Emiliano Grillo needed to win to get in — nothing else would do it.
Even a playoff loss would put Grillo on the outside looking in for The Open qualifying, forcing him to find another route to Royal Liverpool. Instead, his win at last weekend’s Charles Schwab Challenge boosted him into the Official World Golf Ranking top 50, just in the nick of time.
Players can qualify to The Open via a few different routes, including The Open Qualifying series, but arguably the easiest is to play well enough to be in the OWGR top 50 eight weeks prior to the tournament.
That cut off was this past Sunday. Mere hours after Grillo secured his win in Fort Worth, Texas, he jumped from No. 80 to 42 to book his ticket to England.
Other players who also qualified via the OWGR exemption include:
21. Tom Kim
22. Jason Day
24. Keegan Bradley
28. Justin Rose
30. Russell Henley
37. Chris Kirk
38. Si Woo Kim
42. Emiliano Grillo
43. Seamus Power
46. Rickie Fowler
48. Taylor Moore
49. Abraham Ancer
50. Lucas Herbert
These are players who have otherwise not yet qualified.
The Mud Bath King, Tom Kim, will make his second start in the final major of the year after finishing T-47 at The Old Course at St. Andrews last year.
Rickie Fowler cracked the top 50 for the first time in two years after the Wells Fargo Championship in early May, but he had dropped to No. 51 by the time he teed off in Fort Worth. Fowler fired a Final Round 3-under 67 — tied for the best round of the day — to finish T-6 and three shots off Grillo, climbing to No. 46. Royal Liverpool will mark his first Open Championship appearance since 2021.
LIV Golf’s Abraham Ancer has been in an OWGR free fall since defecting to the rival league, but The Open’s cutoff came at just the right time; Ancer dropped from No. 46 to 49 this week, narrowly making the cut.
Players who have yet to qualify still have other opportunities, just not via OWGR. The field will be finalized the week before the tournament begins on July 19.
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