Keith Mitchell

A tie for seventh at June’s RBC Canadian Open was good enough to hand Mitchell one of the two St Andrews places on offer through The Open Qualifying Series with winner Rory McIlroy, Tony Finau, Justin Thomas, Sam Burns, Justin Rose and Corey Conners already exempt.

Stood 161st on the world rankings in March 2019 when his closing 15-foot birdie putt gave him his first PGA Tour success at the Honda Classic by one from Brooks Koepka and Rickie Fowler.

A week later he was prominent again at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. With winner Francesco Molinari, runner-up Matthew Fitzpatrick and joint third-placed Tommy Fleetwood and Rafael Cabrera Bello already exempt for Royal Portrush his tie for sixth was good enough to take the second of three Open spots up for grabs there.

At the same event in 2020 he came joint fifth and again that qualified him as winner Tyrrell Hatton, Marc Leishman, Sungjae Im and Bryson DeChambeau were exempt.

At the age of 12 Mitchell was in the crowd at the 2004 Championship at Royal Troon when Todd Hamilton won. “Darren Clarke gave me his glove – I’ll never forget that.”