Scotland’s contingent heading to next week’s Open Championship has been boosted to nine following the release of the names of a further eight players qualifying off the World Rankings.
The names of the eight players were released today by the R & A and are as follows:
Valero Texas Open winner Martin Laird boosts Scottish numbers to nine heading to Muirfield.
Jonas Blixt – Sweden
Martin Laird – Scotland
Fredrik Jacobson – Sweden
Marc Leishman – Australia
Graham DeLaet – Canada
Kyle Stanley – USA
Chris Wood – England
Ken Duke – USA
Laird now joins eight other Scots headed by the former Open Championship winning duo of Sandy Lyle and Paul Lawrie along with Scott Jamieson, Lloyd Saltman, Marc Warren, Richie Ramsay, Craiglaw amateur Grant Forrest and Anstruther’s George Murray.
It will be Scotland’s biggest Open Championship representation since nine players also competed in the 2009 Open at Turnberry.
However Stephen Gallacher arrived back home late last night disappointed to have missed out by just Euro 888 (£765) in finishing sixth and one place behind Warren.
Warren will contest his first-ever Open Championship by finishing fifth among the top-five qualifiers off the 2013 Race to Dubai who were not already exempt (See earlier story).
However Gallacher could easily boost Scotland’s representation to 10 as he has named as First Reserve.
The R & A has listed the first ten reserves and they are as follows:
1st reserve: Stephen Gallacher – Scotland
2nd reserve: Scott Stallings – USA
3rd reserve: Joost Luiten – Netherlands
4th reserve: Charles Howell III – USA
5th reserve: Brendon de Jonge – Zimbabwe
6th reserve: David Lingmerth – Sweden
7th reserve: Ryan Palmer – USA
8th reserve: Bae Sang-moon – Korea
9th reserve: Kevin Chappell – USA
10th reserve: Pablo Larrazabal – Spain
For more information visit TheOpen.com.
