Length 7,297 yd (6,672 m) Dates 16 Jul 2015 – 20 Jul 2015 Par 72 | Cut 144 (E) | |
Field 156 players, 80 after cut Prize fund £6,300,000€8,717,310$9,831,780 Winner's share £1,150,000€1,591,255$1,794,690 Organized by The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews Similar 2013 Open Championship (British O, 2012 Open Championship (British O, 2015 PGA Championship, 2005 Open Championship (British O, 2004 Open Championship (British O | ||
The 2015 Open Championship was the 144th Open Championship, held 16–20 July 2015 at Old Course at St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. It was the 29th Open Championship played at St Andrews. Zach Johnson won the Championship in a 4-hole playoff.
Contents
World number one Rory McIlroy withdrew prior to the tournament due to an off-course ankle injury, the first defending champion absent from the Open since 1954, when Ben Hogan opted not to participate. Jordan Spieth entered with a chance to win his third consecutive major and take over the top ranking. Spieth finished tied for fourth, one stroke out of the playoff.
The tournament was originally scheduled to be finished on Sunday, 19 July: however, bad weather – which included heavy rain and very strong winds – forced play to be suspended twice, both on Friday and Saturday, with the latter having play suspended for nearly most of the playing day. As a result, this was the first Open Championship to finish on a Monday since 1988.
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 (since 1950):
Field
Each player is classified according to the first category in which he qualified, but other categories are shown in parentheses.
Mark Calcavecchia (3), Stewart Cink (2,3), Darren Clarke (2,3), Ben Curtis, John Daly, David Duval, Ernie Els (2,3), Nick Faldo, Todd Hamilton, Pádraig Harrington (2), Paul Lawrie, Tom Lehman, Justin Leonard (3), Sandy Lyle, Phil Mickelson (2,3,5,15), Mark O'Meara, Louis Oosthuizen (2,3,5,6), Tiger Woods (2,3,12)
Victor Dubuisson (5,6,15), Rickie Fowler (5,12,13,15), Jim Furyk (5,13,15), Sergio García (5,6,13,15), Marc Leishman, Shane Lowry (5,6), Graeme McDowell (5,6,15), Edoardo Molinari, Charl Schwartzel (5,6,10), Adam Scott (5,10,13)
Keegan Bradley (11,15), Paul Casey, Jason Day (13), Jamie Donaldson (6,15), Matt Every, Branden Grace, Bill Haas (13), J. B. Holmes, Billy Horschel (13), Thongchai Jaidee (6), Miguel Ángel Jiménez (6), Dustin Johnson (13), Zach Johnson (13,15), Martin Kaymer (6,9,11,12,13,15), Brooks Koepka (6), Matt Kuchar (13,15), Anirban Lahiri (OQS Thailand), Joost Luiten (6), Hunter Mahan (13,15), Ben Martin, Hideki Matsuyama (13), Ryan Moore, Kevin Na (13), Ryan Palmer (13), Ian Poulter (6,15), Patrick Reed (13,15), Justin Rose (6,9,13,15), Webb Simpson (9,13,15), Brandt Snedeker, Jordan Spieth (9,10,13,15), Henrik Stenson (6,15), Brendon Todd (13), Jimmy Walker (13,15), Bubba Watson (10,13,15), Lee Westwood (6,15), Bernd Wiesberger, Danny Willett (6), Gary Woodland (13)
Thomas Bjørn (15), Jonas Blixt, George Coetzee, Ross Fisher, Tommy Fleetwood, Stephen Gallacher (15), Mikko Ilonen, Pablo Larrazábal, Alexander Lévy, Marcel Siem, Marc Warren, Romain Wattel
An Byeong-hun, Matteo Manassero
Russell Henley, Morgan Hoffmann, Geoff Ogilvy, John Senden, Cameron Tringale
Steven Bowditch, Charley Hoffman, Kevin Kisner, Robert Streb
Greg Chalmers (OQS Australia)
Adam Bland, Liang Wen-Chong
Romain Langasque (a)
Gunn Yang (a)
Ashley Chesters (a)
The Open Qualifying Series (OQS) consisted of 10 events from the six major tours. Places were available to the leading players (not otherwise exempt) 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.
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. (RQ) 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.
Gailes Links – Ryan Fox, Paul Kinnear (a, RQ), Mark Young (RQ)Hillside – Scott Arnold, Pelle Edberg, Jordan Niebrugge (a)Royal Cinque Ports – Alister Balcombe (a, RQ), Gary Boyd, Ben Taylor (a, RQ)Woburn – Robert Dinwiddie, Paul Dunne (a), Retief GoosenTo 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.
- Francesco Molinari (ranked 43, week 26)
- Matt Jones (67)
- Tim Clark (71) – withdrew
- David Lingmerth (72)
- Harris English (74)
- Daniel Berger (75)
- Russell Knox (ranked 77, week 27) – replaced Rory McIlroy
- Kevin Streelman (80) – replaced Chris Kirk
- Hiroshi Iwata (81) – replaced Alexander Norén
- Richie Ramsay (82) – replaced Tim Clark
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.
*The last group completed play at approximately 9:36 pm. BST (UTC+1)
Second round
Friday and Saturday, 17–18 July 2015
The first group teed-off at 6:32 am BST Friday but heavy rain caused localised flooding and meant that play was suspended at 6.46 am. Play was restarted at 10 am; later tee times being 3 hours 14 minutes later than planned. The tee time for the 52nd and last group was thus delayed from the original 4:13 pm to 7:27 pm. The delay meant that the second round was not completed on Friday and was scheduled to finish on Saturday morning, with 42 players still having to finish their rounds.
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 Tom Watson.
Play resumed at 7 am on Saturday with the third round due to start at 11 am. However, play was 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 10 and half hour delay.
The leading 80 players made the cut. This includes all players at even par or better.
*The last group completed play Saturday at approximately 9:19 pm.
Amateurs: Dunne (−6), Niebrugge (−4), Langasque (−3), Schniederjans (−2), Chesters (−1), Kinnear (+2), Yang (+6), Balcombe (+6), Taylor (+11)
Third round
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Amateur player 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.
*The last group completed play Sunday at approximately 7:04 pm.
Amateurs: Dunne (−12), Niebrugge (−9), Chesters (−6), Schniederjans (−4), Langasque (−4)
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. Then on the par-4 17th, also known as the "road hole," an errant approach shot by Spieth ended with him carding a bogey to fall back to −14. Day was unable to convert a difficult birdie putt and remained at −14 as well. Spieth then hit his approach shot on the 18th into the "valley of sin" in front of the green, and almost holed a chip for birdie, but ended with a par to end his Open Championship at −14. Day was left with a 15-foot birdie putt to get into the playoff, but could not convert and also ended at -14.
The final pairing was Louis Oosthuizen and amateur Paul Dunne. In his final round, Dunne was unable to gain any traction and quickly fell out of contention. Oosthuizen played a solid round of golf, and headed into the 18th needing a birdie to get into the playoff with Leishman and Johnson. His approach shot left him with a 10-foot putt which he sunk for birdie to get into the playoff. 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 1st and never looked back. The win was Johnson's second major championship victory after also winning the 2007 Masters Tournament.
Amateurs: Niebrugge (−11), Chesters (−9), Schniederjans (−9), Dunne (−6), Langasque (−2)
Playoff
Scorecard
Cumulative playoff scores, relative to par