Royal Lytham & St Annes

This links sits half a mile inland, ringed by red brick houses, the railway along its western edge. Eleven Opens have been decided here. The first, in 1926, went to Bobby Jones, an amateur, in the year the club was given its Royal title. After him: Bobby Locke in 1952, Peter Thomson in 1958, Bob Charles in 1963, Tony Jacklin in 1969, Gary Player in 1974, Seve Ballesteros in 1979 and again in 1988, Tom Lehman in 1996, David Duval in 2001 and Ernie Els in 2012. The championship is due back in 2028. The club goes back to 1886 and the present course to 1897; George Lowe laid it out and Harry Colt redesigned it in 1919. The Ryder Cup came in 1961 and 1977.

The round begins with a par three. There is no gentle four to settle into: the first swing of the day is an iron at a green. After that the course measures 7,118 yards to a par of 70, and its defence is sand rather than length — bunkers set where the drives land, more of them around every green, so playing away from one usually means playing towards another. Six Women's British Opens have been held here as well, the first in 1998 and the most recent in 2026, won by Shiho Kuwaki in a play-off. A plaque marks the spot at the seventeenth where Bobby Jones played out of a sand scrape onto the green in 1926.