Safe Open place for Watson

Timonesss · November 2011

Tom Watson will be eligible to play in The Open beyond the championship at St Andrews next year due to revised Royal and Ancient rules.Under the old age rules, the 60-year-old five-time Open champion would have lost his exemption next summer.Earlier this year Watson, then 59, was just one putt away from lifting his sixth Claret Jug and becoming the oldest major winner in history by a distant 11 years.The American went just over the green, putted nine feet past and missed the return before losing a play-off to compatriot Stewart Clink.However, the R&A have taken into account not just Watson's performance but the display from 54-year-old Greg Norman, who led with nine holes to play at Birkdale last year before eventually finishing third.

A new entry category has been drawn up for the 2010 Open which exempts from qualifying any former champion finishing in the top 10 over the previous five Opens, therefore providing them with a five-year exemption."We have introduced this as a direct response to seeing two of our great Open champions, both in their fifties, challenging to win our championship these last two years," said R&A chief executive Peter Dawson."We rightly reduced the age of exemption for past champions from 65 to 60 in 2007 and our intention was never to remove players still at the top of their game from competing in The Open."