Who’s in The Open? Final Qualifying Headlines Recent Exemptions

With the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale less than two weeks away, available exemption categories are starting to dwindle. The John Deere Classic is in the rear-view, meaning the Scottish Open is the only event standing between us and the year’s final major championship.

The past two weeks have been busy, headlined by Final Qualifying on June 30, which added 20 names to the tee-sheet for The Open and rounded out most of the field for the Last-Chance Qualifier. The conclusion of the BMW International Open on Sunday gave us another five exempt names. Other tournaments and rankings brought even more.

RELATED: The Open: Full Field (So Far)

So let’s get into it. Who qualified for the Open Championship over the past two weeks?

BMW International Open

Golfclub München Eichenried - Moosinning, Germany

As dramatic as the tournament was, these first five exemptions are not actually a direct result of the BMW International Open alone. In fact, the championship’s winner isn’t even on the list.

At the conclusion of the tournament, the Open Championship extended invitations to the first five players that are not otherwise exempt and sit inside the top 20 of the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai Rankings.

Jayden Schaper (Race to Dubai No. 4), Andy Sullivan (No. 7), Bernd Wiesberger (No. 8), Dan Bradbury (No. 9) and Hennie Du Plessis (No. 10) will all find their way to the first tee at Royal Birkdale through this exemption.

Wiesberger and Du Plessis were the lone two of the qualifying five that found their way into the group through their finishes at last week’s BMW International Open, finishing in solo 3rd and 2nd, respectively.

Schaper tallied two wins early in the season–the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open, both in December–and has not been outside of the Race to Dubai Ranking’s top 5 since. Bradbury also grabbed a win at the Joburg Open this year.

Andy Sullivan, despite sitting in the second qualifying spot, is the only player of the five to have not managed a win yet this season. His ranking is fueled by a few well-timed good performances, including a 2nd-place finish behind only Patrick Reed at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic in January.

Final Qualifying

Final Qualifying for the 2026 Open Championship took place on June 30 across four sites in the UK–Burnham & Berrow, Dundonald Links, Royal Cinque Ports and West Lancashire–each with roughly 70 participants and just five qualifying spots to fight for.

Image: Getty Images

Burnham & Berrow: James Nicholas, Caleb Surratt, Tom Sloman, Alejandro de Castro Piera (a), Austen Truslow

Dundonald Links: Jack McDonald, Matthew Baldwin, David Howard (a), Nevill Ruiter (a), Marcus Plunkett

Royal Cinque Ports: Baard Bjoernevik Skogen, M.J. Daffue, Matthew Southgate, Peter Uihlein, Antoine Rozner

West Lancashire: Samuel Bairstow, Kazuma Kobori, José Luis Ballester Barrio, Tiger Christensen, Matthew Jordan

All is not lost for the golfers who narrowly missed out on the five qualifying spots. Those closest to achieving their goal in Final Qualifying will get one final opportunity at the aptly named Last-Chance Qualifier, a Monday-qualifier-style event taking place the week of The Open.

RELATED: The Open Championship has a Monday Qualifier: Here's How It Works

Travelers Championship

TPC River Highlands – Cromwell, Connecticut

The Travelers is still on my mind after watching the dramatic one-hole Monday playoff between eventual champion Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler, but again… the exemptions here aren’t directly from the results of the Travelers itself. In fact, this exemption category is essentially a copy of what I already mentioned around the BMW International Open and the DP World Tour, just copied over to the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup.

RELATED: JT Time? Three Players to Watch at the Travelers Championship

As you might have guessed with that lead-up, the top 5 players in the top 20 of the FedExCup standings who are not already into the Open Championship received a bid.

While all that may sound complicated, it boils down to Alex Fitzpatrick being the lone recipient of this exemption. All other players inside of the FedExCup top 20 were already in the Open Championship field. It will be Englishman’s second Open start, his first coming in 2023 and ending in an impressive T17 finish.

