey, where she beat defending champion Rhona Adair 3&2 in the final. Three years later she added the Scottish Women’s Amateur with a 6&5 win over Miss M Bishop at Prestwick St Nicholas.
Though born in England she played for Scotland in the Home Internationals of 1902,1904, 1905 and 1906. In addition to this, she was a first class tennis and badminton player, as well as an accomplished skater and rock climber. Molly died in Conwy, North Wales in 1950.

1936. Hoylake’s reputation on the line. The length and severity had been increased, said the club, to ensure Open victory went to the ‘best golfer of the year.’

That was Alf Padgham, who added the Open to a string of titles and Ryder Cup appearances; a man described by Harry Vardon as having a ‘perfect’ swing.

Shy Padgham was professional at Sundridge Park, Kent.  On the then-longest Open course at 7,708 yards, his last-round 71 pipped Jimmy Adams by a stroke, despite Alf having to break into the locked Hoylake pro shop to retrieve his clubs for an early tee time.

And the links, described as ‘too tough, too long’ by pre-tournament critics? Henry Longhurst concluded: ‘Hoylake turned out to be the finest test of golf in the world.

Allan Fullarton Macfie will forever be writ large in Hoylake’s history as the winner of the first Amateur Championship in 1885.

The event was organised by, and played at, by Royal Liverpool prior to the first official championship in 1886 and for years was deemed unofficial. However, in 1922, the R&A decided Macfie, a Hoylake member, should be added to the list of Amateur Championship winners.

The son of a Liverpool sugar refinery owner and almost totally deaf, Macfie won a protracted tussle with William Doleman, before beating Thomas Gilroy 2&1 and then Walter Zoete by one hole. In the final Macfie was a 7&6 winner over an out-of-sorts Horace Hutchinson. Harold Hilton described Macfie as a player of ‘wonderful accuracy and style.’  He died in 1943.

In the club's Hilbre Room a cabinet holds a medal given to ENGLAND international Amy Pascoe to mark her victory in the 1896 Women’s Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool.

Pascoe triumphed from a field of 82, a bye in the first round leading to victories over Alice Richardson (5&4), Kate Catterall (2up), Maud Starkie Bence (19th) and a ‘Miss Nimmo.’ In the semi-final she came from behind to beat Katherine Moeller 3&2 and repeated the margin to defeat Lena Thompson in the final.

The daughter of a stockbroker, Amy went on to become Captain of Surrey Ladies Golf Association and is understood to have listed the composer and suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth, and Empress Eugenie of France, among her friends.

In 1902, Royal Liverpool member Hutchings was carried shoulder high into the bar after becoming the oldest winner of the Amateur Championship aged 53.

A popular winner, Hutchings, known as ‘The Marquis’ had retired wealthy from his Tannery business in Warrington aged just 27, and only took up golf three years later. The game vied for his affections with hunting, fishing and billiards and he fought a battle with chronic sciatica. 

The sciatica is understood to have been the cause of his letting an eight-hole lead dwindle to a single hole, by the last. Hutchings, though, held his nerve and sunk a nine-footer to beat Mid-Surrey’s Sidney Fry.

Hutchings also left his mark as a course architect, credited with designing the original Princes Course at Sandwich.

Robert Tyre Jones Jnr was the brilliant American amateur who bestrode golf in a short, glittering career. His legacy includes 13 major wins, the design of Augusta National and the foundation of the Masters.

Of all his on-course achievements, his 1930 Grand Slam is pre-eminent and where Hoylake shaped his destiny.
Royal Liverpool hosted the Open Championship in June that year; Jones winning by two strokes.  

It was the second leg of ‘The Impregnable Quadrilateral’ and followed his British Amateur Championship win at St Andrews. He then returned to the States to complete the four-timer  by winning the US Open at Interlachen in July and the US Amateur in September at Merion. Jones retired from competitive golf aged just 28.
 

Alexander ‘Sandy’ Herd chose Hoylake to take his seat at golf’s high table. A native of St Andrews, legend has it learned golf in the streets, using shinty sticks for clubs and champagne corks from the R&A clubhouse waste bins for balls.

He developed a game that challenged the giants of the day, John Henry Taylor, James Braid and Harry Vardon. And in 1902, at Hoylake, he broke their virtual monopoly of the Open, recording a one-stroke victory over Braid and Vardon.

In his book ‘My Golfing Life’ he credits Hoylake’s John Ball who, during practice for the 1902 Open, introduced him to the Haskell rubber-core ball which gave him extra length as he clinched victory. Herd died of pneumonia in 1944.

Arnaud Massy’s Open win at Royal Liverpool meant so much he named his daughter - born just days before his triumph - ‘Hoylake’.

He was the first great French golfer and remains, over 100 years after his 1907  victory, the only Frenchman to win a major.  He was the first person not from Great Britain and Northern Ireland to win the Open and the only winner from continental Europe before Ballesteros in 1979.

From Biarritz, he learned watching British professionals enjoying off-season sunshine.  His game was characterised by a twirl or ‘pig tail’ at the top of his backswing.

His swing held up though, in strong winds at Hoylake where he held off JH Taylor to win by two shots. Massy died, impoverished, in France in 1950.

Portrush-born Fred Daly was the first Irishman to win the Open - it was 60 years after his 1947 Hoylake victory when Padraig Harrington became the second.

The ex-caddy will also be remembered for the charisma that made him a popular winner as he held off Frank Stranahan and Reg Horne, as well as an early charge from Henry Cotton, who beat Daly into second a year later
His Hoylake win was dismissed by some as a ‘flash in the pan’, but he enjoyed a fine career including three British Matchplay titles and four Ryder Cups .

Daly was not a stylist but it’s worth listening to the great Sam Snead:  ‘Daly? He could knock your hat off with a one iron at 220 yards.’ 

One of the driving forces as a Hoylake administrator, Farrar took over as RLGC secretary in 1942 (check). The club was his life.

A knowledgeable agronomist, ornithologist and photographer, the links must have been heaven on earth for Farrar. He is regarded as having done much to move the club forward after the War and for ensuring the course was fit to host the 1947 Open just two years after the end of hostilities.

His reputation was one who did not suffer fools. His favourite phrase was ‘God bless me soul, the man’s an idiot.’
A tangible legacy is his seminal book ‘The Royal Liverpool Golf Club - A History 1869-1932', published in 1933. It is testimony to both his diligence and his devotion.

Royal Liverpool Member; Bruce Thompson was an unheralded surprise winner, when he landed the 1933 Belgian Amateur Championship. He had entered the event at Knocke hoping to last a few rounds, but in the end won through all six. And that after qualifying over 36 holes of strokeplay. His two-hole Final victory over a ‘Mr Stables’ was described by The Birkenhead News as a ‘ding dong fight’. His golf career missed six years as he took part in another fight - this time against Rommel’s forces in North Africa.

Within the club he enjoyed a reputation as a fine player, possessed with a silky, elegant swing that epitomised ‘tempo’. He was also regarded as having a serene temperament even when his putting touch deserted him in later years.

Brian Harman has enjoyed a glittering amateur career, winning the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2003, the Players Amateur in 2005 and the Porter Cup in 2007. He has represented the United States at the Walker Cup on two occasions, 2005 and 2009 and played in the 2007 Palmer Cup.
 

He tamed the elements at Royal Liverpool to win The 151st Open Championship in 2023 by six strokes. Carded a second-round 65 that beat the field average by more than eight strokes as he went on to take a five-shot lead into the final round. He became just the third left-hander to win The Open.

Charles Walker Timmis was a junior at Leasowe, and came to prominence in 1926 when he reached the final of the Boys' Championship. He remained the only Cheshire player to reach the final until Mark Pilling  in 2002.Timmis subsequently joined Hoylake, and became an outstanding player at club, county and national levels.

