Steven Bowditch has qualified for The Open at St Andrews after holding his place in the top-20 of the FedEx Cup points list with a top-20 finish at the Travelers Championship.
Steven Bowditch has qualified for The Open at St Andrews after holding his place in the top-20 of the FedEx Cup points list with a top-20 finish at the Travelers Championship.
Bowditch, who
jumped into the top-20 on the FedEx Cup with his win at the Byron Nelson tournament last
month, earned one of five places set aside for players in the top-20 of the
rankings but not otherwise qualified.
The
Queenslander was in good form all week at TPC River Highlands firing rounds of
68-68-69-66 to finish T15 and move to 17th on the FedEx Cup list.
There will now
be at least 13 Australians in the field at St Andrews.
While it was a
good week for Bowditch, Cameron Smith will also be happy with his performance
coming off the high of last week’s US Open.
The
21-year-old entered the week under plenty of scrutiny and it would have been understandable
had the let down after the previous week had effected his form.
However Smith,
who has long been tipped as Australia’s most promising young player, stood up
to the test and after a disappointing opening round was impressive for the next
three days.
Rounds of
73-65-68-68 are testament to Smith’s determination and a T39 finish was well
earned.
Marc Leishman
shared the same score with Aaron Baddeley (T48) and Cameron Percy (T54) the
only other Australians to make the cut.
Matt Jones,
Greg Chalmers and Robert Allenby all missed the weekend.