John Deere Classic shaping up as a final qualifier in world ranking for British Open

The John Deere Classic could serve as a final qualifier for the British Open, even though the R&A no longer offers an exemption to the leading finishers at the PGA Tour stop.

This qualifier would be determined by the Official World Golf Ranking next week.

The 156-man field for Royal Portrush on July 17-20 is now at 122 players with the addition of two spots from the Italian Open, two amateurs (European Amateur and Open Amateur Series) and Sergio Garcia getting the lone spot from LIV Golf.

Final regional qualifying Tuesday in the United Kingdom provided 20 spots. Five more players from the top 20 in the Race to Dubai on the European tour will earn spots after this week’s BMW International Open in Germany. The following week, three more spots will be available in the Scottish Open.

That brings the field to 150 players. The other six would come from a reserve list, which is based on the Official World Golf Ranking published after this week.

Aldrich Potgieter won the Rocket Classic and moved to No. 49 in the world, making him the highest-ranked player not already in The Open. He is followed by Nico Echavarria, who tied for sixth in Detroit and moved to No. 51. Next on the list is Michael Kim at No. 55.

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Seven of the next eight players in the world ranking not already exempt for The Open — from Bud Cauley at No. 59 to Ryan Gerard at No. 71 — are playing the John Deere Classic. Davis Riley is not in the John Deere field.

If it plays out that way, in some respects it would make up for the fact that no one from the PGA Tour qualified from the category that exempts the leading five players from the top 20 in the FedEx Cup standings through the Rocket Classic.

The top 28 players in the current FedEx Cup standings already are exempt, eight of them because they already were in the top 50 at the May 25 cutoff. Seven of those 28 were eligible by reaching the Tour Championship last year, and nine others got in as past major champions or from a top-10 finish at The Open last year at Royal Troon.

It was only the second time in the last 10 years that everyone from the top 20 in the FedEx Cup already was exempt. Typically no more than two or three came out of that category.

Golf shots

Scottie Scheffler was raving about a 3-iron he hit into a par 5 at the Travelers Championship because it came off perfectly. That led him to recall two other pure shots in recent memory, a 9-iron on the par-3 third at The Players Championship and a 6-iron on the fifth hole at the 2022 Masters.

It’s not always about the score it yields, just the pureness of the shot.

That’s why whenever Collin Morikawa thinks about one of the best shots he ever hit, it wasn’t necessarily his driver on the par-4 16th at Harding Park that stopped 7 feet away for eagle when he won the 2020 PGA Championship. That was a stock drive with a great bounce.

Instead, he thought back to his final hole when he won the DP World Tour Championship in 2021 to become the first American to win the Race to Dubai.

“It was on 18, par 5, front left pin,” Morikawa said last week. “I’ve watched the shot many times on YouTube because I’m like, ‘How do I make it that easy?’ Front left pin, water on the left, had 4-iron I think out of the first cut and I hit it exactly where I wanted. I could miss it in the water, lose the tournament; hit it in the bunker, not make up-and-down. It was picture perfect.

“And it’s rare you get to do that, but that’s why we keep practicing,” he said. ”I’m telling you, it’s inches, margins, centimeters, degrees. We’re crazy, but we love it.”

LIV in 2026

The Saudi-funded LIV Golf League won’t play its first tournament on U.S. soil next year until a week before the PGA Championship. That’s according to a schedule obtained by Sports Business Journal that it said was not finalized but likely to be the final product.

According to SBJ, LIV Golf would start in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 5-7, go to Adelaide, Australia, the following week and then go three straight weeks starting March 6-8 in Hong Kong, Singapore and a new stop in South Africa.

Instead of playing at Trump Doral the week before the Masters, LIV instead will go to Mexico City a week after the Masters and then have its first U.S. event — listed as “D.C./Virginia” on May 8-10, the week before the PGA Championship at Aronimink outside Philadelphia.

Also new to the schedule is a LIV event in New Orleans a week after the U.S. Open.

The schedule would have a U.K. event after the British Open, and then conclude with three tournaments in Chicago, Indianapolis and Michigan. The D.C./Virginia event would be the only LIV event before a major. The other three majors would have LIV events immediately after.

There won’t be stops in Florida for the first time. Also gone from the schedule, according to the SBJ report, is the event in the Dallas area.

Monday qualifying at Birkdale

The R&A added a new wrinkle to the British Open by announcing the “Last-Chance Qualifier” to be held next year on the Monday at Royal Birkdale to start the championship week.

Golf’s oldest championship essentially will have a Monday qualifier starting in 2026, the only major that will keep a spot open for one player in what amounts to an 18-hole shootout.

The R&A said the qualifier will have “up to 12 players,” though it did not say how it will determine who gets to play, only that more details would follow.

The “Last-Chance Qualifier” on Monday and a “Heroes Classic” featuring an abbreviated round of past champions and other guests (most likely celebrities) are in response to a fan survey that indicated a desire for more live golf.

“We have asked them how we can make their experience of attending The Open even more enjoyable and they have been clear — they want more live golf, more opportunities to engage with the traditions of golf’s original championship and more activities onsite to watch, listen and play,” said Mark Darbon, the new CEO of the R&A.

Not for a lack of effort

Eric Cole leads the PGA Tour in number of tournaments played this season. He is playing the John Deere Classic, his 24th start of the year.

The only two tournaments he has missed for which he was eligible were the Mexico Open at Vidanta after he had played seven weeks in a row to start the year and the Rocket Classic last week. He was in the field at Detroit until withdrawing before it started.

The other week he was off was the Masters because he wasn’t eligible.

Cole is No. 64 in the FedEx Cup standings.

Divots

Alexandra Armas is stepping down after her second stint as CEO of the Ladies European Tour. Armas led the LET from 2005 until 2012, and then from 2020. She will stay on until October. Prize money has more than doubled during her most recent five years. ... Somi Lee and Jin Hee Im became the 50th and 51st players from South Korea with an official LPGA win at the Dow Championship. ... Aldrich Potgieter at the Rocket Classic and Rory McIlroy at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am are the only players this year to win on the PGA Tour while leading the field in driving distance. ... Potgieter was the fifth player in the last 12 months to earn his first PGA Tour victory in a sudden-death playoff.

Stat of the week

Austin Smotherman’s victory in the Memorial Health Championship marked the sixth time this year a Korn Ferry Tour winner rallied from a deficit of four shots or more in the final round.

Final word

“It’s tough out here, it’s a very fine line, but I know I’m plenty good enough to win.” — Rickie Fowler.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf