Nine years ago, Jordan Spieth hit a shot from a driving range at The Open at Royal Birkdale. He made a bogey that people still talk about. And it's a moment that would remain untouchable.

That's because the course has changed, and so has everything around the 13th hole.

The 154th Open Championship will return to Royal Birkdale on July 17. Before the tournament, the course underwent a major renovation in 2024 that changed parts of every hole.

According to Golf Channel's Brentley Romine, the 13th hole looks very different from how it did in 2017, when Jordan Spieth's dramatic 29-minute sequence took place on the final day.

After hitting his tee shot nearly 100 yards to the right of the fairway, Spieth's ball hit a spectator.

It settled near the base of a massive dune. He took an unplayable. Then found relief next to equipment trucks on the practice range. It included one belonging to his sponsor, Titleist. He played his third shot without even getting yardage from his caddie from there to set up a famous bogey.

That area is now out of bounds, starting at the cart path running along the right of the dunes. A large white tent sits where the trucks were parked in 2017.

The mounding has changed too. A new row of dunes now separates the 13th hole from where the practice range used to be. The tee box has been repositioned. It has a new left tee shifting the angle into a fairway pinched tighter by new bunkering. Also, it was a more prominent left ditch.

Spieth's caddie, Michael Greller, later explained the thinking in the moment. "I don't think people can appreciate his being in the situation and for him to have the thought process to think, 'Is the range in play or out of play?'" Greller said. "I mean, you would just assume it's out of bounds. And he asked the question and found out it's in play, and so he knew that he could go back as far as he wanted by taking an unplayable."

This week, that question has only one answer. In any case, Spieth has already taken notice of the changes.

Spieth is thrilled to be back at Royal Birkdale

"The fifth is driveable every day now. They've changed the green in some of the bunkering around so it'll be an exciting hole. Then they've made the seventh, and then I haven't seen the changes after that one," Spieth told Golf Channel.

Despite the changes to the layout, and the lack of a single PGA Tour title since 2022, the pressure isn't fazing Spieth.

That's because the last time the PGA Tour visited Royal Birkdale for The Open, Spieth took the win. And coming back to the course, he's going to relive some of the memories.

"A lot of it has come back to me. A couple of the holes that I thought were different... It's a very different golf course today, but it's a phenomenal one. Very cool to be back in the area and when I come up the finishing holes, it'll bring back some great memories.

Written by

Sneha Abraham

Edited by

Siddharth Shirwadkar