2015 Open Championship


The 2015 Open Championship was a men's major golf championship and the 144th Open Championship, held from 16–20 July at the Old Course at St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. It was the 29th Open Championship played at the course and Zach Johnson won in a four-hole playoff for his second major title.
World number one Rory McIlroy withdrew prior to the tournament due to an off-course ankle injury; he was the first defending champion absent from the Open in over sixty years, since Ben Hogan opted not to participate in 1954. Masters and U.S. Open champion Jordan Spieth attempted to win a third consecutive major and take over the top ranking. He finished one stroke out of the playoff, in a tie for fourth.
Inclement weather – which included heavy rain and very strong winds – forced play to be suspended twice, on Friday and Saturday, with the latter having play suspended for nearly most of the day. The third round was held on Sunday and the final round on Monday.
This was also the last Open Championship played under the then present TV deals with the BBC and ESPN each having their swan song. NBC and Sky Sports would take over coverage the following year at Royal Troon.
This was the final Open appearance for five-time champion Tom Watson and three-time champion Nick Faldo.

Venue

The 2015 event is the 29th Open Championship played at the Old Course at St Andrews. The most recent was in 2010 when Louis Oosthuizen won his only major title and became the first South African to win an Open Championship at St Andrews.
Previous lengths of the course for The Open Championship :
Each player is classified according to the first category in which he qualified, but other categories are shown in parentheses.
;1. The Open Champions aged 60 or under on 19 July 2015
Mark Calcavecchia, Stewart Cink, Darren Clarke, Ben Curtis, John Daly, David Duval, Ernie Els, Nick Faldo, Todd Hamilton, Pádraig Harrington, Paul Lawrie, Tom Lehman, Justin Leonard, Sandy Lyle, Phil Mickelson, Mark O'Meara, Louis Oosthuizen, Tiger Woods
;2. The Open Champions for 2005–2014
;3. The Open Champions finishing in the first 10 and tying for 10th place in The Open Championship 2009–2014
Tom Watson
;4. First 10 and anyone tying for 10th place in the 2014 Open Championship
Victor Dubuisson, Rickie Fowler, Jim Furyk, Sergio García, Marc Leishman, Shane Lowry, Graeme McDowell, Edoardo Molinari, Charl Schwartzel, Adam Scott
;5. The first 50 players on the Official World Golf Ranking for Week 21, 2015
Keegan Bradley, Paul Casey, Jason Day, Jamie Donaldson, Matt Every, Branden Grace, Bill Haas, J. B. Holmes, Billy Horschel, Thongchai Jaidee, Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Martin Kaymer, Brooks Koepka, Matt Kuchar, Anirban Lahiri, Joost Luiten, Hunter Mahan, Ben Martin, Hideki Matsuyama, Ryan Moore, Kevin Na, Ryan Palmer, Ian Poulter, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Webb Simpson, Brandt Snedeker, Jordan Spieth, Henrik Stenson, Brendon Todd, Jimmy Walker, Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood, Bernd Wiesberger, Danny Willett, Gary Woodland
;6. First 30 in the Race to Dubai for 2014
Thomas Bjørn, Jonas Blixt, George Coetzee, Ross Fisher, Tommy Fleetwood, Stephen Gallacher, Mikko Ilonen, Pablo Larrazábal, Alexander Lévy, Marcel Siem, Marc Warren, Romain Wattel
;7. The BMW PGA Championship winners for 2013–2015
An Byeong-hun, Matteo Manassero
;8. First 5 European Tour members and any European Tour members tying for 5th place, not otherwise exempt, in the top 20 of the Race to Dubai on completion of the 2015 BMW International Open
Kiradech Aphibarnrat
;9. The U.S. Open Champions for 2011–2015
;10. The Masters Tournament Champions for 2011–2015
;11. The PGA Champions for 2010–2014
Jason Dufner
;12. The Players Champions for 2013–2015
;13. The leading 30 qualifiers for the 2014 Tour Championship
Russell Henley, Morgan Hoffmann, Geoff Ogilvy, John Senden, Cameron Tringale
;14. First 5 PGA Tour members and any PGA Tour members tying for 5th place, not exempt in the top 20 of the PGA Tour FedEx Cup points list for 2015 on completion of the 2015 Travelers Championship
Steven Bowditch, Charley Hoffman, Kevin Kisner, Robert Streb
;15. Playing members of the 2014 Ryder Cup teams
;16. First and anyone tying for 1st place on the Order of Merit of the Asian Tour for 2014
David Lipsky
;17. First and anyone tying for 1st place on the Order of Merit of the PGA Tour of Australasia for 2014
Greg Chalmers
;18. First and anyone tying for 1st place on the Order of Merit of the Southern Africa PGA Sunshine Tour for 2014
Thomas Aiken
;19. The Japan Open Champion for 2014
Yuta Ikeda
;20. First 2 and anyone tying for 2nd place, not exempt, on the Official Money List of the Japan Golf Tour for 2014
Hiroyuki Fujita, Koumei Oda
;21. First 2 and anyone tying for 2nd place, in a cumulative money list taken from all official 2015 Japan Golf Tour events up to and including the 2015 Japan Golf Tour Championship
Adam Bland, Liang Wenchong
;22. The Senior Open Champion for 2014
Bernhard Langer
;23. The Amateur Champion for 2015
Romain Langasque
;24. The U.S. Amateur Champion for 2014
Gunn Yang
;25. The European Amateur Champion for 2014
Ashley Chesters
;26. The Mark H. McCormack Medal winner for 2014
Ollie Schniederjans
;Open Qualifying Series
The Open Qualifying Series consisted of 10 events from the six major tours. Places were available to the leading players who finished in the top n and ties. In the event of ties, positions went to players ranked highest according to that week's OWGR.
LocationTournamentDateSpotsTopQualifiers
AustraliaEmirates Australian Open30 Nov310Greg Chalmers, Rod Pampling, Brett Rumford
ThailandThailand Golf Championship14 Dec412Marcus Fraser, Scott Hend, Anirban Lahiri, Jonathan Moore
AfricaJoburg Open1 Mar310David Howell, Andy Sullivan, Anthony Wall
JapanMizuno Open31 May412Scott Strange, Tadahiro Takayama, Taichi Teshima, Shinji Tomimura
IrelandThe Irish Open31 May310Tyrrell Hatton, Søren Kjeldsen, Eddie Pepperell
USATravelers Championship28 Jun412Graham DeLaet, Luke Donald, Brian Harman, Carl Pettersson
FranceAlstom Open de France5 Jul310Rafael Cabrera-Bello, James Morrison, Jaco van Zyl
USAGreenbrier Classic5 Jul412James Hahn, David Hearn, Danny Lee, Greg Owen
ScotlandScottish Open12 Jul310Daniel Brooks, Raphaël Jacquelin, Rikard Karlberg
USAJohn Deere Classic12 Jul15Tom Gillis