His first County Championship win came in 1934 at Leasowe, where he defeated W Bridges. He became the first post-war winner in 1946 at Royal Liverpool, where he prevailed over Bill Sutton and won again at Royal Liverpool in 1948, beating AE Billington.
 

Timmis won 14 England caps and was Cheshire President in 1952. He died of Addison's disease aged just 45 in 1954, when Captain-Elect at Royal Liverpool. His epitaph: ‘Noble in play. Nobler in character.’

The artist who painted the bewitching ‘17th Green at Hoylake’, a work that would be expected to fetch over £200,000 at auction, was born in Cambridge and discovered golf late in life. He had no formal art training but gained a reputation, particularly for golfing scenes. He painted in oil and watercolour and often signed as ‘Major S’ or ‘Shortspoon’. His whimsical images are evocative of the period and originals virtually unobtainable.

‘17th Green at Hoylake’ achieved significance beyond Royal Liverpool. Experts say Hopkins’ appeal is his ability to capture golfers playing, rather than posed portraits. Golfers, and even their friends and family, could recognise themselves not only facially but also from their typical stances and swings.

The remarkable life and golfing career of Lieutenant Frederick Guthrie Tait features Hoylake as the scene of one of his finest achievements.

Tait, the son of a golf-obsessed Edinburgh professor, became a Scottish national hero at the end of the 19th Century, his rivalry with Ball, Hilton, Vardon and Taylor the stuff of folklore.

His greatest golfing triumphs were his two Amateur Championship victories, the second at Hoylake in 1898, a 7&5 final win over S Mure Ferguson.   Typically his winning speech centred on ‘flukey wins’ in earlier rounds: “I really don’t deserve the Championship”, he said. Over his short golf career, Tait recorded at least 28 tournament victories. He tied for third place in the Open Championship in both 1896 and 1897. 

Tragically, in the Second Boer War he was killed leading his platoon in the Battle of Koodoosburg Drift. The news caused an outpouring of grief in Scotland.

Gladys Temple Dobell (nee Ravenscroft) was a lifelong Wirralian who won the British Women's Amateur at Turnberry in 1912 and the US Women's Amateur at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1913, when those were, by far, the biggest tournaments available to women. 

Born in Rock Ferry she first played at Formby before joining Bromborough where she learned from Fred Robson, runner-up in the 1927 Open.In her later years Ravenscroft played at Hoylake and in 1958, became the first Lady Captain.

Cecil Leitch, in her 1922 book Golf said Temple Dobell ‘has an exceptionally full,swing and acquires great length. She appears to favour a mashie and uses it for distances which most of her sex require a jigger or iron to cover.’
She was 71 when she died in 1960.

A genius of a golfer, Harold Horsfall Hilton helped cement Royal Liverpool’s position as one of the best-regarded golf clubs in the world.

Hilton was born in West Kirby in 1869, the year of the club’s formation. In a stellar career he won two Open Championships at Muirfield (1892) and Hoylake (1897). He won the Amateur four times and in 1911 landed the US Amateur at Apawamis.

He is described as loving the big occasion and ‘the dust of the arena.’ Outgoing where his great friend and rival Johnny Ball was shy.

A true man of golf, Hilton worked in club secretary roles; as a course architect and as editor of Golf Illustrated. He died in 1942 aged 73. His portrait hangs on the clubhouse staircase.

Harold Janion, Royal Liverpool secretary from 1900 until his death in 1922, was behind the first International match, numerous major events and the first match between GB&I and USA. He was the most respected golf administrator of his era and had no equal at running major championships and matches.

The formation of the Cheshire Union of Golf Clubs needed the full backing of Royal Liverpool, and it was undoubtedly Janion's support that led to the formation of the CUGC in 1920. He was the obvious choice as first President. Sadly, his tenure lasted only 18 months before he died.

