I've Covered 47 Open Championships, Including Six At Royal Birkdale. I Know Where I'll Be Putting My Money

As a young man, I lived within half an hour's drive of Southport and went there frequently. I liked it a lot. The first golf tournament I ever attended was the 1968 Alcan Golfer of the Year Championship at Royal Birkdale, won by America's Gay Brewer. I had a good time watching him do it.

This year's 11th Birkdale Open will be different because the course itself has changed significantly. The old, brilliantly Art Deco clubhouse remains largely unaltered and, to me, still looks like a ship in profile from the final fairway. No-one else seems to see it like this.

Since Jordan Spieth won in 2017, the last few years have seen nine tees improved or tweaked, while the long 15th is now the 14th and even longer for the Open Championship at 600 yards, with a new, heavily sloping green. It looks superb, even if it would be a par ten for me and possibly you.

The new 15th is an equally forbidding character. Off the championship tee, this gnarly par 3 is 241 yards long and mostly out of reach for the great majority of ordinary folk, should we recklessly decide to play off the biggest boys' tee.

No matter how often Open competitors have played Birkdale, and who may be contemplating arrival feeling rather happy that they know where they are going and how to play the links, they are in for a shock.

It is not just length and new holes, but those tweaks to tees have changed almost everything. Subtly, quietly, these tees may encourage the most awkward of lines.

A GRAND THOROUGHFARE

There is, however, nothing awkward about the town's main street. Lord Street is a broad meandering road, wider and more impressive than in other much bigger cities. Commercially, it meanders grandly through the town's centre, even if, like so many other places, the actual commercial aspect is not quite what it was when I was a lad.

Certainly Lord Street's grandeur impressed Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte – nephew of the great (if you're French) Napoleon – when exiled to

England in the mid-1800s. Quite what Napoleon III was doing in Southport is unclear, but when he returned home to lead France, his first action was to order his city planner to remodel Paris and especially the Champs-Elysees after Lord Street's impressive style. Who would have thought?

If it's so good, why hasn't Royal Birkdale hosted more Open Championships? Well, it was supposed to stage the 1940 Open, but World War II rather interfered with that idea and so the club's hosting began in 1954, with Australia's No.1 golfer, Peter Thomson, winning and seizing the moment again 11 years later.

In between those years, in 1961 Arnold Palmer became Open champion. Indeed, even a cautious glance at the ten winners to date shows only the very best prevail on what is now Merseyside, with a list of winners that includes Lee Trevino in the 100th Open in 1971, Johnny Miller in 1976, Tom Watson in 1983, Ian Baker-Finch in 1991, Mark O'Meara in 1998, Padraig Harrington in 2008 and Jordan Spieth in 2017. Some accolade. Some course. Some history.

Founded in 1899, turned royal in 1951, Birkdale is a conundrum within a puzzle. It's beautiful to look at though dangerous to love the 18 holes, which weave through linksland that can be brutal, with dangerous rough, occasionally wild drops and hillocks. It demands total focus and self-belief but rewards excellence.

It's so good that years ago Kenny Dalglish – who lives within yards of Birkdale – and Alan Hansen tried to become members but were refused. As far as I'm aware no reason was given, but the assumption was that it was because they were footballers. Is that correct? If so, it was a nonsensical decision. Dalglish is particularly fond of golf and once told journalists that football was his job but golf was what he loved. Instead of Birkdale, the Liverpool FC pair were warmly welcomed into Hillside Golf Club, which sits beside the Open links and is a very fine place. That was Birkdale's loss. Curious stuff happens in life.

THE CHAMPION ELECT

Royal Birkdale, meanwhile, is not just an Open rota links. It has not only staged two Ryder Cups, but also hosted the first Women's Open to be played on any of the Open courses played by the men – a significant move for the club as well as the world's best female golfers in 1982. To its credit, the club has since hosted five more Women's British Opens.

So that's what Royal Birkdale is – put simply, a gem of the famed Lancastrian coastline. As to who will win this 154th Championship, there are at least 20 players with legitimate claims to success in July, but as has been the case for the last three years, one stands out.

You'll have noticed that Scottie Scheffler has been a phenomenon over this period. Winning for fun when in top form, he has statistics and success that graze even Tiger Woods' or Jack Nicklaus' data. He turns 30 just a few weeks before The Open and that means he is approaching his absolute prime years. Assuming he suffers neither critical injury nor illness, then it is difficult to see when he might begin to lose his calm approach to the biggest weeks.

