I had a blessed week playing Royal St George's in sublime conditions on Tuesday, Birkdale yesterday and Hoylake today. The latter two were dry, but with the weather a touch gloomy.
Birkdale was particularly interesting since I had not played it before - while the week overall provided good grounds for comparison between these famous courses.
Birkdale I know provokes contrasting opinions. I am in the camp of the traditionalists. While it was good to look at it with its dunes and framed greens - and in excellent condition, both greens and fairways - I felt it lacked soul and character, at least compared to the two other Royals. I am sure a brighter, sunnier day would have improved things, but i don't think it can overcome the deficit. Hoylake is by no means the most handsome of golf courses, but it still oozes character, and the holes through the dunes (8-13) leave a stronger memory than anything at Birkdale. At the latter I found myself starved of some links character. It was only when I came to the rumpled 10th fairway that I realised fully how intrinsic the tumbling fairways you get at courses like St George's. Rye and Deal are to links golf. And i could not stop myself noticing the mounding on the greens which somehow lacked links character - and I say this as someone who does not consider himself a GCA ayatollah!
I had not been back to Hoylake for three years and was very pleasantly surprised. The course lacks the majesty of St George's, and some of the beauty, but there is no doubting that it represents a very authentic and powerful links challenge - and it is this character (aided, no doubt, by the weight of history the club enjoys) that trumps what Birkdale has to offer. The club continues to tweak the course and has over the past year or so filled in a few bunkers and reshaped others (generally made smaller and more pot-like). Whether to further reshape the new greens (3,17 and 18 on the old layout - which is how members play the course) remains a live issue. In passing, Hoylake certainly has the most challenging bunkering of these three courses. I lost count of the number of bunkers that were 6-10 feet deep, and they have a beautiful consistency of appearance.
My main takeaway from the week's golf is to confirm in my mind that while aesthetics are a very important part of the golfing experience, ultimately it is soul and character that separates the truly great courses. Maybe this is something only the oldest courses - and maybe only links - can enjoy. And probably it extends beyond the vocabulary of something as analytic as "shot values". But I know that my favourite golf moments are when the course speaks to my "golf soul" as it surely did this week in Sandwich and today again.