Known to friends as ‘Jane’ he was a member of the R&A Championship committee and, during World War I, was director of a Hoylake munitions factory.

Henry Shapland Colt (1869-1951) was a golfer good enough to have reached the semi-final of the Amateur Championship, but it was as a course architect that he left his indelible mark on the game.

HIs extensive redesign of the Royal Liverpool links in 1924 ranks among his most famous achievements - modernisations that were pushed through despite resistance from some members. The sheer scale and quality of the Colt portfolio is remarkable. He participated in the design or redesign of over 300 golf courses (115 on his own) across six continents.

Among his gems are  Wentworth, Sunningdale (New), Muirfield and Royal Portrush, while across the Atlantic, he collaborated with George Crump to create Pine Valley Golf Club, regarded as among the very finest courses in the States.

Hutchinson was a titan of Victorian golf. He played in the first three Amateur Championship finals, winning in 1886 and in 1887, beating Johnny Ball on his home track of Hoylake.

Though he became a Royal Liverpool member and captained the club in 1894, he learned his golf at Westward Ho! in North Devon, where a future legend, JH Taylor, was his youthful caddie.

Renowned on both sides of the Atlantic, Hutchinson became captain of the R&A and was renowned as a golf teacher and for his writing on the game. In his book Badminton Library on Golf, his chapter on etiquette advises: “No golfer is worthy of the name who does not put back his divot.”

Wealthy and respected though he was, Hutchinson committed suicide in 1932.

John Henry Taylor is regarded as a pioneer of modern golf and among the finest players to have picked up a set of clubs. Around the turn of the century he formed the ‘Great Triumvirate’ with Harry Vardon and James Braid.
Aside from his playing genius, he was a renowned course architect, the author of two well-respected golf books and a driving force in the foundation of the PGA.

Five times the winner of the Open, his first triumph (at Sandwich in 1894) made him the first English Professional to win it.  His last win, at Hoylake in 1913, was perhaps his finest, as he defied atrocious weather conditions to hold off defending champion Ted Ray by eight shots. A Devonian, Taylor lived to the age of 91.

If Golf’s accepted ‘Great Triumvirate was Vardon, Braid and Taylor, then Hoylake had its own in Ball, Hilton and Jack Graham Jnr.

A Scot, Jack’s father moved to Hoylake for business reasons and watched his three children excel on the links. Jack, the eldest, was regarded as the finest golfer never to win the Amateur Championship, reaching five semi finals. He was leading amateur in the Open four times and won 26 Royal Liverpool Gold Medals.

A view was that Graham lacked the killer instinct to reach an even more rarefied level, preferring to golf alone with his pipe and labrador, than to play in Championships.

Described by Darwin as ‘a player of unquestioned genius’ he died at Ypres in 1915,  leading his company of the Liverpool Scottish.

Jack Morris was Hoylake’s first professional as the club began in1869. Just 20, he  offered to try the role for a week. He stayed for 60 years .

The son of George Morris, and nephew of Old Tom, Jack was born in St Andrews in 1847 and moved as a ten-year-old to Carnoustie, when his father was appointed   professional. When his father and Robert Chambers laid out the first course at Hoylake Jack became pro, with his first ‘shop’ a horsebox.

Darwin recalled summer evening golf as Morris smoked a cigar and read a newspaper by the starter’s hut. The club chef would have winced at an 1896 suggestion book entry which said old golf balls should be given to Morris to sell, rather than ‘dished up as chicken curry’.

Jack Youds was assistant to Jack Morris at Royal Liverpool in the 1890s and made his reputation as a manufacturer of fine golf clubs. He spent time in America before becoming pro at Chislehurst in 1902. He returned to Hoylake In 1909 and retired as professional in 1936. His two sons, Jack jr and Eric were both professionals, Jack Jnr at Caldy and Eric at Brackenwood.

