Four of England's Open Championship links, set along the Kent coast and the Lancashire and Merseyside seaboard. Royal St George's rises from the dunes at Sandwich, the lone southern member of the group; the others run up the northwest shore — Royal Birkdale at Southport, Royal Lytham & St Annes tucked behind the town's rooftops, and Royal Liverpool on the Wirral at Hoylake. Shaped across more than a century by hands including W. Laidlaw Purves, George Lowe, J.H. Taylor, and H.S. Colt, these are firm, wind-raked championship links of blind carries and unforgiving rough. All four remain private members' clubs that open to visitors only on limited terms, and earning a round at each is a pursuit of patience and planning as much as of golf.