Tiger Christensen

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 July 4 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.