Wyndham Clark dishes on how he dealt with heckling US Open crowd
Wyndham Clark on how much heckling he heard from fans during the final round of the U.S. Open: “They definitely didn’t want me to win.
The 154th Open Championship is coming to Royal Birkdale for the 11th time, and the world’s best golfers attempt to stop defending champion Scottie Scheffler from repeating.
When the first round tees off on July 19, 156 golfers will try to make the weekend on their way to hopefully hoisting the Claret Jug at the end of the tournament. For this year’s tournament, there are 25 exemption categories in which a player can participate at the 2026 British Open.
Past British Open champions are exempt until they are 60 years of age, or 55 if that win came after 2024.
Spots will also be filled for those players who are exempt, but chose not to participate for various reasons. Those players include Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and John Daly.
There is one final spot for 12 players competing on July 13 in the Last-Chance Qualifier, an 18-hole stroke-play event.
Here is the 2026 British Open field, and how they received their exemption:
The Open Championship and how they qualified
Past Open champions (aged 60 or under on July 19, 2026)
- Brian Harman
- Cameron Smith
- Collin Morikawa
- Shane Lowry
- Francisco Molinari
- Jordan Spieth
- Henrik Stenson
- Rory McIlroy
- Darren Clarke
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Stewart Cink
- Padraig Harrington
- David Duval
Past Open champions (aged 55 or under July 19, 2026)
- Scottie Scheffler
- Xander Schauffele
Top 10 and ties from the 2025 Open
- Harris English
- Chris Gotterup
- Haotong Li
- Matt Fitzpatrick
- Wyndham Clark
- Robert MacIntyre
- Corey Conners
- Russell Henley
- Bryson DeChambeau
Top 50 from the Official World Golf Ranking for the week of May 24
- Cameron Young
- Justin Rose
- Tommy Fleetwood
- J.J. Spaun
- Jon Rahm
- Ludvig Åberg
- Aaron Rai
- Justin Thomas
- Ben Griffin
- Sepp Straka
- Si Woo Kim
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Alex Noren
- Patrick Reed
- Jacob Bridgeman
- Kristoffer Reitan
- Akshay Bhatia
- Tyrrell Hatton
- Nicolai Hojgaard
- Kurt Kitayama
- Min Woo Lee
- Viktor Hovland
- Patrick Cantlay
- Maverick McNealy
- Keegan Bradley
- Sam Burns
- Ryan Gerard
- Rickie Fowler
- Jake Knapp
- Alex Smalley
- Jason Day
- Daniel Berger
- Gary Woodland
- Michael Kim
- Matt McCarty
- Adam Scott
Top 25 players in final 2025 Race to Dubai Rankings
- Laurie Canter
- Adrien Saddier
- John Parry
- Keita Nakajima
- Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
- Jordan Smith
- Daniel Brown
- Daniel Hillier
- Martin Couvra
- Angel Ayora
- Joakin Lagergren
- Rasmus Hojgaard
BMW PGA Championship winners (2023-2025)
PGA Championship winners (2022-2026)
First five among top 20 in Race to Dubai rankings after BMW International Open
- Hennie Du Plessis
- Jayden Schaper
- Bernd Wiesberger
- Dan Bradbury
- Andy Sullivan
Top 30 players from final 2025 FedExCup points list
- Harry Hall
- Sungjae Im
- Andrew Novak
- Nick Taylor
First 5 PGA Tour members in FedEx Cup top 20 after Travelers Championship
Top LIV Golfer in individual standings after Andalucia (June 7)
First 5 players on 2026 Federation Ranking List as of OWGR Week 21 (May 24)
- Kazuki Higa
- Casey Jarvis
- Kota Kaneko
- Travis Smyth
- Scott Vincent
British Senior Open Champion 2025
US Amateur Champion 2025
Asia-Pacific Amateur Champion 2025
Latin America Amateur Champion 2026
Africa Amateur Champion 2026
British Amateur Champion 2026
European Amateur Champion 2026
Open Amateur Series winner 2026
Open Qualifying Series
- Alistair Docherty (Argentina)
- Jeongwoo Ham (Singapore)
- Lucas Herbert (New Zealand)
- Michael Hollick (Australia)
- Cameron John (Singapore)
- Naoyuki Kataoka (Japan)
- Frederic Lacroix (South Africa)
- Francesco Laporta (South Africa)
- Tom McKibbin (Hong Kong)
- Jiho Yang (South Korea)
- Shaun Norris (Mizuno Open)
- Ryutaro Nagano (Mizuno Open)
- Ren Yonezawa (Mizuno Open)
- J.T. Poston (Memorial)
- Bud Cauley (RBC Canadian Open)
- Jackson Suber (RBC Canadian Open)
- Jesper Svensson (RBC Canadian Open)
- Eugenio Chacarra (Italian Open)
Final Qualifying
- Matthew Baldwin
- Sam Bairstow
- Josele Ballester
- Tiger Christensen
- M.J. Daffue
- Alejandro De Castro Piera (a)
- David Howard (a)
- Matthew Jordan
- Kazuma Kobori
- Jack McDonald
- James Nicholas
- Marcus Plunkett
- Antoine Rozner
- Nevill Ruiter (a)
- Baard Bjoernevik Skogen
- Tom Sloman
- Matthew Southgate
- Caleb Surratt
- Austen Truslow
- Peter Uihlein
Exempt players who did not enter tournament or have since withdrawn
- Ben Curtis
- John Daly
- Ernie Els
- Todd Hamilton
- Zach Johnson
- Jackson Koivun
- Paul Lawrie
- Justin Leonard
- Phil Mickelson
- Elvis Smylie
- Tiger Woods
