THE BRITISH OPEN will be held at Muirfield golf club in Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland, for the 16th time in 2013.
Muirfield, or The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers as the golf club at Muirfield was historically known, is one of the oldest golf clubs in the world, and the source of the earliest written rules of golf, which date back to 1744.
The club has only been based at its present location comparatively recently. The current course was opened in 1891 after being moved from its previous home at the links in nearby Musselburgh. Just a year later, in 1892, it hosted its first Open Championships, which was won by Harold Hilton, one of only three amateurs to have lifted the Claret Jug.
[box type=”info”]Muirfield at a glance:
Course length 7,192 yards, par 71.
First Open: 1892. Previous Open: 2002, won by Ernie Els[/box]
THE course is renowned amongst golfers as being perhaps the fairest test of all the Open venues, with few of the quirky bounces and hidden danger that links courses often contain.
Two circuits of nine holes rotate in opposite directions, the back nine looping inside the front nine, ensuring that the golfer is never faced with the same wind direction on two consecutive holes. As Jack Nicklaus once put it, “What you see is what you get.”
Whether the honesty of the layout has had anything to do with it or not, the fact remains that Muirfield has an astonishing record of identifying the greatest golfers of the age, with a roll of honour which reads like a Who’s Who of golf over the last century, with winners including Harry Vardon, James Braid, Ted Ray, Walter Hagen, Henry Cotton, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo and Ernie Els.
As it prepares to host The Open Championship for the 16th time, Muirfield has undergone some changes here and there to ensure it remains as challenging as ever to the world’s leading players. Some 158 yards have been added to the length of the course, mainly through new tees on the 2nd, 4th, 9th, 14th, 15th, 17th and 18th holes. Elsewhere some tightening of bunkers around the greens has been carried out to place a premium on accuracy of approach play.
[box type=”info”]Great moment:
Nick Faldo scoring 18 consecutive pars in terrible conditions on the final day to win The Open in 1987. Faldo has dusted off the clubs and will play again this year.[/box]