RELATED: Alex Fitzpatrick is Officially a PGA TOUR Member

Image: Getty Images

Italian Open

Circolo Golf Torino – Turin, Italy

Now let’s jump back over to the DP World Tour. And I promise, this one is a bit more straightforward. The Italian Open’s highest finisher not already in to the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale received an exemption.

Eugenio Chacarra continued his remarkable stretch of good play and logged his second straight win and sixth straight finish inside the top 25. The back-to-back victories rocketed him up the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), moving from 128th to 58th in just two weeks, and now has brought him entry into the Open Championship as well.

LIV Golf

LIV Golf Louisiana was supposed to fall on the weekend of June 28, but–for reasons I’m sure anyone reading this is well aware of–that event was no longer on the calendar. Regardless, this exemption was given to the player highest in the LIV Golf Individual Season Standings that was not already qualified for the Open Championship at that point.

RELATED: The End of LIV as We Know It: How We Got Here, and What Now?

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau held first and second place in those rankings, respectively, but are both already exempt through past results in major championships or OWGR standing. As a result, Joaquin Niemann (ranked third) received a bid and will compete in all four major championships for the second consecutive year.

Image: Getty Images

European Amateur Championship

Vanajanlinna Golf and Country Club – Hämeelinna, Finland

Ok, we took a break with a couple simple ones, so it’s only right that we finish with a couple of amateur entrants. There were two exemptions up for grabs as the European Amateur Championship’s 144-man field battled through four rounds and two separate cuts.

RELATED: No. 1 Amateur Jackson Koivun Will Turn Pro Following the U.S. Open

The first was quite simple: the winner of the tournament would get to tee it up at Royal Birkdale among the world’s best in mid-July. That honor went to Tim Wiedemeyer, a 21-year-old German and rising senior at Texas Tech. Tim, ranked 18th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) entering the tournament, rallied from an opening 2-over-par 73 to win by two strokes.

Image: Getty Images

The second exemption went to the winner of the 2026 Open Amateur Series, which combines the results (based on WAGR points) from three elite European amateur championships to crown the best-performing and most consistent player. The tournaments–the St. Andrews Links Trophy, The Amateur Championship and the European Amateur Championship–take place over just three weeks.

This year, Lev Grinberg, won the Series and was awarded the exemption to the Open Championship. The Frenchman won the St. Andrews Links Trophy and added a T6 finish this weekend to clinch the position. At just 18 years old, he will be among the youngest chasing a major championship at Royal Birkdale.

To Summarize…

Jayden Schaper, Andy Sullivan, Bernd Wiesberger, Dan Bradbury and Hennie Du Plessis qualified as the first five players inside the top 20 of the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai Rankings who were not already exempt.

James Nicholas, Caleb Surratt, Tom Sloman, Alejandro de Castro Piera (a) and Austen Truslow qualified through Final Qualifying at Burnham & Berrow.

Jack McDonald, Matthew Baldwin, David Howard (a), Nevill Ruiter (a) and Marcus Plunkett qualified through Final Qualifying at Dundonald Links.

Baard Bjoernevik Skogen, M.J. Daffue, Matthew Southgate, Peter Uihlein and Antoine Rozner qualified through Final Qualifying at Royal Cinque Ports.

Samuel Bairstow, Kazuma Kobori, José Luis Ballester Barrio, Tiger Christensen and Matthew Jordan qualified through Final Qualifying at West Lancashire.

Alex Fitzpatrick qualified as the only player within the top 20 of the FedExCup Standings not already exempt.

Eugenio Chacarra qualified via a win at the Italian Open.

Joaquin Niemann qualified as the highest ranked golfer in the LIV Golf Individual Season Standings not already exempt.

Tim Wiedemeyer qualified via a win at the European Amateur Championship.

Lev Grinberg qualified as the winner of the Open Amateur Series.

What's Next?

Sunday, July 12: The top three finishers at the Scottish Open who are not otherwise exempt receive an invitation to the Open Championship

Monday, July 13: The Last-Chance Qualifier