Youds, who died in 1939, is thought to be the first to patent lead face inserts in club design. A lead-faced putter, incorporated into an aluminium mallet head, was produced in 1908. HIs clubs can still fetch good prices online today.
The surname Youds has its origins in Wirral and may stem back to Viking times.

Corn merchant Muir Dowie was the first captain of the club . His father-in-law, Robert Chambers, was a man of means and a fine golfer and the pair set out to create a golf links in the West Kirby-Hoylake area. Having identified suitable land, Muir Dowie sent a letter to a select group of potential members offering them a place at a subscription of 10 shillings (50p). 

At a meeting on May 15,1869, Muir Dowie was elected captain and that October presented The Dowie Challenge Cup - the prize in a members' competition for best scratch score.

He died in 1882 leaving a visible legacy:  the members 7th hole (Championship 9th), a world-famous par three that bears his name.

Top-level Women’s professional golf came to Hoylake as it hosted the 2012 Ricoh Women's Open.  Jiyai Shin was the runaway winner, finishing nine strokes ahead of Inbee Park and the only player to finish under par. Weather was a factor, as the second round on Friday was halted before 8:30am due to high winds. The scores were thrown out and the round was restarted on Saturday, with the final two rounds on Sunday.

When she was 16, Korean Shin lost her mother in a car accident. Her brother and sister were seriously injured. With funding from her mother's life insurance, she drove herself to excel  at golf and in 2010 became World Number One. Three years later she decided to play mainly in Japan to spend more time with family.

Joe Lloyd, born in Hoylake in 1864, began his career there as a caddy before becoming assistant to Jack Morris.

Harold Hilton in My Golfing Reminiscences recalls “The General”, as he was known, asking to carry for him when he entered the Hoylake senior club championship as a ten-year-old! 'It is more than probable that he played the game, and I simply struck the ball', writes Hilton but, in any event, he won the tournament. His dog Demon, was a Hoylake treasure, capable of finding any golf ball.
 

In 1880, a group of English amateurs spending the winter in Pau hired him to be the first golf professional in France where he also made and repaired clubs. He later went on to win the U.S Open in 1897.

Johnny Ball, Hoylake born and bred, was the finest amateur golfer England has ever produced, He bestrode the game like a colossus, winning eight Biritish Amatuer Championships and one Open Championship between 1888 and 1912.
Renowned for both grace and power, he was worshipped in the manner of a Palmer or a Nicklaus but was a shy man who shunned the limelight.  Born in 1861, he was the son of John Ball. the owner of the Royal Hotel which stood close to what is now the members’ 17th green. The links was his playground.

As his fame and triumphs mounted, the shy superstar took golf to a new level. Darwin wrote: ‘I have derived greater pleasure from watching Mr Ball than any other spectacle in any game.’

Behrend ranks among the club’s most distinguished members. An excellent player, he came close to winning a Blue at University and became a stalwart of the Oxford  and Cambridge Golf Society. He performed well in the President’s Putter at Rye for many years and three times won the Worplesdon Foursomes with Jessie Valentine in the 1960s.
A true man of golf, Behrend was President of Cheshire, captain of RLGC in 1976 and captain of the R&A in 1984. He served on several R&A committees and was a prolific writer of golf books including the history of the R&A for its 250th anniversary and the highly-regarded John Ball of Hoylake.

His generous bequest enabled the creation of the John Behrend Library upstairs in  the clubhouse.

The Member’s 16th Hole (Championship 18th) bears the name of this pillar of Hoylake’s past. Dun was in attendance at the club’s formation meeting on May 15, 1869 aand elected to council. That October, his 103 won him best scratch score and the first Dowie Challenge Cup. He provided a ‘haunch of venison’ for the feast that followed at The Royal Hotel.

Dun, a prominent banker, captained the Club in 1873 and was instrumental in the creation of the club’s ‘Summer Meeting.’ He went onto become the first captain at Chislehurst Golf Club in South-East London, where he insisted he wear his Hoylake captain’s red coat with dark green collar, a replica of which  has been worn by all subsequent Chislehurst captains.

