LYTHAM ST. ANNES, ENGLAND | There should be a lighthouse, rather than a clubhouse, at the end of the 18th fairway at Royal Lytham & St Annes.
Because when the wind blows, and it really doesn’t need to blow too heavily, attempting to negotiate the journey from the turn to the final green is as perilous as the entrance to any hazard-strewn harbour.
There are times, and the final day of the 2025 Lytham Trophy was one of them, when the aftermath of competition resembles a particularly fraught shipwreck, with the hopes of so many dashed upon the rocks.
To stretch the metaphor to breaking point, 17-year-old Hugo Le Goff from Paris was the lone survivor but his journey to dry land was a far from straightforward one.
Having started the week ranked No. 93 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, the Frenchman had a primary goal of performing well enough to guarantee a place in the top 100 by May 21, a position that will earn him a start in the U.S. Amateur Championship.
When he reached the turn of his second round in level-par he was sitting in the tournament top five with a new target in mind. Whereupon he played the back nine in a calamitous 7-over to very nearly miss the cut.
“It is my absolute favourite course – I have been coming here for 20 years and I love it more every year – but there is risk everywhere with every shot.”
Kenny Le Sager, Hugo Le Goff's Coa
Beginning the 36-hole final day 10 shots back of the leaders, the teenager was still eight behind with three holes of his third round to play. Birdies at 16 and 17 drew him closer before he sat down with coach Kenny Le Sager at lunchtime to re-establish the need to eke out every ranking point.
“It was not about winning at this point,” said Le Sager afterwards. “It was all about the goal. We also stressed that Lytham is such a dangerous course. It is my absolute favourite course – I have been coming here for 20 years and I love it more every year – but there is risk everywhere with every shot.”
Le Sager’s son, Louis, was on Le Goff’s bag for the final day. It was his first visit to the course and he was learning fast. At one point in the final round he turned to the eventual winner and gasped: “What is this course? It is insane.”
In striking contrast to earlier in the week, Le Goff carded five birdies in his last 10 holes of the final round. For the last two of them he chipped in from the back of the 17th green and holed a putt from off the 18th green.
Fittingly, he described the thrill of making them (“pretty amazing feeling really”) standing beneath a painting of the master of the short game at Royal Lytham & St Annes, Severiano Ballesteros.
With those ultimately decisive blows, Le Goff posted 66 and a 5-over 285 total, tying the lead with the pre-round pacesetters Matt Roberts (Wales) and Michele Ferrero (Italy), who were only just completing the seventh hole. Even at that very early stage, with more than two and a half hours of golf to play in an ever-colder wind, Le Goff looked the likeliest winner and so it proved.
England’s Tom Osborne closed strongly to finish alone in second, one shot behind Le Goff, while Roberts eventually shared third with Andrew Davidson (Scotland), Matthew McClean (Ireland) and Max Hopkins (England) on 8-over.
Beyond the actual competition there was extra curiosity for spectators last week in the first sighting of the renovations to the famous course around the turn.
The winner, sporting a moustache that belied his years, is excited about a summer competing in the U.S. Amateur, British Amateur and European Amateur Championships, as well as the Junior Ryder Cup (he currently leads the qualifying rankings).
Club secretary Richard Cutler explained: “The main changes centre around the par-5 11th hole which has been moved to the left to create space for a major championship standard practice area.”
The par-5 seventh had already been tweaked in recent times with the high mound to the right of the green removed and subtleties added on and around the putting surface.
The thick bush and gorse that once ran all the way down the left-hand side of that fairway has now been entirely removed, replaced by rolling humps and hollows. The par-5 11th now runs parallel to the seventh in the opposite direction but finishing on the original green.
It remains a little rough and ready, not least because the exceptionally dry spring weather has done the greenkeeping staff no favours, but it is already visually sensational and promises to become even more dramatic (yet solidly in line with the nature of the land and the links).
The par-4 eighth has also been refined from the tee, primarily to impact handicap golfers who tended to threaten the railway line and houses with stray tee shots. But the elite amateurs were finding that two new bunkers on the right were forcing conservative tee shots to leave longer approaches to the raised green.
Finally the par-4 10th has had a big mound removed and the fairway is tighter. On the basis of play last week it has become a more testing tee shot.
The vast majority of members are said to be in favour of the R&A-supported and partially funded alterations, while the players and spectators were also impressed.
Next year the club celebrates 100 years of royal patronage and also 100 years since it first hosted a major championship (the 1926 Open, in which Bobby Jones emerged victorious). The return of the AIG Women’s Open, won by home heroine Georgia Hall when last played on the course in 2018, will be a fitting examination of the new setup and also the perfect way to commemorate those two anniversaries.
RESULTS
Matt Cooper