2015 Open Championship
The 2015 Open Championship was a men's major golf championship and the 144th Open Championship, held from 16 to 20 July at the Old Course at St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. It was the 29th Open Championship played at the course and Zach Johnson won in a four-hole playoff for his second major title.
World number one Rory McIlroy withdrew prior to the tournament due to an off-course ankle injury; he was the first defending champion absent from the Open in over sixty years, since Ben Hogan opted not to participate in 1954. Masters and U.S. Open champion Jordan Spieth attempted to win a third consecutive major and take over the top ranking. He finished one stroke out of the playoff, in a tie for fourth.
Inclement weather – which included heavy rain and very strong winds – forced play to be suspended twice, on Friday and Saturday, with the latter having play suspended for nearly most of the day. The third round was held on Sunday and the final round on Monday.
This was also the last Open Championship played under the then present TV deals with the BBC and ESPN each having their swan song. NBC and Sky Sports would take over coverage the following year at Royal Troon.
This was the final Open appearance for five-time champion Tom Watson and three-time champion Nick Faldo who played in his last major championship.
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 second South African to win an Open Championship at St Andrews.Previous lengths of the course for The Open Championship :
- 2010:
- 2005:
- 2000:
- 1995:
- 1990:
- 1984:
- 1978:
- 1970:
- 1964:
- 1960:
- 1955:
Field
Criteria and exemptions
Each player is classified according to the first category in which he qualified, but other categories are shown in parentheses.1. The Open Champions aged 60 or under on 19 July 2015
- Mark Calcavecchia
- Stewart Cink
- Darren Clarke
- Ben Curtis
- John Daly
- David Duval
- Ernie Els
- Nick Faldo
- Todd Hamilton
- Pádraig Harrington
- Paul Lawrie
- Tom Lehman
- Justin Leonard
- Sandy Lyle
- Phil Mickelson
- Mark O'Meara
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Tiger Woods
- Eligible but did not enter: Ian Baker-Finch, Greg Norman, Nick Price
- Rory McIlroy withdrew with an ankle injury.
3. The Open Champions finishing in the first 10 and tying for 10th place in The Open Championship 2009–2014
- Tom Watson
- Victor Dubuisson
- Rickie Fowler
- Jim Furyk
- Sergio García
- Marc Leishman
- Shane Lowry
- Graeme McDowell
- Edoardo Molinari
- Charl Schwartzel
- Adam Scott
- Keegan Bradley
- Paul Casey
- Jason Day
- Jamie Donaldson
- Matt Every
- Branden Grace
- Bill Haas
- J. B. Holmes
- Billy Horschel
- Thongchai Jaidee
- Miguel Ángel Jiménez
- Dustin Johnson
- Zach Johnson
- Martin Kaymer
- Brooks Koepka
- Matt Kuchar
- Anirban Lahiri
- Joost Luiten
- Hunter Mahan
- Ben Martin
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Ryan Moore
- Kevin Na
- Ryan Palmer
- Ian Poulter
- Patrick Reed
- Justin Rose
- Webb Simpson
- Brandt Snedeker
- Jordan Spieth
- Henrik Stenson
- Brendon Todd
- Jimmy Walker
- Bubba Watson
- Lee Westwood
- Bernd Wiesberger
- Danny Willett
- Gary Woodland
- Chris Kirk withdrew with a hand injury.
- Thomas Bjørn
- Jonas Blixt
- George Coetzee
- Ross Fisher
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Stephen Gallacher
- Mikko Ilonen
- Pablo Larrazábal
- Alexander Lévy
- Marcel Siem
- Marc Warren
- Romain Wattel
- An Byeong-hun
- Matteo Manassero
- Kiradech Aphibarnrat
- Alex Norén withdrew with an injury.
10. The Masters Tournament Champions for 2011–2015
11. The PGA Champions for 2010–2014
- Jason Dufner
13. The leading 30 qualifiers for the 2014 Tour Championship
- Russell Henley
- Morgan Hoffmann
- Geoff Ogilvy
- John Senden
- Cameron Tringale
- Steven Bowditch
- Charley Hoffman
- Kevin Kisner
- Robert Streb
16. First and anyone tying for 1st place on the Order of Merit of the Asian Tour for 2014
- David Lipsky
- Greg Chalmers
- Thomas Aiken
- Yuta Ikeda
- Hiroyuki Fujita
- Koumei Oda
- Adam Bland
- Liang Wenchong
- Bernhard Langer
- Romain Langasque
- Gunn Yang
- Ashley Chesters
- Ollie Schniederjans
Open Qualifying Series
| Location | Tournament | Date | Spots | Top | Qualifiers |
| Australia | Emirates Australian Open | 30 Nov | 3 | 10 | Greg Chalmers, Rod Pampling, Brett Rumford |
| Thailand | Thailand Golf Championship | 14 Dec | 4 | 12 | Marcus Fraser, Scott Hend, Anirban Lahiri, Jonathan Moore |
| Africa | Joburg Open | 1 Mar | 3 | 10 | David Howell, Andy Sullivan, Anthony Wall |
| Japan | Mizuno Open | 31 May | 4 | 12 | Scott Strange, Tadahiro Takayama, Taichi Teshima, Shinji Tomimura |
| Ireland | The Irish Open | 31 May | 3 | 10 | Tyrrell Hatton, Søren Kjeldsen, Eddie Pepperell |
| USA | Travelers Championship | 28 Jun | 4 | 12 | Graham DeLaet, Luke Donald, Brian Harman, Carl Pettersson |
| France | Alstom Open de France | 5 Jul | 3 | 10 | Rafa Cabrera-Bello, James Morrison, Jaco van Zyl |
| USA | Greenbrier Classic | 5 Jul | 4 | 12 | James Hahn, David Hearn, Danny Lee, Greg Owen |
| Scotland | Scottish Open | 12 Jul | 3 | 10 | Daniel Brooks, Raphaël Jacquelin, Rikard Karlberg |
| USA | John Deere Classic | 12 Jul | 1 | 5 | Tom Gillis |
Final Qualifying
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.| Location | Qualifiers |
| Gailes Links | Ryan Fox, Paul Kinnear, Mark Young |
| Hillside | Scott Arnold, Pelle Edberg, Jordan Niebrugge |
| Royal Cinque Ports | Alister Balcombe, Gary Boyd, Ben Taylor |
| Woburn | Robert Dinwiddie, Paul Dunne, Retief Goosen |
Alternates
To 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 5 July 2015 used the week 27 rankings.From the Week 26 Official World Golf Ranking:
- Francesco Molinari
- Matt Jones
- David Lingmerth
- Harris English
- Daniel Berger
- Tim Clark withdrew.
- Russell Knox
- Kevin Streelman
- Hiroshi Iwata
- Richie Ramsay
Round summaries
First round
Thursday, 16 July 2015Dustin 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.
| Place | Player | Score | To par | ||||
| 1 |  Second roundFriday and Saturday, 17–18 July 2015The first group teed-off at 6:32 am BST on Friday, but heavy rain caused localised flooding and play was suspended at 6:46 am. Restarted at 10 am; later tee times were delayed over three hours. The tee time for the 52nd and last group was delayed from the original 4:13 pm to 7:27 pm. The second round was not completed on Friday and 42 players returned early Saturday to finish their 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 five-time champion Tom Watson at age 65. Play resumed on Saturday at 7 am, with the third round due to start at 11 am. However, play was soon 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 10½ hour delay, and was completed after 9 pm. The 36-hole cut was at even par 144 and eighty players advanced to the third round.
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