Lt Col Kennard was the club’s second captain between 1871 and  1873 and was responsible for the club’s award of the ‘Royal’ prefix when his influence persuaded HRH The Duke of Connaught to become the club’s President,
Edmund Hegan Kennard was Conservative MP for Beverley from 1869-1869, but  the election, in which the novelist Anthony Trollope was a beaten candidate, was discredited as corrupt. Kennard went on to be MP for Lymington between 1874 and 1885.

He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and served in the 8th Hussars.  Also a leading figure in the history of Royal Blackheath Golf Club, Kennard’s  portrait can be seen on the upper landing of the Hoylake clubhouse. He died in Surrey in 1912, aged 77.

The remarkable sporting life of Lottie Dod finds a special corner for the Royal Liverpool club.

Lottie Dodd was the Wirral Wonder, a superstar of the late 1880s and early 1900s whose exploits do not deserve to fade into obscurity. She was the first-ever teenage tennis prodigy, five times Wimbledon champion, Olympic archery medallist, British golf champion and a hockey international.

From nearby Bebington, she learned her golf at Hoylake and by 1899 was playing regularly for England.She lifted  the British Ladies Championship at Troon in 1904 when  a single putt on the 18th defeated May Hazlet and Lottie became the only woman in history to win both the British tennis and golf Championships.
She remained the most modest of champions and died in 1960, aged 88.

Peter Thomson’s astounding record of five Open Championship wins is bettered only by Harry Vardon and matched only by JH Taylor, James Braid and Tom Watson. He is regarded as one of the finest-ever exponents of links golf.

The Australian's Open victories came at Birkdale twice, in 1954 and 1965, at St Andrews in 1955, Hoylake in 1956 and Lytham in 1958. 

In 2022 his son, Andrew Thompson, visited Hoylake and sprinkled some of his father’s ashes on the Royal Liverpool links which had been the scene of one of Peter’s greatest victories. In 1956 he held off Flory Van Donck of Belgium to win his third consecutive Open with De Vicenzo third and Player fourth. His two-over-par winning total earned him £1,000.

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was the seventh child of Queen Victoria., He will be widely remembered as Governor General of Canada and for a distinguished 40-year military career,  but he was seminal in the history of Royal Liverpool.

Representation on the club’s behalf  by Lt Col EH Kennard led to Prince Arthur agreeing to become Honorary President  in 1871, a role he performed until his death in 1942. His patronage led to Hoylake’s ‘Royal’ designation. This paused after his death for four years, until the role was assumed by King George IV.

It is understood Arthur visited the club in 1876, enjoying a lunch of shrimps and venison as well as an exhibition match between John Dun and Davie Strath  and Tom and Jack Morris.

The Argentine maestro secured a place forever in Hoylake hearts with his 1967 Open   victory at Royal Liverpool, that saw the great Nicklaus beaten into second, two shots behind the winning score of 278, 10 under par.

De Vincenzo won over 200 pro tournaments worldwide, but just one major, an incorrectly-signed card forcing him out of a play-off for the 1968 Masters, won by Bob Goalby.

As gentle and self-effacing as he was brilliant, De Vincenzo made a welcome return to Hoylake for the 1981 European Open and again in 2000 for a challenge match with Sam Snead, Tony Jacklin and Sandy Lyle. In his native land he is feted alongside Maradona and tennis star Guillermo Vilas as the finest sportsmen the country has produced. He died in 2107.

The genius from Northern Ireland stormed to victory in the 2014 Open at Royal Liverpool, cementing his position among the finest players golf has ever seen.

McIlroy from Holywood, County Down, then just 25, finished two shots ahead of Ricky Fowler and Sergio Garcia. While his masterful golf left a lasting impression, so too did his cheerful and unassuming nature.
He led outright after every round, making it the second time he had won a major wire-to-wire, having done so at the 2011 US Open at Congressional. At the Hoylake prize-giving he brought the house down by saying: “This one’s for you, mum.”

