R&A: Thursday, June 9th
Next week’s Amateur Championship attracted a record 585 entries, beating the previous best by almost a third.
The event starts on Monday when 288 of the best amateurs in the world will tee it up at Royal Lytham & St Annes and St Annes Old Links. The previous highest number of applications came in 2017 when it was held at Royal St George’s and Princes.
Because of the deluge of hopefuls, this year, for the first time, a pre-qualifying competition has been introduced and tomorrow (June 10) at St Annes Old Links a maximum of 72 entrants will compete over 18 holes of stroke play to qualify for a minimum of 10 places. It provides a route into the event for those players who do not have the pre-requisite WAGR ranking.
The field, which will feature players from more than 40 countries, will then play 36 holes of stroke play on June 13-14th to determine the top 64 players and ties who make it through to the match play rounds.
The 36-hole final will be played on Saturday, June 18th with the champion earning a place in The 150th Open at St Andrews next month.
The field will feature three players from the top ten in the WAGR rankings, including number three Ludvig Aberg of Sweden, number eight David Puig of Spain and number nine Ratchanon Chantananuwat of Thailand.
They will all be hoping to emulate 2021 champion Laird Shepherd, who beat Monty Scowsill in last year’s final having been eight down after 17 holes.
The R&A will provide live broadcast coverage of the quarter-finals and semi-finals on Friday, June 17th and the 36-hole final the following day. This can be watched on The R&A’s website randa.org as well as its YouTube channel. This will also be available on the Sky Sports red button.