Royal Birkdale on the Lancashire coast is the most-used English Open Championship venue of the modern era, hosting for the eleventh time in July 2026. The R&A has cycled back to Birkdale at a faster cadence than to any other Open rota venue since 1971, with the 2017 edition the most recent before 2026.
The course occupies a strip of duneland between the town of Southport and the Irish Sea, the dunes themselves among the tallest in the Open rota at over 100 feet at their highest point. George Lowe laid out the original course in 1889 on a routing that has since been almost entirely lost. The Hawtree & Taylor 1932 redesign — Frederick Hawtree the elder and five-time Open champion J.H. Taylor working together — is the version that has stood since.
The Hawtree-Taylor signature at Birkdale is the way the fairways thread through dune-valleys rather than over the dunes themselves. Where Royal St George’s or Royal Liverpool play across exposed dune ridges, Birkdale’s fairways are sheltered in the valleys with the dunes acting as visual frames on both sides. This gives Birkdale its famously flat fairway lies — almost unique on the Open rota — while keeping the difficulty in the dune-shaped approach angles and the wind that gets funnelled along the valleys.
Jordan Spieth won the 2017 Open at Birkdale with a wild final round that included the famous 13th-hole drive into the practice range, the subsequent 1-iron from a relief drop, and the bogey-eagle-birdie-birdie-par finish to defeat Matt Kuchar by three. The course record of 63 is shared by Mark O’Meara (1998, second round of his Open-winning week) and Henrik Stenson (2017, third round).
The par-3 12th — 184 yards across a small valley to a green flanked by dunes on three sides — is the most-photographed hole on the course and has averaged 3.21 strokes across the past six Opens at the venue. The closing stretch from the par-4 15th onward, traditionally exposed to the strongest of the prevailing south-westerly winds, has been the deciding factor in three of the last four Opens at the venue.
The R&A’s 2026 setup is 7,173 yards, par 70. The par-4 17th has been firmed up with a green-side bunker rebuild on the right; the par-4 18th tee has been pushed back 18 yards. Otherwise the routing is unchanged from 2017.