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2016 British Open Field: McIlroy, Spieth Headline Qualifiers at Troon



By Brendan Porath

The field for the 145th Open Championship is now set, with the last four players completing the 156-man group for Royal Troon. The final four punched their ticket via the Scottish Open on Sunday afternoon. Initially, there was a qualifying spot up for grabs at the Greenbrier Classic, but the PGA Tour cancelled that event due to the devastating floods in West Virginia. That spot shifted to last week's Barracuda Championship in Reno, the opposite-field event to the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

The last four players in the field are Tyrrell Hatton, Nicolas Colsaerts, Matteo Manassero and Richie Ramsay. As you'd expect from a Scottish Open, they're all European Tour regulars. Manassero was, at one time, an amateur and teenage phenom expected to do big things. He's had some success, to be sure -- this is not some flop. But after four early wins on the European Tour, he's wandered in the wilderness in recent years, tumbling from the world rankings and losing exemptions to the majors and biggest events. He was always a lock to have a spot in the top tournaments, but that's not been the case recently. So it was good to see him shoot up the leaderboard at Castle Stuart and finish high enough to earn a late invite to The Open Championship (the first four players, not already exempt, finishing inside the top 12 of the Scottish Open got the spots)

Colsaerts is another talented Euro we haven't heard much from in recent years. He plays almost exclusively overseas, but did crush American hopes in Chicago at the 2012 Ryder Cup. That's how most American golf fans came to know him and he's not been much of a factor on the worldwide golf scene since then. His last win came at the 2012 Volvo Match Play. But the Belgian can still crush it as far as anyone off the tee and shot an inward 30 on Sunday afternoon to get a spot in the field of his third Open.

There can, of course, be a withdrawal or two in the practice rounds this week. The Americans who were iffy have already taken their names out of the field before making the trip. Brooks Koepka was the last to do so, pulling out on Saturday afternoon with an ankle injury, the same one that forced him to walk off in the middle of the Bridgestone. The No. 16 player in the world joined Daniel Berger, Stewart Cink, Tiger Woods and Billy Hurley III as other Americans not making the trip for a few different reasons. South Africa's Jaco Van Zyl withdrew from both The Open and the PGA Championship to rest up and focus on the Olympics, which is quite a departure from all the other players from his country withdrawing for either apathy or Zika fears (Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace).

Here's the full 156-man field, broken up by the different exemptions set out by the R&A. Each player is listed just once under the first exemption they fall under on The Open's list -- e.g. Rory McIlroy is exempt in seven different ways, but listed here just once under the first exemption: past Open Champions.

Past Open Championship winners (60 and younger)

Mark Calcavecchia

Darren Clarke

Ben Curtis

John Daly

David Duval

Ernie Els

Todd Hamilton

Padraig Harrington

Zach Johnson

Paul Lawrie

Justin Leonard

Sandy Lyle

Rory McIlroy

Phil Mickelson

Mark O'Meara

Louis Oosthuizen

Top 10 (including ties) from 2015 Open Championship

Jason Day

Sergio Garcia

Marc Leishman

Jordan Niebrugge

Justin Rose

Adam Scott

Jordan Spieth

Danny Willett

First 50 in World Rankings

Byeong-Hun An

Kiradech Aphibarnrat

Rafael Cabrera-Bello

Paul Casey

Kevin Chappell

Luke Donald

Tony Finau

Matthew Fitzpatrick

Rickie Fowler

Marcus Fraser

Jim Furyk

Fabian Gomez

Branden Grace

Emiliano Grillo

Bill Haas

James Hahn

Scott Hend

Jim Herman

Charley Hoffman

J.B. Holmes

Billy Horschel

Thongchai Jaidee

Dustin Johnson

KT Kim

Kevin Kisner

Patton Kizzire

Soren Kjeldsen

Colt Knost

Russell Knox

Matt Kuchar

Danny Lee

David Lingmerth

Jamie Lovemark

Shane Lowry

Hideki Matsuyama

Graeme McDowell

Francesco Molinari

Ryan Moore

Kevin Na

Ryan Palmer

Patrick Reed

Charl Schwartzel

Brandt Snedeker

Brendan Steele

Henrik Stenson

Andy Sullivan

Daniel Summerhays

Justin Thomas

Jimmy Walker

Jeunghun Wang

Bubba Watson

Lee Westwood

Bernd Wiesberger

Gary Woodland

Top 30 in European Tour's "Race to Dubai" Playoff Standings

Kristoffer Broberg

Victor Dubuisson

Ross Fisher

Tommy Fleetwood

David Howell

Miguel Angel Jimenez

Martin Kaymer

Anirban Lahiri

James Morrison

Thorbjorn Olesen

Thomas Pieters

Marc Warren

Chris Wood

First 5 (and ties) Euro Tour members in Race to Dubai Standings at end of June 2016, not otherwise exempt

Andrew "Beef" Johnston

Rikard Karlberg

Soomin Lee

Joost Luiten

Qualifiers for PGA Tour's FedExCup finale -- 2015 TOUR Championship

Steven Bowditch

Harris English

Scott Piercy

Robert Streb

First 5 (and ties) PGA Tour members in FedExCup Standings at end of June 2016, not otherwise exempt

Smylie Kaufman

William McGirt

Winners of the other three majors from the past 5 years

Webb Simpson

Keegan Bradley

Jason Dufner

Playing Members of the 2015 Presidents Cup teams

Chris Kirk

2015 Australasia Tour Order of Merit winner

Nathan Holman

2015 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner

George Coetzee

2015 Japan Open Champion

Satoshi Kodaira

Japan Golf Tour money list rankings

Yusaku Miyazato

Yuta Ikeda

Yosuke Tsukada

2015 Senior Open Champion

Marco Dawson

2016 Amateur Champion

Scott Gregory

2015 U.S .Amateur Champion

Bryson DeChambeau (turned pro)

2015 International European Amateur Champion

Stefano Mazzoli

No. 1 in 2015 Amateur rankings (McCormack medal)

Jon Rahm (turned pro)

Open Qualifying Series winners

Nick Cullen (Australian Open)

Matt Jones (Australian Open)

Rod Pampling (Australian Open)

Jamie Donaldson (Thailand Golf Championship)

Phachara Khongwatmai (Thailand Golf Championship)

Clement Sordet (Thailand Golf Championship)

Zander Lombard (Joburg Open)

Haydn Porteous (Joburg Open)

Anthony Wall (Joburg Open)

Kodai Ichihara (Mizuno Open)

Shugo Imahira (Mizuno Open)

Sanghee Lee (Mizuno Open)

Hideto Tanihara (Mizuno Open)

Lasse Jensen (Nordea Masters)

Alex Noren (French Open)

Callum Shinkwin (French Open)

Richard Sterne (French Open)

Brandon Stone (French Open)

Nicolas Colsaerts (Scottish Open)

Tyrrell Hatton (Scottish Open)

Matteo Manassero (Scottish Open)

Richie Ramsay (Scottish Open)

Brian Gay (St. Jude Classic Memphis)

Russell Henley (St. Jude Classic Memphis)

Seung-Yul Noh (St. Jude Classic Memphis)

Steve Stricker (St. Jude Classic Memphis)

Jon Rahm (Quicken Loans National)

Vijay Singh (Quicken Loans National)

Harold Varner III (Quicken Loans National)

Greg Chalmers (Barracuda Championship)

Final Qualifying Series

Oskar Arvidsson

Scott Fernandez

Colin Montgomerie

Dave Coupland

Paul Howard

Jack Senior

Steven Alker

James Heath

Matthew Southgate

Paul Dunne

Ryan Evans

Robert Rock


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