Twelve players will go out at Royal Birkdale on Monday morning with one place in The Open Championship field on the line. The Open Last Chance Qualifier is set for 18 holes, with the first tee time at 7:30 a.m. ET and only one player moving on when the day is done.
That kind of pressure is rare even for major championship golf. The last time The Open used a Monday qualifier was 1962, when Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were part of the field. This one is built the same way in principle but not in scale: players earned a place through four routes, including being among the two highest-ranked OWGR players not already in the Open Championship field, or coming through one of several narrow misses at Final Qualifying or in the Open Qualifying Series.
Sam Easterbrook is among those trying to turn a near miss into a place in the major. The 80th-ranked amateur in the world was named All-Big Ten this year and posted the second-lowest scoring average in program history at 70.72. He also finished T16 at the NCAA Championship as an individual, giving him a profile that has risen quickly enough to land him in this one-shot, one-round shootout.
The rest of the field carries its own close calls. Matt Moloney reached this stage after losing the final match of The Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool to Stuart Grehan. Andrew Wilson missed the qualifying number by one shot at Dundonald Links, even after winning his first pro event on the EuroPro Tour in 2019 and later finishing T32 in his first Open at Royal Portrush. Adri Arnaus arrived after missing by one shot at Final Qualifying, despite a résumé that includes a maiden DPWT title in 2022 at the Catalunya Championship and a six-hole playoff win there. John Gough, ranked 429th in the world and 11th on the season-long Road to Mallorca rankings, won at the Blot Play9 in France at the end of June and then fell one shot short of his first Open two days later. Charles Huntzinger is here after coming up one short at Final Qualifying, with a past that includes three of eight cuts made on the Korn Ferry Tour last year and a T4 at the Blot Play9.
That is what makes the day hard to escape: several players got this far by the narrowest of margins, yet the math is unforgiving. Twelve golfers will start, 18 holes will decide it, and only one can leave Royal Birkdale with a spot in The Open Championship. Fans can follow the action live, but for the players involved the equation is simple and brutal. One round, one winner, and for 11 others a finish just short of the field they wanted most.
