Few people earn their keep more at the British Open than David Lancaster. He’s the first tee announcer, taking over the job from legendary Ivor Robson in 2016. If things go to schedule, Lancaster will arrive at his post this week at Royal Birkdale shortly before 6:30 a.m. on Thursday and Friday and remain until just past 4 p.m., faithfully seeing off all 156 players competing in the championship.
Such is one of the lovable quirks of the oldest tournament in golf. With daylight in England lasting more than 18 hours come July, the R&A sends every one of the 52 threesomes off the first tee. (Yes, Augusta National does this too, but it’s a lot easier with only around 100 players competing in the Masters.)
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It brings with it a unique anticipation among players as to “when” they’ll be scheduled to tee off. Getting on the “right side” of the draw in the Open Championship is something many discuss, and in any given championship could be a major factor in the outcome. That said, we crunched the numbers over the last few decades and found it wasn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be, and that there is no noticeable trend in whether early-late times result in more champions than late-early (it’s a 13-12 split in the last 25 years).
Players will be competing in threesomes on Thursday and Friday at Birkdale. Official tee times have not been announced so we are simply listing all the players in the field here. Check back here closer to the start of the championship and we’ll have the tee times posted as soon as they go live.
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British Open Championship Field
Ludvig Aberg
Angel Ayora
Sam Bairstow
Matthew Baldwin
Josele Ballester
Daniel Berger
Akshay Bhatia
Dan Burnbury
Keegan Bradley
Michael Brennan
Jacob Bridgeman
Daniel Brown
Jack Buchanan (a)
Sam Burns
Laurie Canter
Patrick Cantlay
Bud Cauley
Eugenio Chacarra
Tiger Christensen
Stewart Cink
Wyndham Clark
Darren Clarke
Eric Cole
Corey Conners
Pierceson Coody
Martin Couvra
M.J. Daffue
Jason Day
Alejandro De Castro Piera (a)
Bryson DeChambeau
Thomas Detry
Alistair Docherty
Hennie Du Plessis
David Duval
Nicolas Echavarria
Harris English
Matt Fitzpatrick
Alex Fitzpatrick
Tommy Fleetwood
Rickie Fowler
Ryan Fox
Ryan Gerard
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Chris Gotterup
Stuart Grehan (a)
Max Greyserman
Ben Griffin
Lev Grinberg (a)
Harry Hall
Jeongwoo Ham
Brian Harman
Padraig Harrington
Tyrrell Hatton
Russell Henley
Lucas Herbert
Kazuki Higa
Daniel Hillier
Ryo Hisatsune
Nicolai Hojgaard
Rasmus Hojgaard
Michael Hollick
Max Homa
Billy Horschel
Viktor Hovland
David Howard (a)
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Mason Howell (a)
Sungjae Im
Casey Jarvis
Cameron John
Matthew Jordan
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Kota Kaneko
Naoyuki Kataoka
Si Woo Kim
Michael Kim
Tom Kim
Kurt Kitayama
Jake Knapp
Kazuma Kobori
Brooks Koepka
Frederic Lacroix
Joakin Lagergren
Fifa Laopakdee (a)
Francesco Laporta
Min Woo Lee
Haotong Li
Shane Lowry
Robert MacIntyre
Hideki Matsuyama
Matt McCarty
Jack McDonald
Rory McIlroy
Tom McKibbin
Maverick McNealy
Keith Mitchell
Francisco Molinari
Collin Morikawa
Ryutaro Nagano
Keita Nakajima
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
James Nicholas
Joaquin Niemann
Alex Noren
Shaun Norris
Andrew Novak
Louis Oosthuizen
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John Parry
Marco Penge
Marcus Plunkett
J.T. Poston
David Puig
Mateo Pulcini (a)
Jon Rahm
Aaron Rai
Patrick Reed
Kristoffer Reitan
Justin Rose
Antoine Rozner
Nevill Ruiter (a)
Adrien Saddier
Jayden Schaper
Xander Schauffele
Scottie Scheffler
Adam Scott
Baard Bjoernevik Skogen
Tom Sloman
Alex Smalley
Cameron Smith
Jordan Smith
Travis Smyth
Matthew Southgate
J.J. Spaun
Jordan Spieth
Henrik Stenson
Sam Stevens
Sepp Straka
Jackson Suber
Andy Sullivan
Caleb Surratt
Jesper Svensson
Nick Taylor
Sahith Theegala
Justin Thomas
Austen Truslow
Peter Uihlein
Sami Valimaki
Scott Vincent
Matt Wallace
Tim Wiedemeyer (a)
Bernd Wiesberger
Gary Woodland
Jiho Yang
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Ren Yonezawa
Cameron Young
• • •
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.
Read the full article here