FIFE, SCOTLAND – The Old Course at St Andrews Links is playing host for this week’s Open Championship, the 150th edition of the championship and the 2022 season’s final major. This is the 30th time that St Andrews has hosted The Open.
Most recently, Zach Johnson won a three-man playoff over Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen in 2015, the most recent playoff in The Open Championship. Other notable past champions at the Old Course include Sam Snead (1946), Peter Thomson (1955), Jack Nicklaus (1970, 1978), Seve Ballesteros (1984), Nick Faldo (1990) and Tiger Woods (2000, 2005).
Defending champion Collin Morikawa‘s most recent victory on Tour came at the 2021 Open. Morikawa, a five-time Tour winner, is winless in his last 19 starts, the longest drought of his PGA career (previous: 17). The last player to successfully defend a title in a major was Brooks Koepka at the 2019 PGA Championship, while the last player to do so at The Open was Padraig Harrington in 2008.
82-time PGA Tour winner and 15-time major champion Tiger Woods is making his first start on Tour since the 2022 PGA Championship and 22nd in The Open (first since 2019/MC). Woods has won The Open three times (2000, 2005, 2006), with the first two coming at St Andrews. Woods is making his third start of the season, having made the cut in the first two majors. He finished 47th at the Masters Tournament and WD after the third round of the PGA Championship (74-69-79).
World No. 1 and FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler has four wins this season, including his first career major championship title at the Masters. Ten players (17 instances) have won five or more times in a season including multiple majors. Most recently, Jordan Spieth did so in 2014-15 (5 wins, 2 majors). The last player to win five times in a season on Tour was Justin Thomas in 2016-17. Scheffler, who is making his 13th major start, finished T-8 in his Open Championship debut in 2021.
Jon Rahm is in search of his second career major championship title and second Tour win this season. Rahm, who became the first player from Spain to win the U.S. Open when he won in 2021, finished T-3 at the 2021 Open Championship. The only player from Spain to win The Open Championship was Seve Ballesteros (1979, 1984, 1988). Rahm enters the week having made the cut in each of his last 14 starts, the longest active streak on Tour. His last missed cut was at the season-opening Fortinet Championship).
Rory McIlroy, a four-time major champion, has not won a major since the start of 2015. McIlroy won the final two majors of 2014 (The Open Championship, PGA Championship) and has 16 Top-10s in majors since then, the most of any player in that span. McIlroy recently moved into a tie for 31st on the all-time PGA TOUR wins list with his 21st career title at the 2022 RBC Canadian Open.
Reigning FedEx Cup Champion Patrick Cantlay is the highest-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking (No. 4) without a major championship title.
The only player to win THE PLAYERS Championship and The Open Championship in the same year is Jack Nicklaus (1978).
2022 PLAYERS winner Cameron Smith can join him with a win.
Eleven players qualified for The Open Championship via the Open Qualifying Series at PGA Tour events this season: Chris Kirk and Talor Gooch at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard; Wyndham Clark and Keith Mitchell at the RBC Canadian Open; J.T. Poston, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Emiliano Grillo at the John Deere Classic; Kurt Kitayama, Brandon Wu and Jamie Donaldson at the Genesis Scottish Open; and Trey Mullinax at the Barbasol Championship. Mullinax earned the final spot in The Open with his win last week which was the first of his PGA Tour career. He also earned a spot in next season’s Sentry Tournament of Champions, the PLAYERS Championship and PGA Championship.
The Old Course at St Andrews Links is playing host for this week’s Open Championship, the 150th edition of the championship and the 2022 season’s final major. This is the 30th time that St Andrews has hosted The Open.