Scheffler does not excite me as others do when he plays, but he definitely impresses. In particular, his iron play may be the best I have ever witnessed, or at least as good as Bernhard Langer in his prime. Just incredible. The American returns to The Open as defending champion and maybe the newest Grand Slam winner if he struts his best stuff at the US Open in June. Would you bet against him? I wouldn't.

Wee Rory? On his top cavalier form, why couldn't he win it? Following his second Masters triumph, he now appears to be in the right place with the right mindset to have a real go. He says the only events that truly matter to him are the Majors and Ryder Cups. The rest make him money, which he doesn't really need anymore. LIV's demise no doubt makes him even happier.

While Scheffler has a more low-key triumphant attitude, McIlroy has resilience in spades. It is to be admired and there is no reason why he should not conquer this Open, obviously.

Meanwhile, my modest wager will be on Cameron Young, who somehow manages to combine focus with style. Young is not Scheffler and he is not McIlroy, but actually he is an amalgam of both those golfers' better traits.

He certainly had the focus wrapped up when he won his second PGA Tour title this year at the Cadillac Championship in Miami by six shots, a rather irritated Scheffler squeezing into a rather distant 2nd place.

Now 28 years old, Young is embracing the pressure that comes with terrific early play, leading in Miami from wire to wire. He never won in his opening 93 starts on tour, but had seven runner-up finishes among that lot.

He has played in four Opens to date, finishing runner-up by a stroke to Cameron Smith in the 150th at St Andrews, his first. Since then, he has finished T8th, T31st and missed the cut last year. In other words, Young likes links golf. Forget last year.

SOUTHPORT AT ITS BEST

Which brings us to the weather. Will Southport be balmy under a sunny sky, or will there be rain and high winds? No-one knows the outcome of this thought, but while I don't want rain, I do want wind of around 15-20mph on at least one day. If so, then local hero Tommy Fleetwood may come to the fore.

Southport-born, he played Birkdale several times as a lad, he and his father sneaking on to the grounds. In 2017, he officially played there in that year's Championship and finished 27th. He has, of course, been runner-up to Shane Lowry at Portrush and has two other top-ten finishes in an event he admits is his favourite Major. We'll see.

There are others to consider and we all know who they are. What is reassuring is that Southport and its people will benefit from this week. The Open is also my favourite. In some ways, nothing is better than The Masters, but The Open is simply the purest of the Major quartet, the oldest and the most significant for those of us truly into the game.

Clearly, this week has always been a highlight for Southport and its people, but it is more than that this time; more than just a chance to relax and to grab the limelight from the overwhelming presence of the city of Liverpool just down the road.

I know Southport as a fun place to have a good time, whether playing golf or having a pint in a pleasant bar, but most of you won't know it like that. Instead, the bleak memory from 2024 of children being killed while dancing is what many people know the town for. It offers a shadow that will hang over the place forever.

This 154th Open Championship offers some respite, a chance to relax and enjoy the moment as the fans come in, the stars arrive and the restaurants and bars enjoy a break from the bleakness.

BOXING CLEVER

When I was at the 105th Open Championship at Birkdale in 1976, I too went to a crowded pub. As I made my way to the bar, I accidentally bumped into the back of a bloke who spilled his drink down his shirt. As I started to apologise, he turned and smiled and said, “Don't worry about it – there's plenty more beer in here.” He wouldn't let me buy him a new one.

The man involved was John Conteh, who was world light-heavyweight champion at the time. I've never bumped into him since, but he loves golf, plays off 8 and will surely be at Birkdale. I hope he and everyone else enjoys a wonderful Open. Conteh's reaction to my slip in that bar is my abiding memory of Southport and the many decent people far more ready to smile than to snarl.

My personal memories of a course that I have played half-a-dozen times remain vivid. I think my best score there was while playing off 10 and I got round in 80 blows. The others I will leave to your imagination. I now eagerly await seeing the new holes come to life and how the world's best golfers cope with them.

It has been a long time since that first brush with the place in 1968 and I doubt I will ever play this present revitalised version. On the other hand, one never knows what happens in life. What I do know is that if you ever have to bump into a boxing champion, then try to make it Mr Conteh. Either that or don't bother going into crowded pubs.