McIlroy, at the time of writing, is a four-time major winner and frequent World Number One.

Thomas Froes Ellison, always known as Froes, sprang to national prominence in 1925 by winning the inaugural English Amateur Championship at his home club, Royal Liverpool. To confirm his class, he repeated the feat in 1926 at Walton Heath.

He played for England against Scotland in 1922, and went on to make 6 further England appearances between 1925 and 1927.

He was conferred a life membership of RLGC before he'd even become a full member at the age of 17.

Affectionately known as ‘Tosper’, Potter was one of the great administrators who drove the club forwards. A former county cricketer, he turned to golf and devoted his life to it, becoming Hoylake’s secretary and the driving force behind the creation of the Amateur Championship, first played in 1855.

He lived at the Royal Hotel, golfing regularly with the proprietor, John Ball Snr, and was a notable bon viveur. He loved good food and fine wines, and regularly conducted members’ post-dinner singsongs with what is now the ‘captain’s wand of office’ and on show in the clubhouse display cabinets,

A man who ‘commanded affection from many and respect from all’, he served as secretary from 1882 to 1894 and died in 1909.

When he won at Hoylake in 2006, Woods was unquestionably the world’s greatest, a man who had taken the game to a previously unknown level..

Royal Liverpool was his third British Open title. In savage heat and difficult, fast-running links conditions, Woods hit 86 percent of fairways in an astonishing display of precision.
After the clinching putt, Woods sobbed uncontrollably, having won his first major since the death of his father two months earlier. 

At the time of writing, Woods has more major wins than anyone bar Nicklaus and ties with Snead for most official PGA tour wins. He was World Number One from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 consecutive weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 consecutive weeks).

When the Royal Liverpool Golf Club left the Royal Hotel and moved into its new clubhouse home on Meols Drive, it was felt that the position of secretary had become too vital and onerous for an honorary official.
So in 1895 the first paid secretary was appointed - William Ryder Richardson - a former rugby player from Lancashire who won one cap for England, against Ireland, as a halfback..

Richardson held the position for five years before he moved to Royal St George’s at Sandwich where he was appointed from ‘an outstanding list of candidates’. In his time at Hoylake, Richardson’s wife was a primary mover in the creation of the Royal Liverpool Ladies golf section.  He died in Dover, aged 58.

One of golf’s earliest and finest showmen, Hagen qualified for the 1924 Open at Formby then went on to win at Hoylake in a tense encounter with British hope Ernest Whitcombe. Needing a four on the last, Hagen left himself with a perilous five-footer which he nervelessly holed for victory.

It was the first American success at Hoylake and Hagen’s wife Edna, wearing high heels, raced across the green to embrace her husband who was then carried shoulder high to the clubhouse where it is claimed Edna was the first woman ever to enter.

It all fitted the Hagen image of rebellious, hard-drinking, poker-loving trendsetter. He dragged golf into the commercial age and once declared: ‘I don’t want to be a millionaire, I just want to live like one.’

If Golf’s accepted ‘Great Triumvirate was Vardon, Braid and Taylor, then Hoylake had its own in John Ball, Harold Hilton and Jack Graham Jnr around the turn of the 19th and 20th century. 

Ball, Hoylake born and bred, was the finest amateur golfer England has ever produced, He won eight British Amatuer Championships and one Open Championship between 1888 and 1912.

Hilton, in a stellar career, won two Open Championships at Muirfield (1892) and Hoylake (1897). He won the Amateur four times and in 1911 landed the US Amateur at Apawamis.

Graham (1877-1915)  is  regarded as the finest golfer never to win the Amateur Championship, reaching five semi finals. He was the leading amateur in the Open four times and won 26 Royal Liverpool Gold Medals.