Alex Maguire

First recipient of an Open place awarded to the player who performs best in the St Andrews Links Trophy, 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 Championship 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.