Royal Birkdale lies about a mile from the Irish Sea, and you never see it. That is the first lovely trick of the place. For twelve holes the links wanders out toward the water, turning and turning again so the wind comes at you from every quarter. The sea announces itself only through the air, through the push against your shoulder. The dunes keep the horizon to themselves. The club began smaller and humbler. The Birkdale, as it was first called, opened as nine holes at Shaw Hills in October 1889. Within a few years it had gone to the Birkdale Hills, and by 1897, whether on that ground or one step further along, it stood as a full eighteen designed by George Lowe on the site it holds today. What makes Birkdale feel like itself came later, between the wars, when F.G. Hawtree and the five-time Open champion J.H. Taylor remade the links. In 1932 a long lease from the local Southport Development Corporation came with a purpose written into it: this course would be built for championship golf. That intention has never really left the ground. The idea at the heart of the work was simple and generous. Rather than hurling golfers over the great dunes, the holes were threaded through the valleys between them. The fairways run along flat-bottomed hollows, so the lies stay consistent. The dunes rise on either side like the walls of an amphitheatre, framing each shot instead of hiding it. Raised tees show you where you are going. The bunkers sit where you can see them. Birkdale asks hard questions, but it asks them out loud. There are few blind shots and few quirks, and it rarely answers a good stroke with a cruel bounce. Professionals have long counted it among the fairest examinations in the game, and the start tests that faith at once. The opening dogleg bends right to left, the first of three holes widely held to be one of the most demanding beginnings in golf. Three generations of Hawtrees tended this ground with a kind of restraint. F.W. Hawtree's 12th from the 1960s took the place of the old 17th. From a raised tee you carry a natural hollow and avoid four deep pot bunkers, and the ball must find a narrow, raised green tucked among tussocky dunes. After the 1991 Open, Martin Hawtree rebuilt every green, re-contouring them and shaping swales at their edges. Before 2008 he remade the par five 17th, using the back half of the old green as the front of a new one ringed with fresh dunes. For 2017 he added tees, tightened the entrances to nine greens and set fairway bunkers on ten holes. Then the stewardship passed on, as all stewardship does. With Tom Mackenzie overseeing the work, Mackenzie & Ebert undertook the most significant renovation in decades. The 5th was redesigned and the 7th became a short par three. The old par five 15th turned into the new 14th, and the former 14th green became a short game area. A new par three 15th now plays with the clubhouse behind it. And what a clubhouse it is. George Tonge's 1935 Art Deco building looks like an ocean liner sailing through the sand, its curves and long horizontal lines seeming to carry it across the dunes. From its windows you look down on the 18th green. Here the routing breaks with links custom: the nines return, and both the 9th and the 18th finish near the house. The closing six run more or less side by side and hold the only two par fives in championship play, a homeward stretch made for drama. The drama has been plentiful. King George VI granted the Royal Charter in 1951, and the first Open came in 1954. Peter Thomson won it, and won again in 1965. After him came Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Ian Baker-Finch, Mark O'Meara, Padraig Harrington and Jordan Spieth. The 1969 Ryder Cup gave the world The Concession. In 2026 Birkdale will stage its eleventh Open, still sailing on through the dunes, still keeping the sea just out of sight.