Scott Strange has punched his ticket to The Open at St Andrews after finishing runner-up at the Gateway to The Open Mizuno Open on the Japan Tour.

The 37-year-old finished two shots behind
winner Taichi Teshima and earned one of four places on offer to this year’s
Open Championship.

Strange began the final round in a share of
the lead and was still in touch with playing partner and eventual winner
Teshima early in the back nine before a double bogey at the par-4 12^th
hole derailed his chances.

While no doubt disappointed to miss his
first career victory in Japan the consolation of a start at St Andrews will go
some way to soothe the pain.

Strange is off to a great start in his 2015
season with this week’s runner-up result his second top-five in five starts.

This is Strange’s second full year in Japan
and with several other Australasians also playing the Tour this year they seem
to be spurring each other along.

New Zealand’s Michael Hendry and South
Australia’s Adam Bland have both won this season while an Australasian has
finished in the top-five at every event so far.

Won Joon Lee added a T6 result this week to
a T3 last week while Brendan Jones was two shots further back and T9, his first
top-10 in a slow start to the year.

Michael Hendry opened the tournament with a
blistering 63 but couldn’t break 70 again with rounds of 73-77-70 seeing him
finish T14.

Peter Wilson (T38), Kurt Barnes (T46), Matthew
Guyatt (T50), Steve Conran (60) and Brad Kennedy (T62) were the other
Australasians to make the cut with Adam Bland, Matt Griffin and David Smail
missing the weekend.