The Open

The 151st Open | Amateur Contenders

The R&A

18 Jul 23

3 mins

There will be six amateur golfers looking to make a mark this week in The 151st Open at Royal Liverpool. Find out more about them here...

Christo LAMPRECHT - South Africa

In June, Lamprecht became the third South African winner of The Amateur in the last six years, following Jovan Rebula and Aldrich Potgieter – and like Potgeiter last year he had team-mate Christiaan Maas acting as his caddie. Lamprecht, who stands 6ft 8ins tall, beat Swiss player Ronan Kleu 3&2 in the 36-hole final at Hillside to collect a trophy which brought with it not only a place at Royal Liverpool, but also next year’s US Open and, by tradition, an invitation to April’s Masters at Augusta National. At sixth on the World Amateur Ranking, he was the highest-ranked player in the 288-strong field, but it was far from plain sailing. The Georgia Tech student made it through the two rounds of strokeplay qualifying with nothing to spare, was taken to the final green in his opening matchplay contest and in his semi-final against English teenager Frank Kennedy was two down with three to play, but won them all – including the long 17th with an eagle. He was then two down early on in the final, but completed a morning 66 to turn two up and was never caught as he became the 128th winner of the prestigious Championship. In 2017 Lamprecht was, aged just 16, the youngest-ever winner of the South African Amateur and both that year and 2019 represented the International team in the Junior Presidents Cup. He has also won all-American college honours and played in the Eisenhower Trophy and Arnold Palmer Cup.

Harrison CROWE - Australia

Winner in October of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Thailand, where he got up and down from over the final green to beat China’s Bo Jin by one stroke. Placed 43rd on the World Amateur Golf Ranking going into the Championship, Crowe was three shots behind with nine holes to play, but hit back with four birdies in five holes and then saw Jin double-bogey the short island green 17th. It followed a season in which he also won the New South Wales and Victorian amateur titles, the Australian Master of the Amateurs and then the New South Wales Open, making him only the sixth amateur to lift the Kel Nagle Cup and just the second – after Jim Ferrier in 1937-38 – to hold that and the NSW amateur crown at the same time. On his Asia-Pacific triumph, which came two weeks after his 21st birthday and also earned him an invitation to April’s Masters at Augusta National, he said, “It means so much and I certainly had to dig deep. At the turn I kind of told my dad and his mate that I just needed one to drop and from there I backed myself to keep it going.”

Christo Lamprecht | 151st Open Championship

Alex MAGUIRE - Ireland

First recipient of an Open place awarded to the player who performs best in the St Andrews Links Trophy, The Amateur Championship and European Amateur Championship. The 22-year-old was a superb five-stroke winner at the first of those events, following an opening 70 over the New Course with back-to-back 66s and then an eight-under-par 64 on the Old. That came a week after he was the first player for 30 years to make a successful defence of the East of Ireland Amateur, which he took with two birdies in the three-hole play-off against Carolan Rafferty and Sam Maguire – and that after sinking putts of 20 and 10 feet on the last two holes of regulation play. From St Andrews it was onto The Amateur at Hillside for the Florida Atlantic University student, a member of the Laytown and Bettystown club. A semi-finalist last year, he made it through to the quarter-finals this time before losing to English teenager Frank Kennedy and that proved good enough to earn him a place at Royal Liverpool.

Mateo Fernandez DE OLIVEIRA - Argentina

Makes his Open Championship debut as the record-breaking winner of January’s Latin America Amateur Championship – and it comes on the same Royal Liverpool course where compatriot Roberto de Vicenzo became Argentina’s first and so far only holder of the Claret Jug in 1967. Joint runner-up in the same event last year, one stroke behind Cayman Islander Aaron Jarvis, he went clear of the field at the Grand Reserve club in Puerto Rico with a nine-under-par third round 63 which equalled the tournament best and, by adding a 67, won by four with a 23-under-par aggregate which broke the record by no fewer than eight strokes. The victory came on the eve of his 23rd birthday and also earned him places in April’s Masters and the US Open. “I’m still very shocked – I think my life has changed,” he said on collecting the trophy. "Going back to where Roberto won is very special. I went there in 2016 and they took me to the room where they have portraits and everything about where he won. I felt very proud.”

Alex Maguire | 151st Open Championship

Jose Luis BALLESTER - Spain

The late great Seve Ballesteros is still sorely missed at The Open, of course, but this year Jose Luis Ballester Barrio tees up, who clinched his spot in the field at Hoylake with a two-stroke, wire-to-wire victory in the European Amateur Championship in Estonia at the start of this month. The 19-year-old, whose mother and father won Olympic gold in hockey and sailing respectively, opened the week with a 10-under-par 62 and went on to triumph with a 21-under-par total, thus becoming the first Spanish winner of the title since Sergio Garcia in 1995. Other former holders of the trophy include Rory McIlroy, whose victory came in 2006 at the age of 17. Like Garcia, Ballester Barrio comes from the province of Castellon. Last year he secured the winning point for Spain in the European Amateur Team Championship at Royal St George’s in Kent. Known as Josele rather than Jose Luis, he lifted the Spanish International Amateur title in 2020 and plays for the Arizona State University Sun Devils – as did compatriot Jon Rahm. In his freshman year of 2021-22 had five top-five finishes in nine stroke play events.

Tiger CHRISTENSEN - Germany

There is no Tiger Woods at Royal Liverpool this year, but there is 19-year-old German amateur Tiger Christensen, who with rounds of 68 and 67 at West Lancashire on 4 July tied for fourth with Matt Fitzpatrick’s younger brother Alex in a Final Qualifying event offering five Open spots from a line-up of 72 players, mostly professionals. Christensen was the only amateur to make it through at any of the four courses. It came only three days after he came close to grabbing a place through the European Amateur Championship in Estonia. Christensen, who has been on a golf scholarship first in Oklahoma and then Arizona, shared the halfway lead there before slipping to joint seventh place, four strokes behind Spanish winner Jose Luis Ballester. Two years ago he won the German International Amateur and was part of the Continental Europe side that beat Great Britain and Ireland in the Jacques Leglise boys event. Before that he was runner-up in the 2019 European Boys' Championship.

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