;Final Qualifying
The Final Qualifying events were played on 30 June at four courses covering Scotland and the North-West, Central and South-coast regions of England. Three qualifying places were available at each location. indicates a player who had played in Regional Qualifying on 22 June: players with an Official World Golf Ranking were exempt from Regional Qualifying, as was Paul Dunne because he had played at Royal Liverpool in 2014.
;Alternates
To make up the full field of 156, additional places were allocated in ranking order from the Official World Golf Ranking at the time that these places were made available by the Championship Committee. Any places made available after the week 27 rankings issued on 5 July 2015 use these week 27 rankings. Six places were made available on 29 June based on the week 26 rankings.
  1. Francesco Molinari
  2. Matt Jones
  3. Tim Clark – withdrew
  4. David Lingmerth
  5. Harris English
  6. Daniel Berger
  7. Russell Knox – replaced Rory McIlroy
  8. Kevin Streelman – replaced Chris Kirk
  9. Hiroshi Iwata – replaced Alexander Norén
  10. Richie Ramsay – replaced Tim Clark

    Nationalities in the field

Past champions in the field

Made the cut

Missed the cut

Round summaries

First round

Thursday, 16 July 2015
Dustin Johnson posted a seven-under-par 65 on day one to lead by one shot from a group of six golfers. Jordan Spieth was two shots off the lead after carding a 67.
PlacePlayerCountryScoreTo par
1Dustin Johnson65−7
T2Jason Day66−6
T2Retief Goosen66−6
T2Zach Johnson66−6
T2Paul Lawrie66−6
T2Robert Streb66−6
T2Danny Willett66−6
T8Kevin Na67−5
T8Jordan Niebrugge 67−5
T8Louis Oosthuizen67−5
T8Charl Schwartzel67−5
T8Jordan Spieth67−5

Friday and Saturday, 17–18 July 2015
The first group teed-off at 6:32 am BST on Friday, but heavy rain caused localised flooding and play was suspended at 6:46 am. Restarted at 10 am; later tee times were delayed over three hours. The tee time for the 52nd and last group was delayed from the original 4:13 pm to 7:27 pm. The second round was not completed on Friday and 42 players returned early Saturday to finish their
Dustin Johnson was the overnight leader on 10-under-par after 13 holes, a stroke ahead of Danny Willett. The day marked the final Open appearance of five-time champion Tom Watson at age 65.
Play resumed on Saturday at 7 am, with the third round due to start at 11 am. However, play was soon suspended at 7:32 am because a strong wind was moving stationary balls on some of the greens. Because it was a non-dangerous situation, players were allowed to complete the hole they were playing. Dustin Johnson had bogeyed the 14th to move back to 9-under-par, tied for the lead with Willett.
After a delay of several hours, it was decided that only the remainder of the second round would be competed on Saturday, with the third round scheduled for Sunday and the fourth round for Monday. Play finally resumed at 6 pm, a 10½ hour delay, and was completed after 9 pm. The 36-hole cut was at even par 144 and eighty players advanced to the third round.
PlacePlayerCountryScoreTo par
1Dustin Johnson65-69=134−10
2Danny Willett66-69=135−9
3Paul Lawrie66-70=136−8
T4Jason Day66-71=137−7
T4Zach Johnson66-71=137−7
T4Louis Oosthuizen67-70=137−7
T4Adam Scott70-67=137−7
T4Robert Streb66-71=137−7
T4Marc Warren68-69=137−7
T10Luke Donald68-70=138−6
T10Paul Dunne 69-69=138−6
T10Retief Goosen66-72=138−6
T10Hideki Matsuyama72-66=138−6

Amateurs: Dunne , Niebrugge , Langasque , Schniederjans , Chesters , Kinnear, Yang, Balcombe, Taylor

Third round

Sunday, 19 July 2015
Amateur Paul Dunne was in a share of the lead after the third round along with Louis Oosthuizen and Jason Day. No amateur had led the Open after three rounds since 1927.
PlacePlayerCountryScoreTo par
T1Jason Day66-71-67=204−12
T1Paul Dunne 69-69-66=204−12
T1Louis Oosthuizen67-70-67=204−12
4Jordan Spieth67-72-66=205−11
5Pádraig Harrington72-69-65=206−10
T6Sergio García70-69-68=207−9
T6Retief Goosen66-72-69=207−9
T6Zach Johnson66-71-70=207−9
T6Marc Leishman70-73-64=207−9
T6Jordan Niebrugge 67-73-67=207−9
T6Justin Rose71-68-68=207−9
T6Adam Scott70-67-70=207−9
T6Robert Streb66-71-70=207−9
T6Danny Willett66-69-72=207−9

Amateurs: Dunne, Niebrugge, Chesters, Schniederjans, Langasque

Final round

Monday, 20 July 2015
Marc Leishman carded a 66 in the final round to have the lead in the clubhouse at −15 while the final pairings were beginning their back nine. Zach Johnson then birdied the 18th to also card a 66 and tie the clubhouse lead with Leishman. The second to last group of the round were Jason Day and Jordan Spieth. Day and Spieth both headed to the par-4 16th at −14, one shot back of Leishman and Johnson. Spieth hit a difficult putt to birdie to get to -15, while Day parred. On the famous par-4 17th "Road Hole," an errant approach shot by Spieth resulted in a bogey and he was back at −14. Day was unable to convert a difficult birdie putt and remained at −14 as well. At the 18th, Spieth's approach shot was short, in the "Valley of Sin" below the green; he almost holed the chip for birdie, but settled for par and 274. Day was left with a birdie putt to join the playoff, but could not convert and also ended a stroke back at 274.
The final pairing was Louis Oosthuizen and amateur Paul Dunne, who was at even par 36 out, but was four-over on the next four holes, fell out of contention, and tied for thirtieth place. Oosthuizen played a solid round and needed a birdie at 18 to get into the playoff with Leishman and Johnson. His approach shot left him with a birdie putt, which he sunk. The Open Championship's rules dictated there would be a four-hole aggregate score playoff between Johnson, Leishman, and Oosthuizen. Johnson took the early lead on the first and never looked back, winning by a stroke over Oosthuizen. The win was Johnson's second major championship victory; he won the Masters eight years earlier in 2007.
PlacePlayerCountryScoreTo parMoney
T1Zach Johnson66-71-70-66=273−15Playoff
T1Marc Leishman70-73-64-66=273−15Playoff
T1Louis Oosthuizen67-70-67-69=273−15Playoff
T4Jason Day66-71-67-70=274−14295,000
T4Jordan Spieth67-72-66-69=274−14295,000
T6Sergio García70-69-68-70=277−11183,250
T6Jordan Niebrugge 67-73-67-70=277−110
T6Justin Rose71-68-68-70=277−11183,250
T6Danny Willett66-69-72-70=277−11183,250
T10Brooks Koepka71-70-69-68=278−10125,250
T10Adam Scott70-67-70-71=278−10125,250

Source:
Amateurs: Niebrugge, Chesters, Schniederjans, Dunne, Langasque

Scorecard

Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par
BirdieBogeyDouble bogey

Source:

Playoff

This was the ninth four-hole playoff at the Open Championship, first used in 1989. The last playoff at St Andrews was twenty years earlier in 1995.
Johnson and Oosthuizen birdied the first while Leishman bogeyed; Johnson birdied the second and then the routing switched over to the Road Hole, which all three bogeyed. All three made par at 18 and Johnson won the Claret Jug by a stroke.
PlacePlayerCountryScoreTo parMoney
1Zach Johnson3-3-5-4=15−11,150,000
T2Louis Oosthuizen3-4-5-4=16E536,500
T2Marc Leishman5-4-5-4=18+2536,500

Cumulative playoff scores, relative to par
Source: