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
